The Rambling Root Does That Catering Thing…

Imagine this:

Last night you had a nightmare. It was the night of your Div. 3 showcase. You had spent the whole year drenched in research/paintings/rehearsals/etc and constantly reminiscing about what it felt like to sleep. On your big night, something goes horribly wrong. No, no. You’re not in your underwear while your presenting your year-long efforts. Nor do you have a massive chunk of spinach in your teeth… but that’s precisely the problem. THERE IS NO FOOD. There is nothing to be stuck in your teeth. There is nothing to distract you from the tsunami of nerves that are slowly dominating you. There is no table for your awkward parents and professors to stand by. There is no reason to lure in first-years from the library. And so you can’t go on. You wish for time to go faster, but we all know that when we do that all it does is go slow. And, alas, your showcase was an awkward mess, and you could barely be heard over the rumbling bellies in the room.

Well, well, well, there is some delicious news for you. Rambling Root is coming to the rescue! We are here to make sure that nightmares such as these will STAY in their sleepy realm.

We are pleased to announce that The Rambling Root Now Caters!

In fact, this passed Wednesday, we catered the Search Committee meeting!

Here are a few pictures of some of the things on our menu that we made for the event:

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  (Vegan chocolate chip cookies, Mexican Wedding Cookies, Eskimo Cookies)

If these things look delicious to you, email us at rambling.root@gmail.com and let us know you’re interested. We’ll send you a menu! We’ll cater anything: Div 3 shows, meetings, study sessions.

At the Rambling Root, we strongly believe that hard work and delicious food go hand-in-hand.

We hope to be feeding you cookies and other things soon!

Love,

The Rambling Root.

McRamblin’ Root Depot and the Beauty of Slowness.

Hey Rooters.

The times are a-changin’… and they’re changin’ fast. Driving along the freeway you see less farms and more drive-thrus, multitudes of beaming signs trying to compete with the stars in the sky. Sometimes, it can be easy to get distracted and mistake your north star with a vibrant yellow ‘M’. Well, guys, I’m writing to you with some news. It seems like the cool thing to do these days is to be owned by something. After not much thought, but lots of panic and immediate hunger pains, we’ve decided to sell ourselves to McDonalds (which has decided to sell itself to Sodexo, but don’t tell anyone that yet). The good news is that McDonalds is also looking to mix things up, so we’re proud to announce that The Ramblin’ Root cafe will now be a combination McDonalds and Home Depot. How could you resist a mass-produced burger with a side of mulch? That makes things a little bit greener, right? We thought that this combo. would give Hampshire campus a fresh, new edge. Who said that fast food had to be conventional?

Via lizchangsiusin.net

Now, this does mean we have to sacrifice some things, but we thought it’d be worth it because, well, we’re hungry and it seems like everyone on campus was sick of waiting for this whole cooperative cafe thing to get (these days, if things aren’t immediate, they might as well be forgotten). Students will still be able to work at McRamblin Root Depot ™, but they will have no health benefits, no freedom to unionize, and absolutely no collective bargaining rights. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Who wants to actually have non-scripted conversations with their customers anyway? Feeling like an individual is so passé. Oh yeah, and you can forget that whole conscious-eating thing. Our menu will now consist of highly processed, genetically modified, imported food designed to make the customer even hungrier so they’ll keep coming back. I would give you a sample menu… but we had to outsource that task because we’re obviously too busy to care. Sorry. Anyway, we thought we’d update you! Hope you’re all excited for McRamblin Root Depot! Thanks, have a nice day.

PS

APRIL FOOOOOOOOLS!

If this scared you (it scared me just writing it), that’s all the more reason to be excited about the Ramblin’ Root!

We’ve been working really hard, and our wheels are moving like wildfire! We have a beautiful logo in the works, catering jobs lined up, an exciting Ramblin’ Root DAY (yes, an entire DAY dedicating to rootin’)  planned for later this month, an all community meeting on April 11 from 7-9 PM (BE THERE, we want your voices, inputs, complaints, suggestions, knock-knock jokes, protest songs…), and much, much more!

