Month: August 2016

Eating is one of the great pleasures of life, but home cooking can pose many challenges without the right instruction, and it’s often difficult to find easy-to-prepare recipes. Health4U brings cooking know-how right to you with two on-campus instructional sessions: Kitchen Skill Drill and Recipe for Health Cooking Series. These instructional sessions are held on campus from 12:10 to 12:50 p.m., approximately once a month. They are presented by Health4U Nutritionist Peggy Crum and demonstrated by Corporate Chef for Culinary Services Kurt Kwiatkowski.

Kitchen Skill Drill demonstrations are held in the community kitchen in McDonel Hall. Chef Kurt will show you how to best perform a specific skill in the kitchen, such as grilling or knife safety. The session is free, and you get to sample the delicious food prepared in the kitchen. The next demonstration will be on September 20.

Recipe for Health Cooking Series demonstrations are held in the Brody Square Demonstration Kitchen. Chef Kurt demonstrates a recipe featured in the Recipe for Health Newsletter that comes out every month. These recipes revolve around a specific ingredient such as cheese, peanut butter or apples. Make sure you check out the upcoming demonstration on potatoes on Wednesday, August 10!

You must pay to enter the dining hall. Read and watch past newsletters and Livestream video of the demonstrations.

So take a well-deserved break in your day for some personalized cooking instruction. Ask questions, sample delicious food and learn a thing or two about healthy cooking that is easier than you think!

Whether you’re new to MSU or you’ve been on campus for awhile, you might be happy to know that there are a lot of very bike-friendly facilities and services that are available to help make your bicycling more convenient, as well as to encourage more people to ride bikes on and to/from campus for their commute.

Ten years ago, the university established a full-service bike center know as the MSU Bikes Service Center, in the old canoe rental facility in the south-end of Bessey Hall, which is centrally located on campus. The Center offers a complete range of repairs, rentals and sales of new and used bikes, as well as accessories to keep you and your bike rolling safely. Visit the MSU Bikes website for more information. The Center is staffed by university employees and is open year-round, on weekdays from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Feel free to bring your bike inside when visiting for service. Click here for visitor car parking information and here for a map showing where we’re located.

Parking your bike outside while at work can be worrisome, especially if you ride a nicer bike. Thankfully, in addition to well over 8,000 outdoor bike parking racks outside every building on campus, there are secure bike parking garages in two locations: north and south in the car parking ramps on Trowbridge Road (Ramp 5) and on Grand River Avenue (Ramp 6). These parking facilities are membership-based and managed through the Center.

Concerned about showing up to work all sweaty? Free, dedicated full-size lockers and showers are available to bike commuters at the IM Circle. These lockers normally cost over $100/year to rent, but they’re free for your use by simply completing a short survey and providing your basic information.

Ever been out on campus riding and needed a common tool or an air pump to tweak your bike? We now have five new DIY bike stations around campus, one in each residential neighborhood.

Not sure which route to take to/from home in the Tri-County area? These maps show recommended routes and those to avoid, as well as all of the off-road pathways scattered around the area to help you find a safer way to, from and around campus. The Center stocks printed copies of these map booklets if you’d like a hard copy.

To learn where all of the on-campus bike facilities (bike lanes, secure bike parking, DIY repair stations, etc.) can be found, check out our current bike map of campus. More resources to help make your bicycling experience more enjoyable on and around the MSU campus can be found on the Commuter Resources section of our blog.