Boyish Charm is the campus cooking show that started in September 2024 by Logan Denen and Gabe Davis, both PLU students and interns. They created the show as a way to engage with the PLU pantry and show the available resources, located inside the Wellbeing Services and Resources (WSR). Denen explains, “By talking about the resources WSR has available, it makes it so there’s less of a stigma around what we do.”
Davis chooses the meal that will be cooked on the show, while Denen primarily does the cooking. The pantry gets deliveries every other week, and WSR gets the list of items that are going to be in the pantry. “I think about what would go together easily, whether it’s a meal that’s more common, or something a little more random,” Davis explains.
Boyish Charm got its name from an occurrence that happened at Jersey Mike’s sandwich shop, where WSR hosts an annual fundraiser. During one of the yearly fundraisers, every WSR staff member’s name was asked for except for Denen’s. Dean of Students Dr. Eva Frey responded, “Wow, it must be because of your boyish charm.” Denen explains that he thought it was funny and Boyish Charm stuck because the pair is silly and identifies with it. The name used to be Cooking with Boyish Charm, but was shortened as they expanded outside of food.
PJ Morales, MSW student and intern, says that her favorite part of Boyish Charm is breaking the stigma against mental health and spreading the resource of the pantry. “For the past two or three years, the pantry has been about breaking the stigma that it is ok to come and get food,” Morales explains. According to Denen, he enjoys doing it with his best friends. He couldn’t dream of anything better than being able to create a program where he’s uplifting the student body while doing it with the people he cares about. It doesn’t feel like work for Davis. The hardest part for him is deciding what to make, the rest is fun. Davis says, “It’s uplifting and getting the support that students need in a more accessible way. It’s fun to do while pushing it out to students. There are a lot of laughs, and we get to joke as much as we want.”
When they are not streaming, they are posting shorts and reels on their Instagram (@pluboyishcharm). Boyish Charm live streams on Instagram every second and fourth Thursday of every month. The pantry gets deliveries every second and fourth Tuesday of every month. The hope is to create a safe, welcoming space to take from the pantry.
