Farm to School Fair

Pat Lanni of Lanni Orchards in Lunenberg, MA speaking to a student

While most schools were on summer break this past July, the Perkins School for the Blind in Somerville, MA was still in session and held it’s first Farm-To-School fair.  I’ve never been to a farm-to-school fair before.  While I was there as a volunteer greeter, I was also there to watch and learn.  

Holding a Farm-to-School Fair is one way to introduce a school community to local agriculture and generate support and interest for farms to work with schools.  

At Perkins, students, staff, and parents sampled just-picked cucumbers and tomatoes with basil puree; they tasted juicy peaches, blueberries and golden raspberries; they sipped on cool mint tea while making mint tea bags at the Hands-On Herb table. 

Can't wait for winter to be over! 

Getting a better burger to school

On my top ten list of things to replace on my school lunch menu is our burgers.  Of course, it’s hard to replace the thaw-and-serve version – it’s inexpensive, easy to prepare, and kids generally like it.

Last spring, I heard that a nearby school district is serving antibiotic and hormone-free burgers traceable to local farms.  I was very much intrigued.  It turns out the food service director works with a local fast food chain, b.good, which brings their burgers to her schools. 

Breaking the stereotypes about fast food, b.good is one of many fast food restaurants that aim to serve quality food at a reasonable price point.  (Let’s see, there’s also Chipotle, Ugrill, and my very own establishment, Bon Me Truck.  More about this trend, and shameless self-promotion about my food truck to come in a future post.)  When I went to my neighborhood b.good earlier this school year, I had a buffalo burger and roasted cauliflower.  Not your typical fast-food grub, right?  While B.good serves food, fast (in under 5 minutes) it isn’t the scary, over-processed foods people typically associate with fast food.  The buns are made with whole grains.  The meat in locally-sourced, and they’re transparent about their process.    

B.good came to my school back in November.  It was wildly popular.  Because my school has an all-you-can-eat-policy, some students took full advantage of this (five burgers, yikes!).

How doe it work? B.good comes by truck stocked with burgers, a grill, and staff to cook and fully assemble the burgers for lunch.  My staff didn’t need to prepare a main meal that day.  

What b.good is doing with schools is an interesting approach to providing quality burgers, a school lunch staple, to schools.  My kitchen can’t handle making burgers from scratch at this moment, so it was a nice treat for everyone at my school.  However, the cost of b.good burgers is astronomical compared to the cost of serving burgers thaw-and-serve.  Not only is my school paying for better quality raw ingredients but we’re outsourcing the labor involved in producing a main meal even as we already have staff set up to do that work.

Some public schools in Boston work with b.good good regularly.  They make it work by charging a little more for the meal, and  other lunch options often get a boost in sales, like drinks, when serving such a meal.  At my school, where lunch is all-you-can-eat, I generally can’t reconcile the huge additional cost to the budget.   

Homemade mac n’ cheese for 500

My kitchen is serving homemade macaroni and cheese for the whole school this Thursday.  I thought it would be informative to share the process by which a menu item is transformed from thaw and serve to homemade.  

Previously, we used a frozen, full-fat version and cut it with extra whole grain pasta.  This Thursday, we will make our own sauce and mix it with 50 pounds of Barilla Plus elbow macaroni.  To get a head start, we'll boil the pasta the day before so that we have stove space to make the sauce come Thursday morning. 

I based my recipe off of one from the Massachusetts Farm to School Project cookbook because it's a lower-fat bulk recipe.  I also heard of using cauliflower puree as a way of adding body to the sauce while sneaking in a vegetable.  I ordered a case of twelve heads of cauliflower just for this purpose. 

I tested a mini recipe a few weeks ago at home.  My husband, a mac and cheese connoisseur, approved of the lower-fat, whole grain version.  The pictures on this post are from my home batch. 

Will students approve of the new homemade macaroni and cheese?  Stay tuned for a post about Thursday's meal!    

  

  

Hello, Change!

New lunch favorite: chicken tacos w/ cheese and salsa 

Hi All, Happy New Year! Sorry it's been such a long time since my last post.  For the last three months, I've been quite busy: I got married, and I'm preparing to open my own food business this spring.  However, I would like to continue blogging about school lunch.  

30 pounds of locally-sourced roasted butternut squash

Change is the current theme in my school kitchen, and my six-person staff is accustomed (and perhaps a bit wary) of this.  As the new director of food services, I have implemented some drastic changes.  I'm proud of how far the kitchen has come in five months, and I'd like to share the successes and failures.         

