It started as a joke. We were trying to avoid the trend story. Of course, we made food our excuse to stop interviewing.

Every day at 11:25 a.m., we reminded each other that 1835 Hinman was going to open for lunch in five minutes.

Our main goal was beating the theatre and film cherubs to the dessert table. Their programs were twice the size of ours, and if we waited, we would have to battle through a swarm of teenagers for the last cookie.

The other programs started their lunches around noon, giving us 30 minutes to attack the dessert table. By the time the other cherubs arrived, we were already rating desserts on a scale of 1 to 10.

We always agreed the cookies were a 10. The cupcakes or brownies were never a guarantee, but the staff at Hinman always pulled through with the cookies.

If either of us went to the dessert table, we would bring two of everything. One for ourself and one for the other.

We weren’t in the same instructor group and didn’t live on the same floor, but we developed a friendship over food. Meal times were free of note taking and article writing, so we spent those minutes laughing and eating before running up the stairs of Fisk Hall to write our next article.

After two weeks, we noticed other people following our lead and attacking the dessert table in advance. The two of us realized that while trying to avoid writing our trend stories, we had started a trend of our own.

Sure, the food at Hinman is not world class. But for the two of us, it provided a starting point from which we cooked up a beautiful friendship.