Senior Aran Yoo slices cucumbers for sushi. Gargoyle photo by Sindha Agha. (Click to create a slideshow)

The result: first day of class. Gargoyle photo by Sindha Agha. (Click to create a slideshow)

EVER SINCE I heard cooking classes were offered during Agora Days, I’ve really wanted to be in one.

Why? They're fun, they're easy, you can socialize and make good food, and most of all, they're hard to get into.

Just like how the subbies think getting into the lounge will be the greatest thing ever, because they aren’t allowed to do it, taking a cooking class seems like it’ll be fantastic.

Except, unlike going into the lounge, cooking classes aren’t a letdown.

When I looked at my Agora schedule I was thrilled to see that I had received what seemed almost impossible for an underclassman: a spot in a fun-sounding cooking class.

So what was it like?

Tuesday, Feb. 19: Sushi

It’s the beginning of Agora Days, and most of us arrive in the kitchen on time, excited by the prospect of making a breakfast that doesn’t consist of milk and stale cardboard (cereal).

Even though we all gather around a table for the start of the class — called, appropriately enough, Typical Cooking Class — we can’t stop talking long enough to hear what our teachers, sophomores Rachel Harmon, Amy Ding, and Liz Allen, have to say.

So while we continue to describe our weekend to whoever will listen, our teachers begin to pass out wax paper (in lieu of cutting boards), cucumbers, avocados, carrots, rice, and seaweed sushi paper.

Now we are truly confused, and the talking finally begins to die down. The teachers explain that we are going to make sushi, but before we can start we have to vote on what to make during the rest of the week.

After a fairly painful voting process that takes far longer than necessary, it is decided: crepes, macaroni 'n' cheese, and cookies.

Without letting the teachers give us directions, we start cutting the random vegetables we were given, resulting in cucumber slices that are way too small and avocado that is kind of pulpy.

I’m forced to leave for an orthodontist appointment before I can actually start making the sushi, but when I come back I am greeted with a sushi surprise inside my locker.

The class assembles ingredients for the crepe batter. Gargoyle photo by Katherine Allen. (Click to create a slideshow)

Junior Richard Weisbach prepares to flip his first crepe. Gargoyle photo by Katherine Allen. (Click to create a slideshow)

Wednesday, Feb. 20: Crepes

Ahh, French food. So good when properly made. When made in a dingy kitchen, however, not quite so delicious.

Again, we come into class not really ready to listen to directions.

Sophomore Langston Allston-Yeagle has brought his “Soulja Boy analysis” paper (resulting in lots of people asking, "Can I read it?"), a couple of people are sleeping (or resemble the walking dead), and once again, most people are too busy talking.

Until a recipe is handed out. Yay! Actual cooking and not just assembling the food.

Fellow sophomore Vivian Robison and I pore over the ingredient list and proceed to wash our hands, beating the crowd but missing the scramble for bowls and utensils, resulting in us having to wait until other people are done.

But it is all worth it.

Three eggs, some cups of flower, a bit of sugar, some chunky butter and other ingredients later, we have a fairly decent crepe mix.

We watch while the other groups make crepes, stuffing in chocolate, sugar, and other toppings before gulping them down.

Finally it's our turn, and having watched three other groups, we know what to do: Pour the still-kind-of-chunky batter onto the pan, wait for a while, flip it over, wait for a while, and ta-da! We’re done.

It ends up pretty nicely, and we still have a bunch of time. We mill around for a while, and the teachers remind us that we'll be making mac 'n' cheese tomorrow. Right on cue, the bell rings.

Thursday, Feb. 21: Macaroni 'n' Cheese

Blocks of cheese and graters are handed out and we are told to simply grate cheese into the paper plates on the tables. An easy task? Definitely. A time-consuming and fairly tedious activity? Definitely.

But the 20 minutes we spend grating cheese end up as fun, seeing as it doesn’t require much brainpower, so we can talk.

By the time we finish with all the cheese, six paper plates are completely covered. Some of us are a little nervous that we have too much, but we figure it will get eaten anyway.

Soon, the pasta we started boiling at the beginning of class is done and steaming hot. We can’t decide between baking the pasta with cheese on it or just adding the cheese and melting it in.

Eventually, a few people just grab bowls and forks and take some of the pasta, leaving the rest for those who want to bake it. About five minutes later the remaining pasta comes out baked and cheesy, and we spend the rest of the class enjoying our delicious creation.

Friday, Feb. 22: Cookies and Smoothies

Liz comes in with a big tub full of Pillsbury cookie dough, and we all screech "COOKIES!!" We rush to the sink to wash our hands, eager to get started with our final project.

We grab as many oven-friendly surfaces as we can find and start to pull dough out of the tub, shaping the pieces into spheric blobs.

Pretty soon we have a couple of baking sheets of cookie dough blobs. We still have a bunch of dough left in the tub, and, not wanting to be wasteful, we try to think of what to do with it (other than just eating it, which we are already doing).

Finally, we decide on making a cookie cake. Senior Aran Yoo starts grabbing dough and pounding it into a circle on another baking sheet. Kovacs walks in, and true to form, tells us that we are cheating by using premade dough.

We choose not to reply. She watches for a while and then tells us that by pounding on the dough, we are making it harder for it to be flattened. We choose to take this advice, and Aran starts to press on the dough instead of hitting it.

The flattening process speeds up after this piece of advice, and pretty soon we have a perfect dough circle.

Meanwhile, some of the sophomore boys have stolen the rest of the cookie dough from the tub and are arguing over how warped their star cookie cake will be once they put it in the oven. It’s actually pretty cool until Allston-Yeagle sticks a gigantic block of dough on the top and declares the star a city. Then it just looks a bit weird.

Liz, Rachel, and Amy start to load baking sheets into the oven, and we clean out the remaining dough from the tub.

The cookie cake comes out of the oven first, and even though it isn't completely cooked we eat the edges of it, promising to put the rest of the cake in once we're done. But we never do, and the cake is gone before we know it.

The cookies that come out of the oven next disappear just as quickly, while the star cookie fails miserably in the oven. But star or not, it is still an oversized cookie, and it, too, is gone before we know it.

Then it's time for smoothies. Most people actually coordinate their fruits and choice of concentrated juice so the end result will taste good, but I, not being a morning person, go for a mix of Limeade and whatever frozen fruit I pull out of the bag.

Note: Do not try this at home. While the others happily sip their smoothies, I choke down the poison I made for myself and try to smile when people ask me if mine is as good as theirs. Eventually I give up and throw the concoction down the drain, vowing to never make myself a smoothie again.

Still, this self-induced glitch was just a minor blemish on an otherwise excellent four days of class. Fun, relaxing, and filling, cooking classes are an Agora tradition that never fail to satisfy.