Chicken and veggie stir-fry, a tough dish to make for 500

So, here's a preview of some future blog entries that will be coming your way: 
-lessons learned at a School Nutrition Association conference

-making homemade mac and cheese 

-working with a local burger company to bring well-raised and locally-source burgers to my school

-the search for quality processed products

-testing and standardizing recipes for 500 

-and of course, lots of pictures and info about changes to my school lunch menu, including menu items pictured above

Baked Potatoes

Baked potatoes are a wonderful, hearty school lunch food for the winter months.  Preschoolers and adults like them, and they can be dressed up in so many ways to make a fun meal.  Our salad bar morphs into a baked potato bar for the day, and I’ve found that it’s been very easy to upgrade the fixins: 

Last year, defrosted chopped broccoli

This year, fresh, chopped broccoli, blanched, and bright green

Last year, sour cream

This year, sour cream mixed with fat-free plain yogurt (and no one even knows!)

Last year, dried powder chives

This year, sliced fresh scallions

Last year, potatoes wrapped in foil

This year, no foil (500 fewer pieces of foil in a trash and less work for the kitchen.  The one negative about no foil is that the potatoes don’t stay as hot once out of the oven.)  

Here are some other things we continue to served on the bar (and possibilities for future upgrades): bacon bits (chopped bacon), shredded cheese, canned baked beans (lentil salad), chopped tomatoes, bottled salsa (house-made salsa). 

Small changes

Improving the menu this year has been all about making small changes rather than drastic ones.  For example, we still serve hot dogs, but instead of the usual accompaniment of rice and beans from a boxed mix, we made a brown rice, carrot, and raisin salad.  The recipe we used is based off of one from the “Recipes for Schools” section of the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution website.   

We baked off a pan of brown rice and tossed it with shredded carrots, raisins, and sliced scallions for a bit of color.  Then we mixed the salad with a sweet and sour dressing of orange juice, honey, and mustard.  We served our salad hot.  Some of the older students were really skeptical about it but then admitted they liked it after they tried it.  To find the recipe on Jamie's website, click on the link above and click on the Recipes with Menu Planner pdf.      

On a side note: Many a thanks to our school nurse and nutrition director, Beth. She printed out copies of all the School Revolution recipes and brought them along to a meeting when we were writing the November menu.  The last two months have been really hectic in the kitchen, but when  there are others trying to help me improve school lunch, it makes it that much easier :) 

November Menu

Can't read the items? See below for a close-up version

My kitchen is finally fully staffed, and I’ve got a new cook on board.  It means that we can truly begin the process of eliminating as much pre-processed foods from our main menu as possible.  Here’s the tentative menu for November.  You will see that there’s still an assortment of items on the menu that I can’t wait to remove, but one item at a time J

I’ve circled all items that we’ve improved, changed, or upgraded in one form or another this year.  Some changes are small, like substituting fresh veggies over frozen ones whereas larger changes are…an adventure!  At my school, our main meals are essentially buffet-style - students and staff can come up for as many helping of it as they like.  Whenever we serve a brand new item, we have to get ready for people coming back for seconds, thirds, or if they’re 6’5” basketball players on the varsity team, fourths! 

I will be writing in more detail about certain menu items.  I’ve got quite a lot to say.  Please few free to post questions about items.  

Composting, Finally!

Last April, I blogged about how my kitchen is spearheading our school’s composting program using Save That Stuff, a Boston-based waste management company.  Middle and upper schoolers “practiced” composting by separating compostable from trash during lunch, but the program didn’t take off because there was no supervision to make sure waste was going in the appropriate bins. 

We’re at it again, and I’m happy to report that we’re getting ready to send our first food waste to the composting facility this upcoming week.  This new year I was prepared with all the necessary tools to make it a success:  I made announcements to students and staff, sent out an informational email about composting, and recruited teacher volunteers to watch the bins during lunch time. 

Our composting bins in our cafeteria are lined with compostable bags, a necessary requirement to compost with Save that Stuff.  Composting isn’t cheap:  each bag costs about sixty-five cents, and the minimum cost to come pick up our compostable waste is $20.  However, trash pick-up in general is pretty expensive.  If our school is paying good money for trash removal, I’m glad that the cost is going towards compost rather than a landfill. 

Our very first bag of compost! 

As of now, our composting program doesn’t affect the work in my kitchen whatsoever.  Teacher watch the bins, and our maintenance department cares for the contents of the compost bins.  However, very shortly, kitchen food scraps such as cucumber peels, tomato stems and freezer burned food, will go into the compost bin too. 

