After spending my first year of college commuting, I finally moved out a month ago into a quaint townhouse apartment with three of my teammates. In other words, I now have to cook and clean and do adult-y things all by myself, and I’m not really a big fan so far. The biggest change that I have to deal with now is that I have to make food by myself now. Even though it contradicts my current scrawny physique, I’ve always had a passion for food. I’ve always had an interest in tweaking with my Mom’s Indian food recipes, so I figured I could cook a ton of Indian food for my roommates.

That idea worked for all of an entire week because the one thing that I forgot to take into account was that I wouldn’t have the money to do the usual things that I do. Make an intricate potato dish? Can’t. Make something less time consuming? Can’t do that either. I’d always see the memes and jokes on Reddit and Facebook about how college kids are broke and how they live off Ramen, but I never gave it too much thought. It’s definitely not a joke. Pasta sauce is $2, and a six serving box of pasta is $3 (six servings actually means that it serves four college kids sufficiently). Two boxes of ready-made pasta dishes are about $5-7 depending on the brand and flavor. If we don’t feel like making pasta, it’s all about the ready-made Uncle Ben’s rice options. Worst case scenario, Seasons pizza has a medium two topping pizza for $5.

The point I’m trying to make is that there aren’t that many options in college. Sure, you can find the time and the money to make a complicated dish here and there or for special occasions, but never consistently. Embrace the pasta. Adopt the rice and beans. And lastly, welcome every sliver of homemade food you get. I’m lucky enough to live close enough to my home that I can drive there in 20 minutes if I’m ever homesick, but for the times that I can’t because I'm inundated with schoolwork, I miss nothing more than the simplest of my mom’s food.