In a move that could signal a serious fault line in the argument for more vegetables as a tonic for childhood obesity, drafters of “Healthy Schools” legislation pending before the D.C. Council have skuttled a push for additional produce in school meals after school officials said they cannot guarantee their kitchens can prepare vegetables that kids will [...]
Entries Tagged as 'vegetables'
Sorry, We Can’t Cook: D.C. Schools Say ‘No’ to More Vegetables
March 18th, 2010 · 7 Comments · Tales, Wellness, kids
Kids Pass Knife Certification, Make Soup
January 30th, 2010 · 3 Comments · Tales, kids
Well, it’s finally happened. The kids in the food appreciation classes I teach at a private elementary school here in the District of Columbia have graduated (the older ones, at least) from plastic knives to real knives.
The only reason this hadn’t happened sooner was my failure to deliver on promises I’d been making for, oh, the [...]
Tags: chicken·food appreciation·kitchen techniques·soup·stocks·vegetables
Kids Make Chicken-Vegetable Stew with Palm Oil
January 26th, 2010 · No Comments · kids
Continuing on our virtual world culinary tour, our food appreciation classes last week bade adieu to West Africa. But we could not leave without sampling a staple food item there: palm oil.
Palm oil, derived from the fruit of the oil palm, is immediately recognizable by its deep, red color. The color comes from a heavy [...]
Tales from a D.C. School Kitchen: Part Three
January 21st, 2010 · 2 Comments · Tales, kids
I recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School here in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the third in a series of posts about what I saw. You can find previous posts here and here.
Each morning Mattie Hall performs a ritual in the cafeteria at H.D. [...]
Tags: District of Columbia·farm to school·processed food·school food·tales from a·Tales from a D.C. School Kitchen·vegetables
Kids Make Chicken-Vegetable Stew With Peanuts
January 15th, 2010 · No Comments · Ethnic, Recipes, kids
Who knew turnips and peanut butter could taste so good together?
One of the things we like about the African food we are making in our food appreciation classes is the use of fresh, whole ingredients and lots of vegetables. This stew is a perfect example, and something we could easily grow very fond of in [...]
Tags: African·food appreciation·peanuts·root vegetables·stew·vegetables
Teacher Is In
August 17th, 2009 · 3 Comments · garden, urban agriculture
How do you know when a carrot is ready to harvest? When should you pick your cucumbers?
Those were among the questions I fielded on Saturday from a group of new gardeners who started plots this year with something called the Neighborhood Farm Initiative. It’s the brainchild of two passionate and engaged gardeners–Bea Trickett and Joshua [...]
Tags: harvesting·summer·teaching·vegetables
Don’t Eat Farmed Salmon!
July 17th, 2009 · 6 Comments · Sustainability, dinner
Originally I was going to title this post “Salmon with Bearnaise Sauce” because that’s exactly what you see in the picture. Whole Foods was selling beautiful fillets of fresh, wild-caught sockeye salmon from Alaska and I couldn’t resist. I found a container of bearnaise sauce we’d made some time ago in the fridge and we [...]
Tags: farmed salmon·salmon·vegetables
Holy Kohlrabi, Batman!
July 16th, 2009 · 14 Comments · Recipes, garden
Quick, what would you say is the most underrated vegetable in the garden?
There is only one correct answer: kohlrabi.
Kohlrabi is in the brassica family along with broccoli, cabbage, turnips, Brussels sprouts and all the other cruciferous vegetables that we love. You hardly ever see anything written about it, and rarely does it make an appearance [...]
Tags: kohlrabi·vegetables
Garden Album
July 13th, 2009 · 7 Comments · garden
Our kitchen garden here in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House, is approaching its full summer glory. We do not have a back yard. The garden borders the sidewalk on a busy residential thoroughfare. People love to stop and lean on the iron fence to take it in and sometimes [...]
Tags: flowers·summer·vegetables
Breakfast
July 8th, 2009 · No Comments · breakfast, garden
Swiss cheese omelet with fried summer squash and grilled beef heart.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Shopping: none
He gave one of our big, Italian summer squashes to our new friends Lee and Andrew. Last night, we arrived home from an outing and found that Lee had gifted us back with some of our own squash–breaded and fried and [...]
Tags: beef·cheese·eggs·fry·vegetables
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, one mile from the White House.
