As a graduating senior, I’ve done my best to poke my nose into as many nooks and crannies as I could. However, one establishment that I have always shunned has been the Maryland Food Collective in Stamp Student Union. I’d love to say this is because I was too busy or didn’t know it was there, but the truth of the matter is I simply don’t like hippies. I assumed from the “Vegan Hot Special” on the sign in front that as soon as I walked into that place I’d be bitch-slapped by a biodegradable hemp foam finger.
When I mentioned this concern to my dear friend and fellow columnist Shruti Rastogi, she assured me that I was being a small-minded litter-loving dick, and it was time for me to bite the bullet and put in some time at the Co-op. I decided it might be a good opportunity to do a little gonzo-journalism, if you will, and so last week I threw myself into the earth-friendly fire by doing some volunteering.
I’ve been working in kitchens for most of my life, but when the first thing you notice in a food establishment you’re getting ready to work in is a giant selection of assorted granolas, you sort of brace yourself. In my experience, eccentric people love to tell you their stories even if you don’t want to hear them, and this seemed like a place full of eccentrics. Don’t get me wrong — if you’re into doing peyote in the Arizona deserts with a Navajo shaman or creating your own form of holistic yoga, that’s cool with me. Just keep it to yourself, you know?
Anyway, I pressed on expecting to catch sneers at my Target-brand khaki shorts or my knock-off Adidas shoes, but just like the rest of the week, I was completely welcomed by these people.
Honestly, if you’ve ever worked in a kitchen, you know the experience entails getting your balls busted constantly and hating everyone you work with until the kitchen closes and you kiss and make up over a beer. At the co-op, though, people are friendly and honest and actually decent to each other. I probably botched most of the tasks they gave me, and yet I left everyday feeling good about myself. And the best part of the whole thing — besides the dozens of awesome songs those crazy art kids turned me on to — was watching how smooth things ran.
If you don’t know about the co-op, basically, it is a student-owned, student-run healthy food joint. The point of the whole thing is anyone who wants can come in and volunteer in exchange for food points at any time they want. Normally, this would result in a bunch of idiots serving shitty peanut-butter sandwiches just to get some free food, but the food at the co-op is pretty damn good. Yeah, their burritos aren’t exactly Chipotle, and you can probably find a better cup of coffee, but look at your options: You could be paying out the ass at one of Stamp’s other restaurants to be treated like a turd.
So for those of you who are worried, no, I haven’t gone vegan, and I won’t be leading any smoke circles or spirit chants Tuesday. But what I will be doing is heading to the co-op to support a really worthy cause.
Mike DiMarco is a senior English major. He can be reached at dimarco at umdbk dot com.
