If you open the fridge in Dodd House in the middle of the night, looking for a snack, you might expect to find a bowl of soggy cereal or some leftover spaghetti. Instead, you may come face-to-face with a severed pig’s head — courtesy of Leonardo Maiuolo ’27, one of the College’s most dedicated student chefs.
Dining options at the College are, as most students know, limited. With just three dining halls — one of which primarily serves dinner on weekdays — and few easily accessible alternatives beyond the pricey restaurants on Spring Street, access to food can feel constrained. In the face of these limitations, many students have leaned into their love of cooking, finding creative and resourceful ways to pursue their passion for food.
Olivia Johnson ’26, who cooks regularly and is training to be a professional chef, noted this disparity in access to food and cooking resources. “There’s also very little access to food for students, particularly low-income students or students who can’t afford to go to Wild Oats for their groceries every single day,” Johnson added.
“On one hand, there’s huge agricultural and culinary potential,” she said. “And on the other there’s a lived experience of Williams students — and maybe more importantly, Bennington, Williamstown, and North Adams residents.”
Although not all students are planning to be professional chefs like Johnson, many have fostered their interest in cooking at the College. Maiuolo, a member of both the football and wrestling teams, often makes meals for his teammates in Dodd’s kitchen. “I’m known as Chef Leo around these parts,” he joked in an interview with the Record. “I really like to care for others, provide for others. I like that cooking is a way I show my love for other people.”
The story of the pig head — bought from the local Cricket Creek Farm — begins with Maiuolo’s time on the football team. “I stumbled upon it because one of the guys on the football team said they had raw milk,” he said.
After Maiuolo’s first visit to Cricket Creek Farm, he quickly became a regular. “You get to pet cows there, you get to pet a bunch of pigs, [and] you see chickens walking around,” he said. “I’m really into the outdoors, and I love animals, so I kind of fell in love with it.”
Soon, Maiuolo realized Cricket Creek Farm was more than just a place to pet animals — it was a hub of local fresh meats and produce for his cooking. “I realized they had a great selection of local artisan cheeses, very high quality meat, liver, and heart,” he said. “One day, I was sifting through their freezer box … and I stumbled across the pig head. I had no idea they sold it, so [I was] like, ‘Wow, I have to cook this.’”
Maiuolo immediately got to work on the pig head in Dodd kitchen. “I ended up cooking it for the other sophomore wrestlers,” he said. “I slow-baked it in an oven for like five and a half hours, and then we made tacos with it… It was amazing.”
Maiuolo catalogues his unique culinary endeavors on a dedicated Instagram account. “I just started snapping a few-second clips throughout my day [and] stitching them together,” he said.
One of Maiuolo’s most frequently-featured creations is his homemade ice cream, which he makes in flavors ranging from cottage cheese to boiled egg. “I have a Ninja CREAMi, so I’ll make some healthy recipes and some more indulgent recipes for the guys,” he added.
Despite the culinary limitations of dorm lifestyles, Maiuolo is one of many student chefs using campus kitchens to create tasty creations. Quin Repetto ’28, who discovered their love of baking at the College, focuses on breads rather than pig heads. They credit a baking course this Winter Study with igniting their love for the craft. “We did a lot of stuff in that class that I then tried to repeat in the [Davis Center] on my own time,” they said.
Repetto especially enjoyed learning to bake baguettes. “I’ve done multiple sessions where I just bake as many baguettes as I can, and then pass them out to people,” they said. “There was one time that I accidentally made 12 baguettes instead of six… I’d text people and ask them, ‘Hey, do you want new bread?’ And then just show up to their room with bread and give it to them.”
“Cooking is really about community for me, and that’s what it’s proved so far,” Repetto added.
For many students, cooking is also a way to connect with the local community beyond the College. The Williamstown area and its farms are a great place for culinary resources, according to Maiuolo. “All the meat in the local farms here, at least the vast majority of it, it’s 100 percent grass-finished, pasture-raised,” he said. “It’s not only great for the health, and sustainable for the environment, we’re also supporting local businesses.”
Despite their love of independent cooking, the student chefs expressed admiration and gratitude for the dining hall staff. “[Cooking] definitely gives me more of an appreciation for what goes into preparing a meal, and especially for the dining hall workers … making all that food for all those people,” Repetto said.
Johnson is also impressed with the dining hall staff. “The dining halls and the dining hall crew do a really incredible job,” she said. “I think it’s an unbelievably tall order to put out the quantity and quality of food that they do every single day, basically year-round.”
