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Original post by Zoedotdot
Depends on the PT house. All of the ones I've been in have had hobs - that's 3, 6 and 12 I think. But I know they've gone on a spree of taking the hobs away recently.


11 had a hob when I lived there last year. Apparently 10 doesn't have a hob this year.

The best is 2 Warkworth Street, where all my friends live. It's fourth year accommodation so befriend all of the engineers and mathmos very quickly! They have two kitchens, one with a REAL oven and four hobs and the other with a combi oven AND a microwave ANNNND a freezer. It's the best ever. And right next to my boyfriend's room so I've been eating ice cream all year :biggrin:


Wha? I'm on the same street and my house (also a 4th-year house) only has a microwave and a combi-oven. There was a (college-owned) hob but then it got confiscated because we weren't supposed to have one. Perhaps I should have mentioned this at my tutor meeting, but that's come and gone now...
Original post by Zhen Lin
11 had a hob when I lived there last year. Apparently 10 doesn't have a hob this year.

Wha? I'm on the same street and my house (also a 4th-year house) only has a microwave and a combi-oven. There was a (college-owned) hob but then it got confiscated because we weren't supposed to have one. Perhaps I should have mentioned this at my tutor meeting, but that's come and gone now...


Thankfully I don't do any cooking besides microwaving. Nevertheless I must say I'm going to miss living in the bosoms of college next year.
I miss college and Cambridge lots. But having a proper house, with my own study, sitting room, dining room, garden and proper kitchen is amazing.
Original post by ukdragon37
Thankfully I don't do any cooking besides microwaving. Nevertheless I must say I'm going to miss living in the bosoms of college next year.


You'll miss being wired into JANET too, I'm sure...
Original post by Zhen Lin
You'll miss being wired into JANET too, I'm sure...


:afraid: When I lived in Warkworth for a summer the wifi was only just better than tethering through my phone.
I was in Parkside over the summers and the wifi was always dodgy :dry: Apparently they had to do it through some remote thing and it kept timing out or something.

...and then I'd log into the X5 wifi because they parked outside my house. Only for them to drive off again :lol:
Original post by lp386
I have introduced my flatmates to The Crystal Maze. I consider this a success.


:awesome: Epic show. :yep:

Regarding cooking, I was lucky in 2nd year that we had one of those microwave-oven things as well as fridge-freezer and hobs. But that was not standard and was one of the reasons we stayed in the same accommodation for 3rd year.
Original post by alex_hk90
:awesome: Epic show. :yep:

I couldn't endure more than about 7mins of that :p:

Regarding cooking, I was lucky in 2nd year that we had one of those microwave-oven things as well as fridge-freezer and hobs. But that was not standard and was one of the reasons we stayed in the same accommodation for 3rd year.

Yeh Peterhouse has some places with good kitchens but they're in the minority. All of Parkside houses are good but they're comparatively miles from college.
Original post by Craghyrax
I couldn't endure more than about 7mins of that :p:

In that case you would've struggled with the Crystal Maze Musical that I went to see at Robinson theatre a couple of years back. :tongue: Oh, and the review is accurate.
:pinch:
Mind you I was fully responsible for making some friends go with me to the Addies Pantomime :facepalm2:
Reply 8011
Original post by Canned Door
I definitely have been thinking lately, if I don't have hobs and combi-micro (knowing full well that's the max there could possibly be), I'd be bringing it up in my first couple of weeks.


Definitely do. Although LM complained about it in his tutor meeting as well and at the end made a joke about how maybe things would be changed in ten years or so, and our tutor said she was glad he was being realistic :p: So it doesn't mean much will get done, but the more people campaign for it the better!

Original post by Zhen Lin

Wha? I'm on the same street and my house (also a 4th-year house) only has a microwave and a combi-oven. There was a (college-owned) hob but then it got confiscated because we weren't supposed to have one. Perhaps I should have mentioned this at my tutor meeting, but that's come and gone now...


Yeah, no. 2 are really lucky. That's why I specifically moved there over the vac. And then college tried to make me move back into my New Court room on the day that hall closed for the staff holiday, which would have meant I had literally only a microwave to feed myself with, and no hall to fall back on! This is why I think that sometimes they just don't really think these things through, or understand that you can't have a varied, interesting and balanced diet if you only have a microwave. Anyway, you could email your tutor! I think yours is the same as mine, she was very receptive to it.

Original post by Craghyrax

I really like hall and I agree with encouraging people to eat there. However they could do what Peterhouse does (require you to eat 50% of evening meals there) while also providing facilities in accommodation. That way you'd have a lot more control over situations like you mention where you have something that clashes with hall, or you have special dietary requirements.


