PEERS and Chartwells Host “Cooking to Bulk” Class
Image courtesy of Trinity Johnson.
By Anthony Curioso
The CUA PEERS chapter hosted a cooking class on November 10 in Great Room A at the Pryzbyla Center, in partnership with Chartwells, the on-campus dining contractor. This event was part of PEERS’ event series commemorating November as “Healthy Masculinity Month.”
The PEERS representatives facilitating the class came from the organization’s healthy relationships, healthy masculinity, and healthy femininity team, which is a group of students who aim to educate the broader CUA community on how to build and maintain healthy relationships.
Named Cooking to Bulk with Chartwells, the class aimed to teach men on the CUA campus how to prepare a simple one-pot meal: chicken and rice.
PEERS information pamphlets on Healthy Masculinity Month defined healthy masculinity as “[embracing] a more fluid definition of masculinity that empowers individuals to live authentically and contribute positively to the world,” as an alternative to conformity with stereotypical expectations of manhood. The Cooking to Bulk class promoted healthy masculinity by challenging the common stereotype that women should be the only ones to cook in a household.
Emma Bonney, a sophomore majoring in politics, served as one of the PEERS facilitators for the Cooking to Bulk class. Last spring, she was the student facilitator for a Mardi Gras celebration hosted by the office previously known as the Center for Cultural Engagement (CCE), where she provided homemade gumbo.
The individuals representing Chartwells at the Cooking to Bulk class were Mason Velez, the campus dietitian, and Gustavo, a cook in the Garvey Dining Hall. Velez was the primary individual responsible for demonstrating the recipe used in the class, as he has extensive culinary expertise from working with Michelin-starred chefs before joining CUA’s Dining Services staff via Chartwells at the beginning of the Fall 2025 semester.
Velez stated that cooking classes such as Cooking to Bulk are slated to become a monthly event, as part of a series run by Dining Services called “Teaching Kitchen.”
When attendees arrived for Cooking to Bulk, they were greeted by a long line of tables and chairs, three Bunsen burners and their pans, and all the ingredients needed to cook the chicken and rice dish. The dish appeared similar to the classic Mexican “arroz con pollo”, with the main difference being that the chicken was cut into cubes rather than served as one larger piece of meat with the rice.
Despite a few technical difficulties with the burners, every participant in the Cooking to Bulk class seemed to thoroughly enjoy the process of making the dish, and all were satisfied that they had made a delicious meal.
The next PEERS event, Breaking Barriers, will be a pop-up at the Nest event space on the third floor of the Pryzbyla Center, designed to build stronger connections among campus community members. This event will occur on Tuesday, November 18, beginning at 6 p.m.
