Junior Isabel Samatar has taken up a new hobby of cooking and baking in the past few years. Samatar grew up helping her dad in the kitchen, which sparked her love for it. 

“I’ve only been cooking by myself for like a year or two, but I used to cook with my dad all the time so I’m not a complete newbie. I’ve cooked almost all of my own meals for the past week,” Samatar said. 

The recent time off from school has given her more time in the kitchen. Samatar has been brainstorming new recipes to try out and hopes to make some over the break. 

“I want to try making cheesecake. I haven’t had a chance to yet because it takes a long time and it can be easy to mess up. I also haven’t made a graham cracker crust from scratch before so we will see how that turns out,” Samatar said.

Though she’s been trying to look for new recipes, she always revisits her favorites. Comfort foods are important to her and remind Samatar of where she came from.

“My favorite recipe right now is a tie between my spinach mushroom cheese omelet and my favorite brownie recipe because both are super simple and I usually have the ingredients on hand,” Samatar said.