I've always had a personal interest in teaching kids how to make healthy choices with their food and to educate the parents of said children on the importance of eating healthy, local and seasonally whenever possible. It just makes more sense. We have a lot of obese kids in the world because of the combination of video games, parents working two jobs to make ends meet and sedentary lives based on laziness and convenience. What happened to the old days when we played out side and had to be in by the time the street lights were on!? Eh, moving on...
The morning started off pretty early, around 8:00 am, at a Charlotte neighborhood public school's cafeteria. There were about 80 students, their teachers and a nutritionist from the local health department there, cameras in hand, to learn the difference between scratch made items and store bought.
I decided to keep it simple and show them how easy it is to make pasta and pesto sauce from
scratch. It was fun to see the kids faces when I passed around a little ball of dough for them to feel. A basil leaf was passed around for them to smell. We discussed the reason pesto is green (a lot of kids didn't know what fresh basil looked like, which kinda solidifies my point of how important it is to educate kids about food!) and made three types of pasta with my pasta machine. Rolling ravioli sheets and stuffing them with goat and ricotta cheeses, caramelized onions and Parmesan made a few kids say "ewww", lol.Fettuccine and angel hair were rolled out too, got a lot of "WOW"s for that. One kid yelled out that it looked like play dough, lol. At the end, I boiled the pastas up in salted boiling water and tossed them all lightly in the fresh pesto sauce. I sent it off to each of the classes and am not too sure on the kids reaction to the new food, but I can only be optimistic.
Off the kids went back to class, I cleaned up, had a chat with a few of the cafeteria workers and off I went. Funny thing, I was looking around in the kitchen at some of the food they were preparing for the students and it didn't really surprise me. Pre-formed breaded chicken patties thawing out on a speed rack, a worker was filling up cereal bowls with salty tortilla chips, another was cutting open boxes of chicken nuggets. I didn't see a vegetable or a fruit anywhere, sadly, but I can only hope they were just sitting in the walk-in coolers for later. On my way out the door, the cafeteria manager made an announcement over the intercom about a pizza special that week, which I can bet wasn't hand-tossed on wheat crust!
We, as chefs, really need to educate our local schools and show them how easy it is to create scratch made locally produced meals. I know that not only would the students enjoy it, but I know the cooks would have a lot more fun working with the freshest ingredients instead of opening so many cans or slacking frozen chicken. Sorry, that's my rant for today :)
They've asked me to come back in the winter and do another cooking demo and I'm really looking forward to it! We are also going to be working together on a garden in the spring, can't wait!
Also, at yet another school, we are making strides towards educating some of the local neighborhood kids about gardening, eating local and the importance of a balanced diet with a school in Davidson, NC. We met with a few of the faculty and plan to begin moving forward mid-November. This winter I will be discussing healthy eating, menu and recipe creation, kitchen tours, charity dinners and much more. It's going to be a blast! In the spring, we will be planting gardens and eating the bounty upon harvest turning this into a huge educational experience for everyone involved. I cant wait!
Promises to be a busy time, but SO worth it. Anything I can do to educate is always worth it.
Stay tuned, more fun to come!
(images courtesy of Alison Mignery)
