D3 Southern Feast

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Here I am in your life,
Here you are in mine.
Yes, we have a suite life
Most of the time…

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By Doug Spurlock

Here on the Santa Fe Campus, our housing is divided into a few distinct neighborhoods. At the lower end of campus are “Lowers,” up past the classrooms you’ll find “Uppers,” and located farthest up the hill is a small, relatively quiet, tight-knit community called Apartments and Suites. Apartments and Suites are lottery-based on campus housing. You and four other friends in Suites (5 total), or you and one friend in Apartments (2 total) live in a “dorm” with a full kitchen, slightly furnished living room, and bathroom. Plus each of you get your own separate room the size of a single. I am lucky enough to be living there this year! My 4 roommates and I live in Suite D3^. As I mentioned, Apartments and Suites have a pretty tight community that comes partially from our proximity to one another but also from our relative distance from main campus. We are far enough away that it sometimes feels like we have our own separate island of “dorms”. Because of this an interesting and different community forms up there every year and we often host events for one another. A great example of this is the party my suite hosted this past weekend.

It was week five and when my roommate Owen came to me and said that we should host a Southern Feast over the weekend. He said it would be a, “belated house warming party of sorts” and that, “it would be great to get all of our friends together in D3.” “Plus,” he said, “I’m a bit homesick and this would be a great opportunity to cure that.” I couldn’t have agreed more, and the planning for our party started immediately. After a few more days of planning,  a couple filled with shopping the cooking and baking began.

On the menu were two different versions of BBQ pulled pork: spicy and mild. Next was coleslaw and corn bread, two southern staples with a New Mexico twist– we added green chili! After that we made bacon baked beans and cooked up some green beans. To drink we had a massive amount of Kool-aid and home brewed sweet tea. And for dessert we made pecan and pumpkin pie- yum!

Of course now that the food was prepared it was time for the most important part of the party– Friends! But in order to host around 20ish of our friends we had to acquire more seating for our balcony. Thus begins the tale of the picnic bench. Everyday on the way to our suite we see a grey picnic bench, and we always make stupid jokes about its existence because no one ever sits there. So when Owen said we needed more seating an idea popped into my head: “Let’s barrow that bench we always see!” Now at first this seemed like a GREAT idea, but after we walked down to get it we realized that it wouldn’t fit up our stairs and into our front door. So we decided that we were going to commit to this and drag it up onto our balcony… oof.

Here we are mid lift:

and dragging it onto the balcony:

After a few bruised shins and curses we finally got it situated where we wanted it. It was totally worth it and having the extra seats really helped.

Shortly after this, (about an hour after) guests started to arrive and I had just finished the party’s “Southern Rock and Swampy Blues” playlist. We all had a blast and the evening closed out with all of us crammed into our 2 couches playing party games and laughing all night long.

It was a total success! We listened to good music, ate good food, and were surrounded with amazing friends all evening. To quote Owen, (my roommate who planed this whole thing) “Homesick? Just cook a feast. Family recipes, awesome roommates to cook with, and so many wonderful friends to eat with– now that’s comfort food!” to which I replied, “Yeah, I guess you could say the ‘Suite Life’ is pretty… ~Sweet~”