Better D.C. School Food

Kids Make Zucchini Bread

2012-01-27T07:25:00.000-05:00

: Squeezing water out of zucchini

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

The secret to a great zucchini bread, apparently, is getting the water out of the zucchini.

You don't want a wet, leaden bread. And as the kids in my food appreciation classes learned, squash--like most vegetables--is mostly water. Salt or sugar added to grated zucchini penetrates the cell walls on a molecular level, drawing out copious amounts of liquid. Left standing in a colander over a bowl for an hour (or overnight) will produce a cup of water or more from a pound of squash. You can then squeeze out even more with your hands, or by twisting the zucchini in batches in a tea towel.

(One of the kids wanted to taste the water after we'd given the sugar treatment. We did. Not bad! Green and sweet.)

So start your zucchini bread with a pound of squash. Trim off the ends, cut into manageable pieces and grate using the large holes of a box grater. Placed the grated zucchini in a colander set over a bowl and toss in 2 tablespoons sugar. Allow to sit at least an hour--or overnight--then squeeze as much of the remaining liquid out of the zucchini as you can. Set aside.

Meanwhile, whisk together 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. These are your dry ingredients for the bread.

In a separate bowl, beat two eggs. Add 1/4 cup plain yogurt, the juice from 1/2 lemon (strain out the seeds), 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar and 6 tablespoons melted butter. Combine well. These are your wet ingredients. Stir in the grated zucchini.

Add the wet ingredients to the flour mix and gently combine with a rubber spatula, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl. Pour the mix into a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan that has been greased and dusted with flour. (We sprayed with Baker's Joy).

Place the loaf pan in a 375-degree oven and bake for 55 minutes, or until the top is nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Invert the pan to remove the loaf and allow to cool on a wire rack.

: Scraping batter into the load pan takes teamwork

Our kids loved the zucchini bread just as it was. In truth, even though the bread is flaked with zucchini, making it quite pretty, you can't really taste the vegetable. In an ideal world, you would serve the bread warm, slathered with cream cheese and washed down with a tall glass of cold buttermilk.

Kids Make Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

2012-01-20T06:44:00.002-05:00

: Filling quiche takes teamwork

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

How do you get kids to eat spinach? Make quiche!

Even I was surprised by how eagerly kids took to quiche when it was filled with spinach and mushrooms. Well, not every kid was overjoyed about the mushrooms. Or the spinach. Still, this quiche was a huge hit in our baking classes this week, leaving me to wonder why, in all the years I've been teaching food appreciation at a private elementary school here in the District of Columbia, quiche had never made it onto the menu before.

It's a great project for the kids, loaded with all kinds of kitchen skills to learn.

First, the crust. No store-bought crust for us. The trick to a flaky, delicious, made-from scratch pie crust is to keep the ingredients--especially the butter--very cold and add only enough water to get the flour to bind together. You don't want to add too much liquid, or work the dough at all. And ideally you'll want to start on this a day ahead, or at least several hours.

To make one 9-inch quiche, whisk together in a large mixing bowl 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Add to that 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled, unsalted butter cut into pieces. Using a pastry cutter or two knives (most people would do this pulsing in a food processor), cut the butter into the flour until the mix is granular, with a few pea-size pieces. The butter should be thoroughly incorporated into the flour, but you don't want to work it too much. In fact, when you roll the dough out later, you will see flecks of butter in the flour.

To this mix add 1 or 2 tablespoons ice water. That's right, we're dealing with tablespoons of water. Use a spatula to turn and press the flour to incorporate the water. Continue adding water a tablespoon at a time until a dough begins to form. It won't look like a dough yet, but you should be able to gather it with your hands and press it together. When it just holds together, you can stop adding water. Pour the dough onto a floured work surface, press it into a disk about 3/4-inch thick and wrap in plastic. Store the dough in the refrigerator several hours or overnight.

Pre-bake your crust by again turning the dough onto a floured work surface and rolling it out into a circle large enough to overlap the edges of a 9-inch pie plate. Now, wrap the dough around your rolling pin--dusted with flour--lift and transfer the dough to the pie plate. Press the dough into the bottom edge of the pan. Use a sharp knife to trim away the excess dough from the edges and crimp the edge with your fingers to make a decorative presentation. (We then lined the inside of the dough with aluminum foil and filled the bottom with ceramic pie weights--little marbles that hold the crust's shape while it's in the oven. Skip this if you don't have the pie weights.)

