Minnesota native Kayla Schmelz is an Instagram celebrity making a name for herself as the owner of the Instagram account, @thecollegedish, which features fresh and unique dishes that are simple to make for college students! With nearly 10,000 followers since June of 2015, she has taken the Instagram platform by storm. If you don’t follow her, I suggest you open up a new tab and follow her here this second! Here is a word from the social media celebrity herself…
My name is Kayla Schmelz, a senior biology major and nutrition minor at the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota. When I’m not at dance practice, or studying for a test, you can find me in the kitchen updating my food blog, “The College Dish,” a food blog geared towards college students, and inspiring them to cook.
My interest in creating a food blog has stemmed from a longtime love of cooking. Some of my favorite days as a child involved helping my mom in the kitchen; specifically, licking any batter filled bowl I could find. By ten years old, my favorite shows were found on Food Network and if I wasn’t watching that, I was re-watching episodes from my Rachael Ray box sets. While it seemed odd at the time that one of my greatest childhood passions was learning to cook, I could not be more thankful for this knowledge as a now, college student.
I’m a strong believer that today’s high-schoolers and college students are the next generation of parents, educators, and even dinner party hosts—learning to cook is important, especially in college. More importantly, with diet related illnesses so prevalent in today’s society, it is critical for young people to take control of their own health. I believe that one way to do this is to spark an interest in cooking with fresh ingredients, eliminating the need for drive-through dinners or sodium packed Ramen for every meal.
With this in mind, I set forth to create an Instagram based cooking blog with college students in mind. My blog, “The College Dish” launched in June of 2015, working to present simple, yet delicious recipes that college students would be able to manage with limited time, money and space. I hoped to inspire students to think outside of the box and find that healthy eating can be achieved on a college budget, and even from a dorm room equipped with nothing but a mini fridge and microwave.
Now only a few months old, The College Dish has grown from a small following of my close family and friends, to nearly 10,000 followers from more than 300 universities around the country. It’s exciting to me that the interest I hoped would be present in inspiring college students to cook, is most definitely there! It has been so much fun turning one of my greatest passions into something I can share with others!
Taking your passion from idea to reality is something Kayla executes perfectly. She is an inspiration to college students all around the world, that you too can achieve a healthy lifestyle if you just set your mind to it! Don’t forget to follow Kayla’s account here!