CLASS OF 1989 | 2022 | FALL ISSUE
Y’ALL. Get the popcorn. Our Wes ’89 classmates shared some of their fave food/food hack and snack stories and they are here for you to graze thru. (See? I’m still totally corny and mercilessly single too. Gah! #sendhelp. I’m taking apps … as in appetizers! :))
Erik Attkisson leads with a passionate ode to cheese fries. He described them as a “no doubter” and the prime source of his frosh 15. He reminisced about how he “always found a willing partner to commiserate with” and “solved the world’s problems over” them. However, after “four years of indulgence he never wanted to eat any more. . . .”
Kelem Butts writes, “Living in Low Rise, I used to cook steak for dinner, this was grade-Z quality from Waldbaum’s mind you. But I was not an effective cook and I constantly cooked it on the top shelf of the oven, which would lead to smoke and a fire alarm at least once a week. But how cool was it to be able to eat what you want every night?” He provides a further food-related update: “In May of this year, housemates from Intown 21 all met in New York for dinner, as it’d been some time since we’d all been together, COVID you know. We dined at Congee Village Restaurant in Chinatown and my god was it fun. Greg Berman, Josh Drew, Kevin ‘Juice’ Majewski, Mark Saudek, spouses/significant others, and me. We dined in a private room designed for karaoke; I can neither confirm nor deny that we did a lovely rendition of Guns N’ Roses Paradise City. A joyous time was had by all.”
Carrie Holden Emmerson offers a veritable cornucopia of food memories. She recalls Dave Lahey, Adam Long, and John Hlinko making Taco Bell tacos their go-to dinner. Also, that Adam Weiss considered oatmeal an all-purpose meal. She also remembers Liz Gossels and Lisa Paolillo helping with carbo-loading on Friday nights before soccer games with fettuccine Alfredo. She had never had it before and has loved it ever since. Also, senior year, Kelly Morgan’s mom visited one weekend and made a REAL MEAL of beef stew. There was also an awesome potluck Thanksgiving dinner with other folks who stuck around senior year.
Likewise, Reggie Jenkins would make REAL FOOD like roasts (!) in his kitchen in High Rise. He still makes magnificent food to this day. Junior year, she remembers Rosemary Reilly testing the “doneness” of our spaghetti by throwing it up on the ceiling. Sophomore year, she recalls Ed Thorndike and his girlfriend cooking meals for us once a week at Delta Tau Delta. Maybe a precursor to WesWings? Other memories involve ramen, mac and cheese, pasta, and of course, CHEESE FRIES, as well as the sundaes at the pub. She mourns the days when she was exercising a lot more and could eat such things without worrying about adding extra pounds by even looking at it.
Also weighing in on CHEESE FRIES is Alisa Berman. They were “her food”—never had them before Wes and hasn’t eaten them since!
From Lynn Rosenbaum, the following food-related confession. “When studying in SciLi, I often visited the snack vending machine on the first floor. One evening, I discovered that when I pulled the handle, the snack came out—without putting in any money! I got a bunch of free snacks and might have tipped off a few other people.”
Michelle Cleaver relates a couple of quickie one-pot meals: couscous, hot dog, peanuts, and broccoli. Or baked potato, dill pickles, garlic, cheese. She also recalls that between herself and my fellow foodie, Anneliisa Aubrey-Walton, they had two hot plates and a toaster oven or two, which led to many wonderful meals in their Butterfield hall.
If alcohol counts as a food, then we can include Liz Marx’s memory of Sandeep Wahdwa blasting Born to Run on Friday afternoons while breaking open Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers.
David Bradley relates the “unexciting but true” observation that ramen figured large in his Wes dining. There was much controversy about preparation despite the mathematically small number of possible variations: Noodles into boiling water? Boiling water over noodles? Drain? Don’t drain? And critically, how much of that spice packet to add? As for the actual ramen variety/flavor, I’m not sure that mattered!” He also reports he’s in Kigali for the year on a Fulbright U. S. scholar grant, helping the University of Rwanda develop training programs in pediatric cardiology, taking time away from my work at the University of Michigan to commit some time to global health. Happy to connect with any Wes alums!
Jeff Brez offers a first-year memory from Butterfield C of snacking on “sleazy cheese” (Cheese Whiz) on crackers (or heck, just plain!) and enjoying “goldfish in a cloud” in MoCon, which was Pepperidge Farm Goldfish with cottage cheese. He also reports that he left the UN Secretariat in New York and “with my husband and two children moved to Rome” where he works for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
No food updates, but Garry Schumacher reports that his wife Nicole, and youngest son Stormy (now in high school) live pretty much across the street from the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville. They often see Ethan Garber ’90 who also lives there. And Bev Tomov (Wachtel) ’92. Anyone passing through is invited to say “hello.” His two older kids have just completed their degrees, one a bachelor’s and one a master’s, and so for the first time in years they have a hiatus in making tuition payments! Very exciting!
Lynn Lazarus and Andrew Shear relocated back to NYC last fall during COVID to be closer to family. Andrew just started a job as the director of post-conviction litigation at the Innocence Project. Lynn has been venturing into modern healthcare and working doing telehealth for two start-ups. She is enjoying taking a break from a physical clinic after spending a lot of time during COVID in full PPE. She specializes in seeing patients while on an island, so far working from Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and Deer Isle, Maine, in addition to Manhattan. Their kids are both in NYC. Sam is a senior at Bard College and Leah is a junior at the New School. They are very happy to be back close to family and friends after 15 years in Oakland. “We’ve seen lots of Wes folk, including Jonathan Fried, Stephanie Dolgoff, Dave Milch, Art Halpern, and Greg Benson.”
Dave Milch also adds: “On a happy note, it was great to catch up with Josh Feldman at the ‘every-five-years’ celebration that Jonathan Fried and his Brooklyn-friends-since-kindergarten host that I’ve been fortunate to be ‘grandfathered’ into. Josh was visiting the East Coast from his digs in the Bay Area where he continues to build beautiful things (literally and metaphorically). On the sadder side, I was able to attend the dedication of a tree on Foss Hill in memory of our dear classmate, Mike Mahon who passed in 2020. Thanks in large part to the organization and love of the Wesleyan swim team (of which Mike was a member), the beautiful tree was planted at the top of Foss Hill between West Co and the Observatory. There was a lovely group that gathered to pay tribute to Mike and share stories of his unique and spirited friendship. I hope everyone will be able to visit campus and take a moment to enjoy the beauty of the tree, and feel Mike’s warmth, friendship, and love of all things Wes when they do.”
Let’s plan on that for the 2024 Reunion. And also, Michele Barnwell may actually be open to going out for “apps” 🙂 IJS . . . If you’re in North America (or wherever planes fly) get app’ me. HAHA! (There’s no end to the corny, y’all. Save yourselves. 🙂