That would be much better. Although to be honest I am rarely in college at hall time. When I wasn't doing the play, I often stayed at the faculty library working late last term because I have faculty classes almost every day and I find moving location in the evening means that I usually just stop and can't get going again. I guess if I had to eat a certain number of meals in hall I would just reorganise my life around it though.

There was one time where I truly lost it and was rude to the staff. I feel bad but I was absolutely furious. It was Easter term of final year and for the second time in my whole degree someone had required me to put my essay in their pigeon hole at Jesus college. I had four essays in 7 days that week so I finished it at 5:40 and got to Jesus at 6 on the dot. However this meant I only got back to Peterhouse at 6:20 and by the time I got there there was literally only pizza. Nothing else.
I'm gluten intolerant, and in exam term I was solely reliant on hall for evening meals because of having no time to cook. I'm pretty sure there is some sort of requirement that they have to cater for certain categories but it was evident that night that whoever was in the kitchen couldn't be arsed. I was soooo angry!


I remember that! I don't think that's ever happened at Emma, to be fair. My main issue is my fussiness, in that I really dislike most of the things that hall serves as food. I eat mostly fresh, light meals. I like very lightly sauced pasta, grilled meat with salad, thin crust pizza etc. I rarely eat vegetables, but I eat a lot of salad. What I really don't like is hugely stodgy food with a lot of salt. I also have a thing about sauce - I really hate it when there's too much sauce on anything and hall definitely over-sauce. I can't stand overcooked meat or overcooked veg and I find it difficult to eat a large portion of anything. There's absolutely no portion control in hall, so you can end up with a tiny bit of meat swimming in sauce and obscured by the mountain of peas that have been poured on your plate. And mass producing food means that it usually is overcooked because it sits there for ages. I think the standard of our hall is meant to be pretty good and I did eat there a lot in first year, it's just that stomaching that food every day makes me feel really quite sick. Our salad bar is poor compared to other colleges, and there aren't many options for the evening meal, although there are lots more for lunch (we have soup and snack of the day which is usually some kind of pasty). So I do think that in some ways it's my own fault for being fussy. But there is actually a very large range of food that I do enjoy cooking and eating, and that I think provides me with a healthier diet and makes me feel less bloated - in turn, I eat a lot more of my own food, whereas when I was attempting to eat in hall a lot I actually lost weight because I disliked so much of the food and would give it away to the people around me.

Anyway... have you considered buying a halogen oven? They're not that expensive and you could hide it under your bed when not in use. I know someone who did that successfully


I had not! I think for the remaining six weeks I'll probably just stick it out. The end is in sight and I thankfully have lots of friends who allow me to use their hobs and ovens so it will be fine. After that I'll be home and will have my lovely home kitchen to use :biggrin:

Original post by Supermerp
I appreciate your assumption that I'm automatically in the group of people who don't want to cook. But if the fraction is that large maybe they wouldn't get enough people going to hall, so they'd rather encourage people to go and at least they're not doing it Caius/Peterhouse-style.


Depriving me of kitchen facilities does not constitute an 'encouragement' to go to hall. It's forcing me to go, and that's what I don't appreciate!

I agree that people with dietary requirements should be catered for. But most colleges (afaik) have at least some college accommodation with a decent kitchen, so maybe it would be a good idea for people who need a kitchen to be given preference. I also think they should have non-****ty vegetarian food.


The issue with Emma is that you don't really know where the decent kitchens are. It's like Zhen Lin said above - he lives on the same street as my friends, in a house that is probably the exact mirror of theirs, but he doesn't have facilities as good as theirs. The houses on Park Terrace of the same - there's no consistency with which accommodation has decent cooking facilities, so it's impossible to pick somewhere that does. Even on my staircase in first year, we had a combi oven but two floors below they only had a microwave. I had anticipated that my room this year would have a combi oven because I didn't think they'd only leave me with a microwave, but I was wrong :p:

Edit: I think my problem is that it's not really obvious to me (or, I think, to anyone here) how expensive/difficult/whatever it is to provide kitchen facilities in buildings that weren't designed for them, especially since in a given population of students there are enough people who are so incapable of participating in human society that they'd make the kitchen unusable and smash everything to pieces anyway. Whenever I've commented about colleges being stingy around a fellow they've normally commented about it not necessarily being the way I'd thought about it. For what it's worth, I'd be all in favour of abolishing college rowing subsidies in order to provide ovens in kitchens.


