Elon student starts own food blog

By Powell Mansfield

Elon senior Caroline Plyler has always loved cooking, but it wasn’t until last year that she decided to start her own food blog to highlight all the recipes she tries out.

“My best friend has just always told me, ‘You’re such a food-y! You need to do something with it!,’” Plyler said.

And she did. “Plyler Does Food” is the name of her blog…where she posts weekly recipes that she tries out with her friends and family.

“As a strategic communications major, I thought that my blog would be the perfect way for me to kind of practice using social media and promoting myself,” she said. “I just thought, you know what, this is something cool that I want to attack in the kitchen.”

Plyler showed Phoenix 14 how to make a cookie dough cheesecake, a recipe that she said any Elon student could make in their own kitchens.

“It’s really easy,” she said. “I found it on Pinterest and it only involves six ingredients, so really easy for college students to make.”

In under 15 minutes, the cheesecake was prepared and ready to go into the oven. And after 40 minutes of cooking, it was ready to be eaten.

But the cookie-dough cheesecake is only one of the many recipes you can find on Plyler’s food blog.

“I’m just a food-y because I love food!,” Plyler said. “I love everything about it.”

To find the recipe for this cheesecake as well as all of Plyler’s others, check out her blog a plylerdoesfood.wordpress.com.

New club promotes new cultural experiences

By Elizabeth Kantlehner

Studying abroad is a popular option for many Elon students, but not everyone can afford the expenses of a study abroad program. Elon now has a new club that helps students experience other cultures without leaving their kitchens.

Junior Julian Loubiere founded the Elon Cooking Club last year with some of his friends. They decided to stop buying the Elon meal plans, and use their passion for cooking to teach other students about new cultures.

“Before every meal we like to do a little research,” Loubiere said. “We like to be able to say that what we are doing is traditional, or not.”

Among the 300 new members is Lauren Snow, a freshman who has a passion for cooking. Her mother is a gourmet chef at home, and Snow loves to cook with her mother when she is back home.

“My mother cooks all of our meals at home, and I love to watch her, and sometimes cook with her,” Snow said.

However, Snow didn’t just join the cooking club for the food and the atmosphere, she also joined to experience other cultures that she may not be able to experience.

“I would love to study in Spain, but I don’t know if I will be able to. So this is like my experience in Spain or Mexico, studying and eating.”

After cooking for two hours, the members of the cooking club left with minds full of knowledge and stomachs full of Spanish food.

The cooking club is planning on meeting 8 times this semester, and is already planning French and Japanese themed nights.