Recruiting for the School Food Revolution: Hiring a Cook

I'm looking to hire for a new cook position in my school kitchen.  This might be the most important decision I make in terms of helping me improve the school menu, so I'm very excited.  Here's the ad I placed:

Part-time cook: Be Part of the School Food Revolution

Our private school is looking to improve school lunch and needs a part-time cook to help with that process.  If you watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and/or are interested in being part of the new school food movement, this is your chance. We’re looking for a recent culinary school grad or someone with a couple of years of restaurant experience. So, some professional kitchen experience is necessary but we’re willing to train the right person. We’re looking for a cook that is professional, has good communication skills, and is flexible with duties. Day to day work will vary depending on the menu and our in-house catering needs. For example, one day might be spent slicing and prepping chicken sausages and peppers for a lunch of whole grain pasta with sausage and peppers sauce, working on a catering event, performing inventory duties, and helping out with our salad bar. Each day is different.

I’ve gotten quite a variety of resumes, including a school kitchen veteran, a home cook passionate about improving the state of school lunch, and someone with a Masters degree in Food and Agriculture wanting real-world experience.  I’ve already scheduled a few interviews for Monday.   

VOTE FOR MY FOOD TRUCK!

The City of Boston is holding a food truck contest for interesting, local, and sustainable food concepts.  The prize is a spot for a truck to sell on City Hall during lunchtime next spring.  I had to enter because I love food trucks and the scope of the contest is right up my alley.  I came up with BON ME, a truck serving the following: Vietnamese-inspired sandwiches, noodles, and rice bowls; Massachusetts-grown vegetable side dishes; homemade drinks, all served in bio-based containers.  Working in a school kitchen certainly helps me with this contest.  Everything I know about local produce and environmentally-friendly containers comes from working in my school kitchen. J

BON ME is currently a semi-finalist in this contest!  To determine the finalists, Boston is holding an online vote that is taking place right now thru Friday.  So, PLEASE, vote for my food truck, BON ME!  Thanks!!   

To vote, go to the following website, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click "Vote Now."

 http://www.cityofboston.gov/business/foodtruckchallenge/vote.asp

Brave New Lunch is Back in Business

So many exciting things are happening in my school kitchen right now that I can’t wait to blog about!  I intended on starting up earlier but have been slammed at work.  The kitchen crew is down two members.  The five of us here are working extra hard, especially because we’re going full force into changing the menu with new and healthy offerings.

Here are some things we’ve done so far: 

-We served watermelon for dessert last Thursday for the first time at my school.  It was a hit!  

-We now use a delicious tomato sauce made with pronounceable ingredients, including carrot puree.   Really tasty AND healthy.  

-We replaced our white baguettes with cracked wheat baguettes for sandwiches.  There was one first grader who was quite upset because she "only likes white bread."  She will eventually get used to our brown bread.    

TOMORROW: I’m going to post about what I’ve been working on over the summer and ask for some help from you readers;) 

Recipe: Smoothie

Wouldn't smoothies be a wonderful snack option at school, especially when the days are still warm?  Smoothies can be packed with ingredient rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and protein.  They're perfect for a quick break.  I made a smoothie 2 weeks ago to “test” it out, and I enjoyed it so much I’ve had one almost everyday since. 

 

I start with a base recipe of non-fat plain yogurt, orange juice, and frozen, ripe bananas, which I accumulate in my freezer since they’re nice to have around for banana bread, (or now, for smoothies).  Next, I add whatever fruit I have on hand.  Last week I used strawberries, today mango.  Everything goes into a large measuring cup, and I buzz it with my immersion stick blender until smooth.      

    

For two one-cup servings, use about ¾ cup of yogurt, half cup of orange juice, and one large banana.  For today’s mango smoothie, I scooped out the flesh of half a large mango.  The smoothie was so sweet, I threw in a dozen cranberries from my freezer.  As you can see, the recipe is extremely free-form and you can adjust ingredients and their quantities as you see fit. 

Local peaches are available from my local farm in September, so they will surely make it into my school smoothies then.  I bet they’ll sell out during snack time.  

Strawberry Season

The last time I went strawberry picking must have been over twenty years ago when I was no more than five years old.  It was a family trip, and my brothers and I had a blast running between rows of strawberries and, of course, sampling just plucked berries.  To celebrate the summer and the end of the school year, I decided to go strawberry picking with my fiance, just for fun.  And it was!   