This is absolutely true (although I have encountered no kitchens being made unusable or smashed in my time at college so I'm just talking about the cost of converting old buildings). I know that a lot of Emma kitchens are too small to meet the dimension requirements for installing hobs, which is why we don't have them. Not having a hob doesn't bother me as much, because most times you can substitute a microwave for a hob. However, I do think that combi ovens should be installed as standard everywhere. There used to be a lot more of them in college but since I've been here whenever a combi oven has broken it's been replaced with a microwave. As far as I'm aware that can only be a cost issue! Maybe I'm misjudging college, but I think it just isn't a priority to them - as I said though, this is one of my only gripes about my time at Emma so it can't be that bad :p:
Original post by Zoedotdot

I remember that! I don't think that's ever happened at Emma, to be fair. My main issue is my fussiness, in that I really dislike most of the things that hall serves as food. I eat mostly fresh, light meals. I like very lightly sauced pasta, grilled meat with salad, thin crust pizza etc. I rarely eat vegetables, but I eat a lot of salad. What I really don't like is hugely stodgy food with a lot of salt. I also have a thing about sauce - I really hate it when there's too much sauce on anything and hall definitely over-sauce. I can't stand overcooked meat or overcooked veg and I find it difficult to eat a large portion of anything. There's absolutely no portion control in hall, so you can end up with a tiny bit of meat swimming in sauce and obscured by the mountain of peas that have been poured on your plate. And mass producing food means that it usually is overcooked because it sits there for ages. I think the standard of our hall is meant to be pretty good and I did eat there a lot in first year, it's just that stomaching that food every day makes me feel really quite sick. Our salad bar is poor compared to other colleges, and there aren't many options for the evening meal, although there are lots more for lunch (we have soup and snack of the day which is usually some kind of pasty). So I do think that in some ways it's my own fault for being fussy. But there is actually a very large range of food that I do enjoy cooking and eating, and that I think provides me with a healthier diet and makes me feel less bloated - in turn, I eat a lot more of my own food, whereas when I was attempting to eat in hall a lot I actually lost weight because I disliked so much of the food and would give it away to the people around me.
I completely agree. I don't think its about fussiness, but its about health and self determination. If you're forced to rely on the kind of food catered halls provide you have no control over your health and diet. I often was forced to choose all the least tasty options in hall because they were the only ones that weren't really unhealthy. So a staple at Peterhouse is fries, curly fries, roast or fried potatoes and various other fatty potato combinations. I eat low carb, so those were all out. Lots of the meat dishes were out because they were either pies or pasta dishes (don't eat carbs and gluten)... so that usually left me with the dry overcooked chicken breast and some over cooked brocolli :rolleyes:

There were several boys at Peterhouse who matriculated skinny and graduated fat.

And Emma's hall and salad bar are miles better than Peterhouse's, so we must be really bad if you think Emma isn't so great. I ate in hall at Emma each Friday for a year because I was in the Emma fusion group.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 8013
Original post by Craghyrax
I completely agree. I don't think its about fussiness, but its about health and self determination. If you're forced to rely on the kind of food catered halls provide you have no control over your health and diet. I often was forced to choose all the least tasty options in hall because they were the only ones that weren't really unhealthy. So a staple at Peterhouse is fries, curly fries, roast or fried potatoes and various other fatty potato combinations. I eat low carb, so those were all out. Lots of the meat dishes were out because they were either pies or pasta dishes (don't eat carbs and gluten)... so that usually left me with the dry overcooked chicken breast and some over cooked brocolli :rolleyes:

There were several boys at Peterhouse who matriculated skinny and graduated fat.

And Emma's hall and salad bar are miles better than Peterhouse's, so we must be really bad if you think Emma isn't so great. I ate in hall at Emma each Friday for a year because I was in the Emma fusion group.


I think part of it is getting disillusioned with the repetition! I know that Emma hall isn't that bad really compared to other places, but there isn't a great deal of variety in there at all so it gets very, very samey when you're in your fourth year :p: I didn't like the type of food to start with, and particularly not after eating it for the millionth time! I find the salad bar really very unappetising, and when you go in every day and see the same vats of stuff it's a bit icky. The salad bar is the subject of very frequent complaint.
Original post by Craghyrax
I completely agree. I don't think its about fussiness, but its about health and self determination. If you're forced to rely on the kind of food catered halls provide you have no control over your health and diet. I often was forced to choose all the least tasty options in hall because they were the only ones that weren't really unhealthy. So a staple at Peterhouse is fries, curly fries, roast or fried potatoes and various other fatty potato combinations. I eat low carb, so those were all out. Lots of the meat dishes were out because they were either pies or pasta dishes (don't eat carbs and gluten)... so that usually left me with the dry overcooked chicken breast and some over cooked brocolli :rolleyes:

To be honest, this sounds a lot like fussiness to me. (I know you mentioned you also have dietary requirements, which presumably they have some obligation to try to cater for.)

