Page 3 - The Beacon - Pi Lambda Phi MIT - Fall 2018

PI LAM GOES CHEF-LESS, BROTHERS COOK FOR THE HOUSE

Due to general dissatisfaction with his food, ’19 put together a sous vide steakhouse. If you so that the brothers can still get together for
the brothers decided that we would not be don’t know already, sous vide is a technique dinner.
employing our chef, Chef John, again this for cooking that makes use of a heated water
semester. Rather than begin the search for bath, kept precisely at a given temperature. Given the success of this new venture, we have
someone to fill the position, we decided to use Using this method, Philip was able to cook the no plans to look for a chef in the near future,
this as an opportunity to try something new. steaks to a perfectly pink medium rare. It’s safe and will most likely be looking for ways to ex-
For the fall semester, every Sunday night, a to say this meal was better than anything past pand this program. It is likely that we will set
team of brothers cooked dinner for the house. chefs have served us. a goal to cook two, or even three, meals per
We’ve found that not only has the improve- week, and see if we can find a way to balance
ment in meal quality brought more brothers to One of our largest concerns with cooking was this commitment with schoolwork.
the house, but the cooking itself has proven to if we would be able to keep it up throughout
be a valuable experience that brings brothers the semester. We were worried that as the Moving forward, we would like to work on in-
together. semester got busier, it would become increas- volving more brothers in the act of cooking—a
ingly difficult to find a few hours on a Sunday fair amount of brothers have not yet partici-
We’ve particularly relished the freedom to afternoon to put together a meal. But thank- pated. With more uniform involvement across
design menus ourselves. The brothers have fully, this hasn’t actually been a problem so far, the brotherhood, it seems likely that cooking
enjoyed meals that range from home-style and we’ve even been—on average—exceeding together and for one another will prove to be a
Mexican cuisine from Jason Santillan ’21, to our goal of one cooked meal a week. However, viable long-term solution for our dining needs.
soul food from Ben Wang ’19. One particularly on the weeks where we are unable to cook,
memorable experience was when Philip Sun we’ve order a catered, delivered meal instead, —Ben Wang ’19, Steward

For this segment, of a diverse range
we’ll take a look of subjects proved SENIOR
at the experience a boon for him JOSHUA XIONG
of Josh Xiong academically, and SPOTLIGHT
’19, who will be that year he was
graduating this accepted to MIT.
upcoming spring.
Josh is a member of Josh joined Pilam in the fall of his freshman
Video Game Orchestra at MIT. Josh is revered year, and quickly demonstrated an impres-
among the sive range of talents and extracurriculars.
brothers as an extraordinarily accomplished In the pledge program, he showcased his
scholar, athlete, and musician. To demon- ability to rap and play saxophone. He joined
strate this, we’ve directed our pledges to Asian Dance Team and Video Game Orchestra,
refer to Josh as a “general legend,” indicating which plays songs from the soundtracks clas-
that he is immensely talented at seemingly sic video games like the Legend of Zelda and
everything he does. Mario. As a brother, he played for Pilam’s ulti-
mate Frisbee, billiards, and dodge ball teams,
Josh grew up in Boxborough, Massachusetts, and brought our billiards team to victory in Josh performing with the Asian Dance Team
and attended Acton-Boxborough High School spring 2016. He’s served as our KOE for the
(A-B). There, he competed in “quiz bowl,” a last two years, one of the most demanding
Jeopardy-like interscholastic trivia competi- positions in the house. And, of course, Josh ing on a linguistic relativity project in Ted
tion. For this, Josh needed to be prepared to is also a leader on MIT’s intercollegiate quiz Gibson’s psycholinguistics lab, and he has pre-
answer questions on nearly any topic, thus, bowl team, which won gold at the Intercolle- viously done a research project on decision-
he learned about topics ranging from theo- giate Championship Tournament in 2016. making in mice in Ann Graybiel’s neuroscience
retical physics to popular culture. While A-B lab. He is expected to graduate in the spring
never performed particularly well in national Academically, Josh is double majoring in and take a gap year before pursuing a gradu-
quiz bowl leagues, Josh’s talent stood out, Course 18C (mathematics with computer ate program in computational neuroscience.
and in 2015, he was named an all-star for the science) and Course 9 (brain and cognitive
High School National Championship Tourna- sciences). Passionate about neuroscience re- —Jason Santillan ’21
ment. Josh’s almost encyclopedic knowledge search throughout MIT, he is currently work- Marshal

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