Asuzena Bravo, Marketplace sous chef, supervises the cooks and develops the five-week menu rotation. Bravo said she has been working with Campus Dining at Occidental for 20 years, and has witnessed an increase in the variety of meals offered and receptiveness to student input.
Bravo said the suggestion box near the check out counters has been particularly helpful in developing weekly menus.
“A student recently suggested that there should be a marinara meat sauce, but instead of beef, they wanted Italian sausage,” Bravo said. “I switched the menu for this week and I was able to add it [Sept. 14].”
Branden Revilla, kitchen lead, said the Marketplace requires extensive planning and coordination to prepare for every meal, and each station must account for what the others need.
“Everything’s coming out of the ovens at the same time, it’s chaos,” Revilla said. “A lot of things can [be] done well in advance.”
According to Bravo, each station has their own purpose: Homestyle aims for comfort food; Grill serves a consistent assortment; Sauté is the ‘fun’ one and Chef’s Corner allows for experimentation.
“If you want to see something new, it’ll probably be [at Chef’s Corner],” Bravo said. “I have multiple little notebooks that I keep and write down [new meal ideas].”
Bravo said she stays involved in the meal-making process up until service time, especially while trying a new recipe.
“There’s items that we come up with, [and] I want to see them plated a specific way,” Bravo said.
Revilla said the recipes are a collaborative effort that involve Bravo, himself and other cooks. Revilla said the Marketplace cooks are constantly trying new things. According to Revilla, although he went to Scottsdale Culinary School, he believes he truly learned how to cook through practical application in Occidental’s kitchens.
“I try to encourage all of my cooks to remember what they’re doing and write it down if they’re trying something new,” Revilla said. “I let them do their thing, and then I keep an eye on them.”
Jeremy Noethens, kitchen lead, said he helped create the recipe of a Friday night staple, pork báhn mì.
“Pickled veg, salted pork and the crusty bread,” Noethens said. “It comes from the colonization of the French [in Vietnam] and incorporating their food with the people they occupied.”
Bravo said chicken recipes like orange chicken and butter chicken are persistently popular and have secured year long tenures in the menu rotation.
“Butter chicken is what I’ve noticed the staff and students get equally excited about,” Bravo said.
According to Revilla, the Marketplace recently switched to buying prepared produce and food items because of the recent staff shortage.
“It’s been helping a lot,” Revilla said. “We’ve been making alterations to already standing menus. In any given day, we’re putting out [around] 4,000 [meals].”
Burch Sainsbury-Carter (senior) said the Marketplace experience contrasted with what he thought college dining would be.
“I was expecting to eat unhealthier, and have to sacrifice caring about nutrition,” Sainsbury-Carter said. “But now, the reality is, I can have a salad. I can really play around and make my ideal plate every day.”
Sainsbury-Carter said even though he is living off campus this year, he had to have a meal plan because he couldn’t imagine Occidental without the Marketplace.
“There are only so many options,” Sainsbury-Carter said. “It expanded my palate.”
Kai Neal (sophomore) said the Marketplace is more affordable, organized and accessible for all taste buds than other dining halls he has visited.
“[The Marketplace has] pretty good options,” Neal said. “I think it [has] more variety in meals.”
Maya Ravishankar (sophomore) said she wouldn’t have tried foods she really enjoys if it weren’t for Marketplace meals.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had plantains in dishes [before],” Ravishankar said. “But I had it and I was like, ‘Oh, this is really good!’”
Cal Kreuter (senior) said he comes from a Filipino background and appreciates the Marketplace’s effort to serve foods from multiple backgrounds, especially the adobo and pancit.
“It really makes you feel like you’re eating at home sometimes,” Kreuter said. “This food reflects the diversity of our student body.”
According to Bravo, she wants the Marketplace to be a place where students are able to step outside their comfort zones.
“I want them to experience having foods they’ve never had outside of here,” Bravo said. “I really want the students to taste the food of different cultures, different countries, something they’re not used to, something they wouldn’t have at home.”
Noethens said he cares deeply about serving quality meals to the students, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so with the dwindling Marketplace staff.
“You need to be competitive in the [job] market, or you’re not [going to] get the cooks that you need to feed your students,” Noethens said. “We don’t have the staff right now that we need. We can’t hire people. We’re losing people. The ones that are here take on more work, and they’re still paid the same. It’s hard, it’s a lot of stress.”
According to Kreuter, the workers at the Marketplace are vital to the experience.
“[The workers] really are the backbone of the marketplace and keeping us fed,” Kreuter said.
Contact Lucy Toft at ltoft@oxy.edu
