Food is an essential part of any student life (that and beer) and any student knows that diet is extremely important in the rat race that is student life… In my first year, I ate nothing but pasta. My lovely Grandma often sent me packets of pasta in sauce and hot chocolate to keep me going through those tough, survival-of-the-fittest, first few weeks. I went to university completely capable of being able to cook for myself but through laziness, basically not wanting to show my culinary skills off in case of alienation, feeling that I needed to live up to the grotty student lifestyle stereotype, PLUS the fact that my Grandmother really wasn't getting the hint that I didn't want any more pasta sent to me through the post, I lived off pastas and noodles.
 | | Students just can't say no to noodles... |
In the second year I moved into a brand spanking new pad, a tiny terrace house with a shed for a kitchen. No room to fling a cat (and boy did we try!) yet I managed to use my cooking skills to the max. I suddenly became the perfect housewife, cleaning the house and coming up with the most delicious food imaginable. Desperate housewife I was not! I actually used the cookery book my brother passed down to me from his uni days, where it propped a door open. Not only that, but when I went home I cooked these recipes (learned by heart at this point) for my family, who had strict instructions to find it delicious on peril of death. Now, I'm back to square one. My time is valuable in this last year and Potato Moussaka is no longer on the menu. My grandmother's food packages have yet again started to arrive. Pasta and noodles are the new salmon en croute. This time it's not because I don't want to show off my cookery skills, I did that all last year and even delighted in rubbing my housemates noses in it. Oh no, this year I just don't have time to spend the whole day cleaning the house and cooking elaborate meals. I barely have time to sit down and have even forgotten who I live with because we very rarely see each other. However, sometime soon we're going out for a Christmas meal. So at least I'll be getting something which is properly cooked (sometimes I don't have time to wait for the pasta to boil) and even have the whole five fruit and veg a day thing going on. Then, at least, I'll have had a proper sit-down meal, and may even remember who my housemates are! | 