: Do try this at home

Bake the dough in a 375-degree oven for 20 minutes, or until it is fairly firm to the touch and beginning to lightly brown. Remove and set on a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, for the custard, mix together in a large bowl 2 large eggs plus two yolks. (The kids always have a blast with this. We separate the eggs by cracking them into their cupped hands.) Add 1 cup milk, 1 cup heavy cream. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon white pepper and a generous pinch nutmeg.

Use about 2 ounces each chopped frozen spinach (wrung dry), chopped mushrooms and grated Gruyere cheese. The original recipe I used as a guide for this called for a ridiculous amount of these ingredients. We just eyeballed it, adding only enough to make their presence known in the finished pie. Add too much, and you won't have room for the egg custard, which binds everything together. As it was, we had some of the egg mix left over.

Place the crust with the filling on a sheet pan and place this on the middle rack of the oven heated to 375 degrees. Only now do you pour the egg mix into the pie shell. You don't want to be to carrying a shell filled to the brim with egg liquid across the kitchen after all.

Bake for 38 minutes, or until the quiche is firm to the touch and cooked through. Allow to cool for a while--but do try serving it warm. It makes such an impression, fresh from the oven. Serve with your favorite salad, breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Kids Make Coconut Cake

2012-01-13T07:50:00.000-05:00

: It tastes as good as it looks

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Coconut cake is a tradition in southern parts of the United States, but it also reminds us that somewhere in the world it's warmer, even when the snow flies here.

Traditional coconut cake calls for at least two layers. That presented a bit of a problem for our baking classes, since a whole cake made according to the original recipe would have been far more than we could have eaten. I talked about this with my wife, the baking expert in our family, and we decided to cut the recipe in half, but use a smaller, taller cake pan so that we could cut the finished cake in half and still end up with two layers. So instead of baking in two standard 9-inch pans, we chose a single 6-inch pan that's 3 inches tall.

The only problem with this approach is that it throws the cooking time off a bit. The taller cake takes somewhat longer to cook all the way through the middle. After a bit of experimentation, we came up with an ideal cooking time of 58 minutes in a 350-degree oven. I also placed a sheet of aluminum foil over the cake when there was about 10 minutes left on the clock to prevent the top from browning too much.

The result is just a teensy bit of crustiness around the edges of this cake. But no one notices when the cake is finally frosted. And the finished cake is just the right size for a class of 12 kids, and more than enough for the typical family. Otherwise, you can simply double this recipe and go back to making two layers in separate 9-inch pans.

Start by creaming together 1 1/2 sticks butter (16 tablespoons) and 1 cup sugar. Most people would do this in an electric mixer, but we do everything by hand. I make it easier by allowing the butter to come to room temperature and soften overnight. After incorporating the sugar into the butter, beat at least five minutes with the back of a wooden spoon or a firm rubber spatula until the mix is fluffy and lighter in color. Then, beat in 3 eggs, one at a time, as well as 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract and 3/4 teaspoon almond extract. At this point, the mix will look like scrambled eggs but smell more like marzipan.

: Creaming butter and sugar

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, sift together 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour along with 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Fold about 1/2 cup of the flour mix into the batter, followed by 1/4 cup milk, then another 1/2 cup flour mix and another 1/4 cup milk. Finally, fold in the remaining flour mix until it is just incorporated. Stir in 2 ounces shredded, sweetened coconut.

Prepare your can pan (or pans) by greasing well with butter or oil spray. We also cut a piece of parchment paper to fit into the bottom of the pan and gave it a spray of oil as well. Scoop the batter into the pan and tap it hard on your work surface to smooth it out. Place in the middle of a 350-degree oven and bake 58 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool for 20 minutes in the pan. Then use a sharp knife to trace around the edge of the pan. Invert the pan to remove the cake and place it on a wire rack at least an hour to cool. If making a smaller, taller cake as we did, slice the cake cross-wise to create two layers.

: Cutting parchment paper

For the frosting, cream together 1 stick butter and 1 8-ounce package cream cheese. As I did for the cake, I left the butter and cream cheese out overnight to soften. Creaming them together with a rubber spatula is easy at that point. Add 3/8 teaspoon vanilla extract and a dash of almost extract. Stir well, then work 1/2 pound sifted confectioner's sugar into the mix and stir until very smooth.

Spread frosting over one of the cake layers, top with the second layer and spread the frosting all over the top and sides. Sprinkle the top of the cake liberally with shredded coconut and pat more coconut along the sides.

