At sunset on Monday, April 6 on the SU Green, Jason Ly — a biology senior and Pre-Dental Association event coordinator — corralled volunteers to help potluck-goers sign in, assemble tables and lay out sweet treats before the eyes of hungry students. Those treats could have been brought by anyone, from high-attendance club members to students who had no idea about the Pre-Dental Association before this, like me. As cakes, cinnamon rolls, tiramisu and more were presented, the organizers made it a mission to kindly tell all picnic-goers to sit on the green and not gawk at treats up close — but no one, including myself, listened as the appearance of multiple sweets, such as a lemon-blueberry four-tiered cake, a glistening chocolate cake, marble-swirled cookies, huge cinnamon rolls with flavors including red velvet and strawberry and multiple pans of cupcakes captivated the senses.
Every person in attendance had to pay an $8 entry fee if they brought a sweet to share, and more if they hadn’t. Either way, you got to be a part of the potluck. My “skillfully” made coffee cake allowed me to pay just $8. Picnic-goers and onlookers were quickly amassing, but the cornucopia of tables littered with treats became so evident that any worry of an actual deficit of treats was dissolved. Looking birds-eye over the spread, one wouldn’t be able to see the actual gray color of the table beneath the different biomes of low-lying “Crumbl” cookies and mesas of strawberry and chocolate cakes.
“I wasn’t expecting so many people to show up, especially since the event is asking for a lot,” Ly said. “I was really shocked; we had people wanting to buy tickets at the door.”
Elaborating on what the event was asking for, Ly said that not only were attendees paying for a ticket, but if they wanted to bring a treat, they must either buy the ingredients and make something from scratch or go out and buy a treat from a store, and then find a way to store it throughout the day until the event started at 6 p.m. For me, it was fun bringing my coffee cake to my classes and telling people about my cake-eating plans for later.
Ly began the picnic by discussing its purpose: to fundraise for a low-cost program, “Miles for Smiles,” associated with Texas A&M College of Dentistry’s Social Services Fund. The event raised over $400 to donate to this program, and Ly also reported that the club had been able to fundraise over $20,000 last month for the same fund. The first of its kind, the potluck was conceived from Ly’s own self-proclaimed sweet tooth, along with approval from a majority of club members.
Ly said, speaking to the audience of at least 50 official attendees, the people who chose the most expensive ticket for tasting got to go grab sweets first. Donning plastic gloves with a box in hand, attendees approached the tables of treats and began to collect whatever their stomachs desired. Attendees didn’t seem to initially go for any of the more “beautiful” treats, but rather the tables that were closer to them; the options each table offered were incomparable to the other tables. One table had tiramisu but the others didn’t; another one had matcha-flavored cupcakes and the others didn’t; one had my “skillfully” made coffee cake but the others, again, did not have anything resembling. Each table had its own world. The decision between two tables was like deciding between Hawaii or skiing for a vacation.
As attendees made the rounds and started to picnic on the green, everyone dug into their boxes of hodgepodge sweets, groups of friends laughed and determinedly tried to eat every bit of their hauls. But during the first wave of rounds, every person was extremely generous: picnic-goers didn’t swarm and get the largest slices or take multiple of the same cookies. Rather, they took very small amounts of food: cake slices were cut so thin they were transparent, cookies were halved and bite-sized portions of pastries were filling boxes. Most people tried to be gracious toward the people around them and the rounds of other potluck-goers to come. Even after multiple rounds, people didn’t become greedy or gluttonous with their box-filling; the idea of courtesy, even if you paid a larger amount to get in, was universal.
“I was really scared about this potluck because it depends on our attendees,” Ly said. “But I was very happy to see everyone act friendly and mindful.”
Ly noted that when he walked around to speak to attendees, he was showered in compliments and told how much fun the event was. But after the tasting, of course, came awards.
The awards section was split up, where the first award, “Most Beautiful Appearance,” was announced before tasting and the latter two, “Most Tasty” and “Fastest to Finish,” were announced after tasting. Ly told all picnic-goers they would vote for the first two contests while secretly, the organizers were observing for the third, “Fastest to Finish.”
Each attendee’s box held a green and pink sticker. The pink sticker was to be bestowed onto the most visually-appealing treat’s name card and the green sticker was given to the best-tasting treat. My coffee cake got a whopping three green stickers.
The winner for “Most Beautiful Appearance” was awarded to biomedical science junior Isabella Pitre’s “Strawberry-filled Vanilla and Matcha Cupcakes.” “Most Tasty” went to molecular biology freshman Katya Ernst’s “Honey Cake.” “Fastest to Finish” was awarded to healthcare studies senior Zainab Rehman’s tiramisu.
After the awards were announced and many tasting boxes had been cleaned through, Ly started to hand out tickets to all picnic-goers for a buy one get one free offer at the cake shop Nothing Bundt Cakes, as a token of appreciation for being a part of the event and the fundraiser. When I say “hand out,” I mean he gave my acquaintance and I tens of tickets to the point that I felt like a thief for taking so many. In my defense, he wanted me to have them, and I did sharethese offers with others instead of keeping them all to myself.
For Ly, his favorite treat was Ernst’s “Honey Cake,” for me, my favorite was, besides my coffee cake, the multi-tiered lemon and blueberry cake. But what Ly and I can both agree on is how successful this event was. He said he saw countless new faces, not just club members, in attendance, eager to gorge on sweets and raise funds.
“I think food is a way to connect to the people around us,” Ly said. “It was interesting to see how food can bring us together to support a better cause.”