Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

45° Evanston, IL
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Food For Thought

He’s sampled blood orange bruschetta, dashed to Popeye’s on a hasty fried chicken run and wolfed down pizza amidst The Keg’s much-writhed-upon poles, all in the name of Dance Marathon. Medill senior Zach Samson, DM food co-chair and executive committee member and Syllabus editor, chats with PLAY about DM’s second annual Iron Chef event, the virtues of Thai fish sauce and this year’s secret ingredient!

PLAY: What other events has the food committee put together?

Zach Samson: We’ve had a lot of different ideas. Last Wednesday we had our first annual World Food Festival. I loved it, what a great event; it was $5 to get in and sample food from a bunch of different countries. We had about eight campus organizations participating, and raised over $350.

PLAY: So what’s the deal with the Iron Chef event happening this Monday? And what’s the secret ingredient?

ZS: This year’s ingredient is cornflakes, and so far we have four teams registered, though we’d like to have eight teams enrolled so there can be more competition. We’re having some prominent professors judging. It’s being held in Parkes, and it’s free for audience members… so come!

PLAY: Tell me about how it went last year.

ZS: It was really delicious. There were four teams, and we raised $125… it was sort of small because it was the first year. They had 30 minutes to cook an appetizer, entree and dessert with up to $30 of ingredients, including the secret ingredient, which was oranges. They made orange-marinated chicken dish, shrimp, pineapple and orange skewers, a chilled soup served in a hollowed-out orange peel bowl. Team Chemistry were the winners, and they went all-out; they brought blood oranges and made a delicately put together parfait and amazing blood-orange bruschetta with crispy bagel bread and vinaigrette dripping off of it.

The whole event was exciting and very in the moment… they blew a couple outlets, so one group’s chicken couldn’t cook. It was so authentic “Iron Chef” style!

PLAY: What secret ingredient would you want if you were a contestant?

ZS: I’d pick Thai fish sauce. I studied abroad in Thailand, and it’s in all of the food there … it smells awful and nasty on its own, but it tastes good when its subtly cooked in foods. If I got fish sauce I’d use it better than the other people, who would probably overuse it, so that would help me win.

PLAY: How did you get involved with Dance Marathon? What’s it been like?

ZS: Well, my freshman year I danced in DM. I joined the food committee when I was a sophomore because my friend was one of the co-chairs, and I’ve been on it since then. It’s great to be on food (committee) because you get to be at DM for all 30 hours; you can dance with your friends and you get swarmed by the dancers because they want your trays of food! With 40 people working on food, we’re one of the biggest DM committees. And we have the best shirts, of course.

I became co-chair along with Ruby Sheikh this year, and a lot of what we do is solicit everyone for food donations. Cereality is sponsoring us this year, and we’ll also be serving Domino’s, a hearty Italian pasta dish, peanut butter sandwiches, another noodle dish and a lot of fruit. We try to pack in the carbs. You need all that energy to dance for 30 hours!

This year, our committee is doing a dance during our committee recognition time. I’m picturing it as something along the lines of “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast, but it’s probably going to be more like Barney and Friends. We’ll see.

PLAY: What are some of the wildest experiences you’ve had working on DM’s food committee?

ZS: Last year I had to run to Popeye’s at 11 at night to get chicken for T&A, the emcees. For some reason they wouldn’t let us in the front door, and they didn’t really believe that we were getting food for a philanthropy event, they thought were were trying to steal it. So they passed us the food through the sliding door; they didn’t even open the window! It was weird.

I was in a DM pizza-eating contest when I was a sophomore, and I was on the winning team. I vividly remember being in the final round against all these big guys … the pizza was dry and difficult to eat, I thought I’d throw it up all over the Keg’s “stage.” But we won … that’s what matters.

-Alex Ilyashov

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Food For Thought