Hard as this may be to believe, some kids don't like coconut. But the ones who do will love you for making this cake. (So will your adult friends.)

Kids Make Orange Poppyseed Cake

2012-01-06T08:07:00.001-05:00

: A delicious cake with seasonal fruit

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

What kind of fruit is seasonal in January?

That's the question I put to the kids in my food appreciation classes this week. The answer, of course, is citrus fruit. And where can you possibly grow fruit in the middle of winter? That's how cooking becomes a lesson about geography and climate. Toss in baking soda, baking powder and buttermilk and you also have a science experiment.

Everyone who tries this cake has the same reaction: "It's not too sweet." That's because the final flourish isn't a thick layer of sugary icing, but a drizzle of orange and lemon juice with just enough sugar added. It's an incredibly simple cake with just a few ingredients, but the poppy seeds also set it apart. The kids thought they looked like tiny blueberries, but then they remembered seeing them on bagels. Come to think of it, you don't see poppy seeds in many other foods.

Start by creaming 11 tablespoons room-temperature butter (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons) along with 1 cup sugar, the grated peel of 2 oranges, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt. We grated the oranges on our old-fashioned box grater. It doesn't take long at all. But you could do the same thing with a micro-plane. And while we did the creaming with the back of a wooden spoon, most people would opt for an electric mixer. Just keep beating until the mix turns a lighter color and becomes somewhat fluffy.

: Grating orange peel the old-fashioned way

To the butter mix beat in 2 eggs, one at a time. Then add 2 tablespoons poppy seeds. Mix in 2/3 cup buttermilk, then gently add 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour. Stir, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl, until the flour is completely incorporated.

Grease a 9-inch bunt pan (we used Baker's Joy) and pour in the batter. Actually, this batter doesn't really pour. We scraped it out with a rubber spatula, then smoothed the top even. Give the pan a good tap on your table top to help spread the batter around.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Invert the pan over a wire rack and let the cake cool.

To "ice" the cake, poke it all over with a toothpick. This will help the orange-lemon mix seep into the cake, rather than running off the sides. Then, in a measuring cup, squeeze out 1/4 quarter cup orange juice and the juice from 1/2 lemon. Add 3 tablespoons granulated sugar and stir until the sugar is complete dissolved. Carefully drizzle the liquid all over the top and sides of the cake. Slice and serve.

This cake would go perfectly with a cold winter's afternoon tea.

Kids Make Danish Pebber Nodder (Christmas Cookies)

2011-12-16T07:11:00.001-05:00

: A little taste of Denmark for Christmas

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

These may be the easiest cookies you'll ever make. In fact, you might say they're downright rudimentary. But one of my favorite spices--cardamom--gives these little shortbread nuggets--called pebber nodder in Denmark--a huge lift.

I was looking for something quick and easy for our last baking class before the holiday break. These cookies certainly filled the bill, but they looked a little too plain when they came out of the oven, so we dressed them up with a sprinkling of confectioner's sugar. They would work great in a selection of holiday cookies. And they get the kids in our food appreciation classes fully involved--creaming butter and sugar, mixing the dough, rolling it out, then taking turning cutting the dough into these little pillow shapes.

Start by creaming 1 cup (2 sticks) room temperature butter with 1 cup granulated sugar. Beat until the mixture lightens in color, then add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating until the eggs are completely incorporated. We do this by hand in a mixing bowl using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, but of course you can also do it at home with an electric mixer.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon each ground cinnamon and ground cardamom.

: Cutting a log of dough into pebber nodder

Add the flour mix to the butter mix and gently blend until you have a smooth dough. Divide the dough into six balls--you might want to roll them in a little flour. Then, on a floured work surface, roll out one of the balls into a long, thin log--about the thickness of a cigar. Cut the log into 3/4-inch lengths and place these on an ungreased baking sheet, leaving some room around each nugget. Place in a 375-degree oven and bake 14 minutes, or until the pebber nodder are firm, the undersides lightly browned. Use an inverted spatula to move them to wire racks to cool.

Working through each ball of dough individually, we filled a total of three baking sheets. In other words, this recipe makes a lot of pebber nodder. As they cooled, we transferred them to a basket where we dusted them with powdered sugar as you see in the picture above.

They are quite delicious. I'll bet you can't eat just one!

Tell This Woman How Much You Disapprove

2011-12-14T11:28:00.003-05:00

: Former White House aide Anita Dunn: corporate food shill

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

How far behind the times are we?