Bring your family to one of the pick-your-own-farms in Massachusetts (or wherever you live) this summer– it’s a great way for kids to see where food comes from while supporting local agriculture.  Plus, many farms are family-friendly and have playgrounds, ride, and tours just for kids.  

Brave New Lunch On JamieOliver.com

Jamie's Food Revolution has made my job of improving school lunch easier because people are finally talking about school lunch and treating it as an important issue.  I support Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and have signed Jamie's petition.  ( You can too.)

Recently I was asked to write an article about Brave New Lunch for Jamie Oliver's website.  Click here to read it.

Allergies and Lunch, Part 2

Gluten-free and lactose-free products

Our lunch program

 All students participate in our lunch program with the exception of our youngest students with severe allergies.  Their parents may bring in food for their lunches, and the school nurse takes care of preparing this food - from assembling a gluten-free corn taco to baking a lactose-free pizza in the oven.  Playing short-order cook is a lot of work for the nurse, who also works the cafeteria making sure our young students are eating food on their plates.    

If students are old enough to take responsibility of their allergies – sometime in middle school - they resume participation in school lunch and simply avoid food items that cause reactions.  For example, we serve hummus on our salad bar and place bread with sesame seeds in our bread box, even though several students have sesame allergies. 

Working with allergies

Among parents, teachers, kitchen staff, and the nurse, my school will work together to make sure student allergies in the 2010-2011 year are properly and effectively addressed.  We already know of new students with some severe allergies, including tuna-fish and gluten allergies.  Although we aren’t planning to remove these items from our cafeteria (and in fact, it would be practically impossible in the case of gluten, found in wheat), we will work with these students to see how they may be as safe and as well fed as other students.  The kitchen may begin stocking a few gluten-free and lactose-free foods in our packed-to-the-brim freezer.  We might move tuna, a mainstay on our deli bar, to an isolated spot in the cafeteria to prevent cross-contamination with other foods.     

Keeping all parties informed is critical in handling the ever-increasing number and types of food allergies.  Our nurse assembles a master list of students with allergies each school year for school staff.  The kitchen staff refers to this list frequently.  Even though there is plenty of adult supervision in school, allergy attacks may occur despite precautions.  Parents need to teach their children with allergies to be discerning with what they put in their mouths, especially when they aren’t familiar with the food. 

As you can see, there is no simple way of handling allergies.  Each case requires a lot of time and individual attention of the school staff.  

Allergies and Lunch

Banned from school

Today, many kids have allergies, and schools must deal with them.  A few years ago, a young student’s airway started closing up and the school nurse gave her an Epi-pen shot.  This student is extremely allergic to peanuts.  Althought she didn’t ingest any nuts, the nurse believes this student accidently exposed herself to it while in the cafeteria.  As a result of this severe anaphylaxis reaction, my school banned all nuts on campus.

Allergies are scary for students and schools.  Parents don’t want food in their school cafeterias that could impart harm, or even death, to their kids.  Schools don’t want this either.  When it’s just a few ingredients like nuts, schools can find substitutes.  The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we make for lunch are actually sunflower seed butter and jelly sandwiches.  My kitchen carefully screens all new products and even foods we order for catered special events.  Too often we find nuts as garnishes or just hidden in the middle of a long ingredient list.

But what’s the right balance between accommodating one student at the expense of everyone else?  Nuts are a great source of protein and certain vitamins and nutrients, particularly for vegetarians.  It’s quite unfortunate for them. 

***
Next post: How my school is planning around allergies next year 

Desserts

School lunch desserts are a thorn in my side.  A parent requested 100% juice popsicles for lunch.  Unfortunately, the only ones we found were twice the size of our normal 1.6 oz bars and correspondingly twice the calories and sugar.  A vendor gave my cafeteria samples of new whole-wheat cookies made just for schools.  The cookies tasted awful and were loaded with more preservatives and sugar than comparable normal cookies.  The “better” dessert eludes me.            

Here’s what we serve for dessert: 

2 x a week:  Frozen treats – fudge bars, ice cream sandwiches, Italian ices, creamsicle etc.  

1 x a week: Canned peaches, pineapple or pears in juice or fresh fruit such as grapes and oranges 

1 x week: Baked goods such as cookies, cake or brownies

1 x week: miscellaneous desserts - jello, pudding or an extra baked good

Dessert in moderation is a perfectly nice way to end a meal.  Some schools have banned desserts from cafeterias all together.   My school hasn’t gone there yet though it might in the future.  Next year, I’d like to offer a wider variety of fresh fruit – and more often - especially when it’s in season.  I bet strawberries from our local farm make a great last-day-of-school dessert.      

