Mssmltzr

Around Christmas time, for the past four years, my boyfriend and I have made it a tradition to make a cheese fondue at home. While the fondue always results in something that is quite good, we can never seem to get the consistency right. In the end we usually end up with a pretty soupy concoction and a huge lump of melted cheese at the bottom of our fondue pot. We just can’t get seem to get the liquid ingredients and the cheese to unite and form a wonderful, smooth, creamy mixture. Are we not keeping the fondue on a sufficiently high temperature? Or is it just a matter of not stirring the mixture long enough over a steady heat? Please advise…it has been four years and while our relationship has improved…our fondue has not.

Chilie in a sourdough bread bowl. You might as well light up the fireplace while you're at it. Of course I recommend this from a dorm room that lacks all three of the elements. Eh, a girl can dream.

CHEESE! I have found a canadian bacon and brie baguette usually does the trick. During that time of the month, I feel like I could eat five of them.

In our suite we have an unconscious ritual that seems to occur at least once a week: sitting around and verbally fantasizing about the foods we wish we were eating. Each person will lifelessly talk about their current cravings while blankly staring at an empty bag of popcorn. These sessions usually focus on our cravings for meat (every college student in their right mind knows to avoid cafeteria meat around here). Then we disgruntley return our pathetic, unsatiated lives. By the way: Armark is the supplier of our school's cafeteria. I shake an angry fist at them everyday.

Pasta salad made with Ramen Noodles? Oh dear God...

A young foodie like myself can easily become depressed by the college culinary scene. However, a hungry stomach must be fed. What are your horror stories of college food gone terribly, terribly wrong? Personally, I have been known to eat dry Ramen Noodles when times are tough. I swear they seem more filling eaten that way.

Andrew: I know of several bakeries in Raleigh that have shut down in the past 6 months. When interviewed the owners blamed, among other things, the Atkin's craze. Tant pis!