Apparently, it was last October that food policy writer Marion Burros reported in Politico that the White House's former communications director, Anita Dunn, is now leading the multi-million-dollar lobbying efforts of food corporations trying to put the kibash on Obama administrations attempts to curb junk food marketing to children.

Much has been written lately about how the food industry has pushed back against "voluntary" guidelines on food marketing proposed by a cluster of federal agencies. Now it appears that one of the Obamas' very own is the chief strategist for the industry assault, having left the White House to join a D.C. lobbying group, SKDKnickerbocker.

Not being a regular Politico reader, I first caught wind of it from Marion Nestle's blog this morning, where she reports on findings issued by the Sunlight Foundation that food interests--including Coca-Cola and General Mills--have poured some $37 million into the campaign to stop the marketing guidelines.

Burros reported in Politico that Dunn's turning on Michelle Obama's favorite project--childhood obesity--did turn some heads, but also did not come as a particular surprise, because she did not embrace the first Lady's thinking on the subject. You can read that as, Please do not piss off our friends in the food industry!

This sort of revolving door is nothing new to Washington politics, but underscores how corporate forces have aligned against children's health. Just to show you how incestuous things are in the nation's capitol, Dunn's husband, Bob Bauer, is a former White House legal counsel who continues to work on Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has been pushing for years for tougher child nutrition standards, said, "Anita Dunn and her firm should be ashamed of themselves for leading teh food industry's panicky efforts to quash the Obama administration's reasonable and voluntary nutrition guidelines proposed for food marketed to children."

Burros quotes Dunn as replying: "This is a national problem that is not going to be solved by personal vilification."

Maybe personal vilification won't solve this problem. Still, Dunn should be ashamed and I think anyone who cares about children's health should tell her so. Here's the phone number for SKDKnickerbocker: 202 464-6900. Give Dunn a call and tell her what you think.

Or, you can go here and send her an e-mail.

Kids Make Norwegian Lefse

2011-12-09T07:01:00.002-05:00

: Ricing potatoes for lefse

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

There could be no greater compliment for our Norwegian lefse than the one we got from our school nurse, Elizabeth, who said the lefse--or potato crepes--we made in our food appreciation classes tasted just like the ones her Norwegian grandmother used to serve.

Who knew? The Norwegians have their own version of a French crepe, except it's made with potatoes instead of flour and eggs. So instead pouring a thin crepe into a pan, you have to roll it out. Apparently the mark of a truly gifted lefse maker is rolling a perfectly round, paper-thin crepe. For this, Elizabether loaned us her grandmother's special wooden lefse roller. The roller is textured, leaving a distinct pattern on the finished crepes.

Otherwise, lefse are fairly easy. There are only only six ingredients: potatoes, heavy cream, butter, sugar, salt and all-purpose flour. The finished lefse are so simple, but delicious and comforting. Sprinkled with sugar or perhaps a dollop of fruit preserves, they make an easy dessert. Or you can stuff them with cheese for a savory snack or side dish.

Recipes vary, calling for more or less potato, more or less flour. I found that 2 1/2 pounds potatoes make plenty of lefse for our needs--about 15 large, finished crepes. We measured the flour loosely, eventually just taking handfuls from the bag until we had a manageable dough that wasn't sticky.

A day ahead, peel 2 1/2 pounds baking potatoes, cut into large dice and cover with plenty of water in a large saucepan. Cook until the potatoes are tender, then drain in a colander and pass the potatoes through a ricer into a large mixing bowl. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream and 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) melted butter, along with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon granulated sugar (omit if making savory lefse). Mix well, cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day you'll want to have some sort of griddle on hand along with butter to grease it. The Norwegians have a special electric griddle for this purpose. We made our lefse on our portable butane stove at the prep table so the kids could watch the crepes cook, using for a griddle our cast-iron Mexican comal, essentially a skillet with no sides to interfere with our efforts to get under the crepes and flip them with an inverted spatula.

To the prepared potato mix, add 1 1/2 cups flour and work it in with your hands. Continue adding flour until a soft dough forms that is no longer sticky. You may need another 1/2 cup flour or more for this. Dump the finished dough onto a floured work surface and roll into a log about 3 inches across. You will cut pieces from the log to form individual lefse.

Slice enough doughfrom the log to make a small fistful, roll it into a ball and, using your floured work surface and a rolling pin, roll the dough into a paper-thin, round (--ish!) crepe. Carefully work an inverted spatula under the crepe, then lift and move the disc to a buttered griddle over moderate heat. Within a minute or two, brown spots will appear on the underside of the lefse. Flip it with the spatula and cook another minute more. At this point you can sprinkle the lefse with sugar (or with grated cheese, if making savory lefse). Fold the lefse in half twice to make a triangle shape.