Model School Food Program in Marblehead

I know there are schools that cook meals from scratch in their own kitchens.  Last week, I finally saw such a school first-hand.  Laura De Santis, Nutrition Director at the Marblehead Community Charter Public School in Marblehead, MA let me spend a day with her and her staff.    

 The day’s lunch menu: chicken and veggie curry over rice and lentils.  Included in the price of lunch are the salad bar and dessert, today, a banana and blueberry cake.   Did I mention that the curry did not come out of a can, nor was it reconstituted from a flavor packet, but the kitchen staff made it using real, raw ingredients?  Same goes for the dessert made with whole grain oats and fresh blueberries.      

I asked Laura, “What’s the best way to get kids to buy into the lunch program?”   The students, 4^th – 8^th graders, would happily eat pepperoni pizza, chicken nuggets, and fries for every meal, so getting them excited about healthier foods is a challenge.  Although Laura often gives out samples of foods to students who are apprehensive about trying something new, the integration of the kitchen and food in the school community fosters trust in the food and open-mindedness not often seen in schools.

Nutrition Director, Laura DeSantis, and volunteer, David Stein

Out of a French cooking class Laura taught came a French school lunch complete with crepes, Nicoise salad, and ratatouille.  When students read the book “Three Cups of Tea,” teachers worked with Laura to make a Pakistani curry, similar to the one I enjoyed during my visit, and chai tea for lunch.  This interplay of food and curriculum gives students a context for appreciating food and culture. 

   

The cafeteria isn’t just a place where kids shovel food in their mouths, it’s a vibrant part of the school community.  Parents volunteer in the kitchen, and the business manager helps serve meals.  After lunch, students do the bulk of the cleaning: they wash the dishes, tables, salad bar, and main meal line! Need I say more?

A student clearing ice out of the salad bar

New Position

My school kitchen

My school finally offered me the position of food service director!  I bet most of you assumed I was the director already.  I’ve had some authority to make improvements over the last two years, but it’s been quite limited.  I am currently a co-director, and I share the responsibility of running the kitchen with the other co-director.  One month I run it, the other month she runs it.  Strange, isn’t it?  There’s a very long story behind it.  My co-director is retiring after forty years at my school, and I’ve been busily figuring out how to bring a better lunch to my school.  This is the first time I will really be able to make vast changes to our meals, so I’m trying to learn everything I can now to be ready when the next school year begins.   

As part of the learning process, I've contacted all of our vendors and told them we're trying to serve better food.  Do they have less processed items that might fit with our goal of serving healthier foods?  I'm still looking for a corn tortilla without all the strange additives.  I'm visiting several schools with good food programs to pick the brains of their directors and see other kitchens and cafeterias in action.  Several of them suggestion that getting students involved when introducing new foods to the menu is the best way to get students excited for healthy improvements.  I've also sadly realized how small my school kitchen is compared to other schools :( 

FYI: I'm sorry posting has been very infrequent lately.  I've been very busy at work and just started exercising in the evenings.  I will be posting a little more often now, as my 2nd job as a private chef has ended for the school year and won't resume until the fall.      

MA Farm to School Conference

I attended the Massachusetts Farm to School Project “Shoptalk” conference a couple weeks ago, which featured speakers that are successfully integrating local farm produce into schools. 

I’ve always wondered how large school districts start up their programs, and I got to hear from a few different schools, including Boston, the largest in MA.  Boston has 135 schools in its district, and getting local food is a lot more complicated than getting it, say, to my small independent school.  While Boston initially contacted a farm with an interest in purchasing, getting the produce to all of their schools would take too much time for one farm.  To work around the logistics, they found a produce delivery company that was already trucking produce into Boston.  However, Boston wanted to ensure that they were getting local produce from the farm they picked out and not items from far away.  This delivery company began labeling all boxes so that they could distinguish one farm from another.  What a great idea!

I also happily listened to Ken Watts of Johnson and Wales University, which runs a top culinary school in the country.   Johnson and Wales not only uses local produce in their school in Rhode Island, it is educating the next generation of chefs about it.  I graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, and when I attended, local produce wasn’t emphasized in classes despite its close proximity to farms.  A look on their website and I see that a lot has changed since I went to school!

I left the conference completely inspired and with a list of contacts (including contact for Four Star Farms , which grows and mills its own grains right here in MA) and a bag brimming with information (including a link to Somerville Public School’s guide to How To Hold Cafeteria Taste Tests when introducing new foods to students - scroll to the bottom of the page to download the pdf).