If you are passionate about delicious, healthy food, an inclusive, student-run community space, a place to work that’s not fluorescently lit and echo-y (ahem, Bridge), a place to procrastinate that feels like your living room but doesn’t smell like Friday night, a place to share music and art, and just a place to share… you’re passionate about The Ramblin’ Root. In a world that’s being homogenized by those beaming McDonalds signs, Walmarts, and Starbucks’, it’s important to stick up for those (the little people, if you will) who are working against the grain (which is actually with the grain, if you think about it). Think of The Ramblin’ Root as not just a coop cafe, but also part of a movement, if you want. In this world, despite what it may seem like, not everything can be bought or trademarked or mass produced. In fact, the most satisfying beneficial, and meaningful things take a long time to grow and be harvested (think Tortoise and the Hare…).

So, stay tuned, Hampsters!

We look forward to having you all involved in cultivating this Ramblin’ Root garden. Be sure to come to the events we have planned for this month, always let us know if you have ideas or comments to share! We want to hear it all!

Until next time,

Happy April!

Love,

The Ramblin’ Root.

Momentum!

Greetings all! As we get back in to the swing of things after break, we are trying to build momentum and push ahead using a petition that will allow members of the Hampshire College community to show their support and want for a student cafe on campus. If you are a member of the Hampshire community, help us out and show your support here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDJHN2JiVWctb2FiclpCSkI5bnJCVWc6MA

If you are not a member of the Hampshire community, thank you still for all your interest, support, and input!

Onward!

The Ramblin’ Root

Breakfast with Marlene on Monday

A few of us representing the Ramblin’ Root chatted about the idea of a student-run cafe at Hampshire with Marlene this past monday. To our delight, the idea was taken with excitement and a high energy was present in the other-wise mildly dreary middle room of Saga. Marlene seemed supportive of our thoughts and urged us to submit our ideas to the Strategic Planning Committee for review. Not only did Marlene learn about our great project, she learned that Hampshire makes its’ own maple syrup, yes from our very own trees. I guess there is always something new to learn about the strange, yet wonderful campus we are all a part of.

Until more to come,

from all of us,

Have a wonderful Spring Break!

-The Ramblin’ Root

March 7, 2011

Hello, now that those enigmatically lengthy February doldrums have finally passed, let the March Madness begin!

And so, hardly a week before Spring Break, we (the dedicated and insatiable students behind the movement to put a STUDENT-RUN COOPERATIVE CAFE on Hampshire Campus) find ourselves with not only a concept design and name for our visionary establishment (the Ramblin’ Root!), but also with a blog, twitter account, facebook page and quite a few google documents. Although we have a long way to go on this journey towards the creation of a small, yet lively space to call our own, our progress over the past semester and a half has been incredibly exciting.

How did we get here? Well, here is a nutshell version of our story:

A small group of students began meeting in the Goodread Library back in October 2010 to throw around the idea of creating our own student-run, cooperative cafe that would (ideally) be located in the Prescott Tavern (currently a rather inactive study space; occasionally used for gallery openings and acoustic music performances). Why the Tavern? Several reasons:  it contains a skeleton of a commercial kitchen and its present use is incredibly lackluster. However, what really stood out in our discussions surrounding the need for a student-run cafe on campus was the lack of student ownership of spaces on campus. As we are well aware by now, the Hampshire campus has no explicitly central building, other than our library, which is divided into too many things to really be a uniting space (though its location is central). Not to mention the lack of good, reasonably priced, ethically produced food on campus.

So, a decision was made that we, the students, should be responsible for the creation of a space that represents us. Not just the 20 or so students actively involved in this project, but every student who attends Hampshire. Our vision is to ultimately foster community through the sales of local, sustainable food and the creation of a space that is shaped by those who use it. This space will be accepting of every kind of student and our hope is to encourage interaction between people who may not normally interact, but feel comfortable doing so in the kind of non-judgmental atmosphere we want to create.

And now, after months of visioning, planning and writing, the initial cluster of students has grown into a committee-organized student group (though not official)! We have created a beautiful concept design, thrown a few marvelously successful food-and-music-based fundraisers (look for more in the future) and applied for a grant or two! Oh! And did I mention our project is currently being worked on in an awesome class on campus? (Social Entrepreneurship: Developing Your Own Socially Responsible Enterprise!)

Please get involved!!!!!

Subscribe to our listserv! studentruncafe@lists.hampshire.edu

Well, I suppose that’s all for now….

Love and Delicious Food,

The Ramblin’ Root

Hampshire Co-op Cafe

The group of students organizing behind the Hampshire College Co-op café are very excited to be on WordPress!