: Finished lefse, hot off the griddle

You can line the finished lefse on a platter to cool. You need do nothing more at this point than serve them, or perhaps dress them with a dollop of lingonberry jam. For savory lefse, you might want to place them into a hot oven to melt the cheese inside.

Lefse are a simple peasant food that must have brought great comfort to Norwegian families during long. dark winters. Elizabeth also encouraged us not to worry too much about rolling our perfectly round ones. She said hers usually turn out more square.

KIds Make Norwegian Christmas Cookies

2011-12-02T07:16:00.003-05:00

: Wire release scoop for making cookies

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

What's special about Norwegian Christmas cookies?

They look like ordinary sugar cookies at first blush. But one bite is all you need to tell the difference: These cookies are chewy and full of almond, coconut and oats.

What? You say you've never heard of oats in Christmas cookies?

Our food appreciation classes have started their annual baking segment and with Christmas just around the corner I decided to lead off with these cookies so we could serve them at tonight's parents night dinner, which features a buffet of all the Scandinavian food we've been making lately.

As simple as the cookies look, they do require quite a bit of elbow grease if you're making them by hand. They're much easier if you're using an electric mixer. But in our classes, the mixer consists of a wooden spoon and kid muscle.

Start by placing 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted room-temperature butter in a large mixing bowl, alongwith 1 cup sugar and 7 ounces almond paste, grated. For the almond paste, we used the Odense brand, which comes wrapped in foil looking like a small sausage. It's somewhat soft, so grating it on a box grater takes a bit of work--great if your trying to keep a group of kids busy.

Mix until the ingredients are combined, then add 1 egg plus 1 egg white and beat on high for 3 minute. Picture a group of third-graders armed with a wooden spoon, imitating an electric mixer turned to "high."

Meanwhile, sift 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour with 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add this, plus 1 cup rolled oats and 1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes. Mix until well combined, then form into balls and place on greased cookie sheets.

: Using a fine seive for sifting dry ingredients

To make balls out of the dough, we used a 1-inch metal scoop with a wire release. If you have one a little larger, so much the better. It all depends on how big you want your cookies (or what kind of scoop you have on hand). I suppose you could do this with a spoon if you didn't have a scoop with a wire release. Once the balls are on the cookie sheets, you want to pat them down a little, either with the palm of your hand, or using the flat end of a glass moistened and dusted with granulated sugar.

We then decorated our cookies alternately with red and green sugar sprinkles. Place them in a 350-degree oven and bake just until they begin to show a little brown around the edges, or 10-11 minutes. An inverted metal spatula works best to remove the cookies from the pan and place them on wire racks to cool.

Merry Christmas from Norway!

Congress to Kids: Drop Dead!

2011-11-20T06:00:00.017-05:00

: Congress puts corporate profits over kids' health

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Amid all the hysteria over pizza and potatoes this week the mainstream media missed the real story behind the USDA's embattled school nutrition guidelines by half and mangled the other half badly.

The half they missed: These guidelines [PDF], ostensibly aimed at making school food healthier, were not the creation of Michelle Obama or the USDA. Rather, they were the result of a highly deliberative, multi-year process undertaken by an esteemed scientific body--the Institute of Medicine--to make good on a congressional mandate that the food schools feed children should align with the same nutritional advice the federal government gives everyone else: the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The part the media mangled: "Congress Declares Pizza to be a Vegetable!" Or other screaming headlines to that effect.

Here's a news flash, folks: Pizza already is considered a vegetable in the federally-funded school lunch program. Or, rather, the tomato sauce on the pizza is counted as a vegetable for purposes of qualifying as a reimbursable "meal." Welcome to the world of industrially processed cafeteria food.

What the USDA wanted to do was double up on the tomatoes before continuing to give pizza "vegetable" status. But frozen pizza giants such as ConAgra and Schwan Foods objected. Who would eat a pizza with all that tomato paste on it? they asked. So they got their congressmen to put the kibash on that particular rule, and pizza goes back to being counted as a vegetable just the way it is, as well as being counted as a grain.

Let's see. Now that the dust has settled, maybe it's time to take a little survey of where, exactly, things stand with these proposed new guidelines--the first update in 15 years--that were supposed to constitute a federal response to the nation's childhood obesity epidemic.