I guess I was just lucky at Pembroke because in hall we always had three main options (meat, fish, vegetarian) and then a pretty good salad bar and other cold food.
Original post by alex_hk90
To be honest, this sounds a lot like fussiness to me. (I know you mentioned you also have dietary requirements, which presumably they have some obligation to try to cater for.)

How is it fussy to want to eat healthily? :eyeball:
In my view fussiness is when you don't want to eat something because you don't like the taste of it.
In my case, I love carbs! I would love to be able to eat potatoes, pasta, bread and all the rest. But I don't, because it makes my body feel crap, gives me indigestion and makes me put on loads of weight really quickly. It also makes me really hungry and therefore results in lots of cravings and me eating way too much. It also has a very bad affect on my concentration when trying to work, and I've also found that it sometimes acts as a trigger for my migraines.

Are you seriously telling me that its fussy to expect hall to provide healthy food that doesn't force students to put up with negative physical side effects? :eyeball: In my case that would simply mean food that hasn't been deep fried. Just plain meat and vegetables are fine. I don't think that's hard to provide. I don't see why it has to be a fatty, carb loaded pie/pasta dish/pizza etc.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Craghyrax
How is it fussy to want to eat healthily? :eyeball:
In my view fussiness is when you don't want to eat something because you don't like the taste of it.
In my case, I love carbs! I would love to be able to eat potatoes, pasta, bread and all the rest. But I don't, because it makes my body feel crap, gives me indigestion and makes me put on loads of weight really quickly. It also makes me really hungry and therefore results in lots of cravings and me eating way too much. It also has a very bad affect on my concentration when trying to work, and I've also found that it sometimes acts as a trigger for my migraines.

Are you seriously telling me that its fussy to expect hall to provide healthy food that doesn't force students to put up with negative physical side effects? :eyeball: In my case that would simply mean food that hasn't been deep fried. Just plain meat and vegetables are fine. I don't think that's hard to provide. I don't see why it has to be a fatty, carb loaded pie/pasta dish/pizza etc.

In one word - yes, I would say that it is fussy to expect hall to always provide healthy food, because the majority of students aren't overly bothered about it and don't suffer the negative physical side effects that you describe. Of course it would be nice if they could give the choice of healthy food or unhealthy food, but I'm pretty sure that you would tend to find that most people go for the unhealthy food so if they can only do one (for whatever reason) then they'll obviously try to please the majority.
Original post by alex_hk90
In one word - yes, I would say that it is fussy to expect hall to always provide healthy food, because the majority of students aren't overly bothered about it and don't suffer the negative physical side effects that you describe.
I've already covered at great length, in my reply to Supermerp, the several reasons that this reasoning is flawed.
alex_hk90

Of course it would be nice if they could give the choice of healthy food or unhealthy food, but I'm pretty sure that you would tend to find that most people go for the unhealthy food so if they can only do one (for whatever reason) then they'll obviously try to please the majority.

Its straightforwardly obvious that eating healthily is in everybody's best interests whether or not they like the taste of it. Healthy eating has a dramatic effect on longevity. Eating a serving of brocolli each day adds something like a decade to your average life expectancy (I will ask for the source when my fiance is home if you like).
I find it completely preposterous that you think it acceptable for a caterer to limit consumers to a diet which several years of research correlates with strokes, heart attacks and diabetes.
There's a big difference between a restaurant and a supplier that is obliged to offer students a balanced and healthy diet which they could subside entirely on if they needed to.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Zoedotdot
I think part of it is getting disillusioned with the repetition! I know that Emma hall isn't that bad really compared to other places, but there isn't a great deal of variety in there at all so it gets very, very samey when you're in your fourth year :p: I didn't like the type of food to start with, and particularly not after eating it for the millionth time! I find the salad bar really very unappetising, and when you go in every day and see the same vats of stuff it's a bit icky. The salad bar is the subject of very frequent complaint.


When I was doing CompSci interview shepherding this year, I made a point at lunch with the CompSci applicants that the options hall offered on that day have stayed the same for (at least) the last three years of CompSci interviews.
Pembroke's really good on the hall food front as a whole:

Today's Lunch and Dinner Menus


and there's a selection of vegetables, chips, and a salad bar too.

However the cooking facilities are poor at best. I have 1 hob plate (the other's broken), a microwave and a fridge. I didn't even have a microwave until I asked housekeeping specifically! Not having a freezer is the biggest pain I think, however an oven would also be a godsend.