First, the Senate, again playing to the interests of the processed food industry--and to industrial potato growers in particular--axed the USDA's proposed limit on white potatoes and other starchy vegetables (corn, lima beans, peas) to just one cup per week. Does this mean french fries every day in the lunch line?

Well, it may in fact be a hollow victory for spud lovers. Because what Congress did not do was lift the USDA's new requirement that schools serve more and larger servings of fruits and vegetables--meaning green and orange vegetables, not white potatoes--as well as legumes like beans and lentils.

How are schools, on their extraordinarily tight food budgets--less than a $1 for ingredients per meal--supposed to continue serving french fries or any other kind of potato on a regular basis in addition to all those other vegetables? My guess: They won't. It's not in the budget. Or, maybe what we'll see is a nation of school children acquiring a new taste for orange french fries. Say hello to the sweet potato!

What about the USDA's proposed restrictions on salt? Industry would like to see those disappear. But Congress, in striking a deal behind closed doors, was only willing to go as far as telling the USDA it must certify that it has read the science on the health effects of sodium. The USDA says, Can do.

And the requirement that all grains served in schools must soon be at least "whole grain rich?" (meaning at least 51 percent whole grain). Again, the processed food industry would rather not. But Congress only says the USDA must define "whole grain." The USDA says, No problem.

For those of you keeping score, that means pizza is back to the status quo, french fries become a budget buster, and the USDA sees clear sailing for salt restrictions and requiring more whole grains. What are we to make of all this, aside from the ugly spectacle of Congress treating children as fungible, as so much less than important compared to their deep-pocketed pals in corporate food?

There's a fascinating subtext to this story, and it has to do with our attitude toward the schools themselves and their role in feeding children more healthfully. The nation's 14,000 school district are hardly innocent bystanders in this dispute. They do not have to serve industrial pizza and french fries to children every day. But many do. They pander to kids' terrible eating habits and look the other way.

As I've mentioned here before, pizza doesn't have to be junk food. Ann Cooper, the nation's premier cafeteria reformer, serves it twice-weekly in her menu schemes. But she aims for whole grain crusts, topped with a homemade sauce containing real vegetables besides tomatoes. She does not count the sauce as a "vegetable." In Ann Cooper's world, pizza only passes as a grain.

Why do the rest of the nation's school food service directors need a club over their heads to do the right thing? Aren't they listening to Michelle Obama?

And what of the first lady? She's been utterly silent on Congress' mauling of nutrition rule making. She basked in public adoration when school food reform was flying high, but dove for cover when her project blew up on Capitol Hill. When are we going to see her visiting one of these cafeterias, sitting down with the kids to sample the horrible food they're eating?

Now that would make a great photo opp: More fries with that pizza, Mrs. Obama?

As this latest episode amply illustrates, fiddling with nutrition guidelines only gets you so far. Inviting the processed food industry--a group that spent more than $5 million lobbying against the USDA's proposed new rules--to hold hands and sing Kumbaya obviously is not a winning strategy. When push comes to shove, the corporate boys pull out the brass knuckles.

And the fun may just be starting. The USDA still has to come up with new standards for the "competitive" foods sold in schools, meaning the stuff kids buy in a la carte lines, vending machines and school stores. As part of its spending authorization last year, Congress gave the USDA that particular authority for the first time. You can bet the purveyors of potato chips, corn dogs and Eskimo pies will have something to say about that as well.

If only our leaders in Washington could be honest enough to own their craven ways. But now the whole world sees plainly where things stand. When it comes to a choice between kids' health and corporate profits, Congress has a ready response: Show me the money!

Update: Watch this hilarious send-up of the piazza fiasco courtesy of Seth Meyers and Kermit the Frog on Saturday Night Live.

Kids Make Rutabaga Souffle

2011-11-18T06:52:00.003-05:00

: The lowly rutabaga, transformed

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

This was the last week in Scandinavia for my food appreciation classes on our virtual world culinary tour. We couldn't very well leave without sampling one of the Nordic region's favorite vegetables: rutabaga.

I know what you're thinking: Rutabaga! Yuck! This underground cousin of cabbage and kale is so closely associated with Swedish tastes that it's often called "swede." I happen to like it--especially home-grown rutabaga--but a survey of rutabaga recipes online left me cold. I wanted the kids to try something a little more inspiring than the usual root vegetable casserole or rutabaga-potato mash.

Then I remembered one of our favorite preparations, from an old Gourmet magazine article: rutabaga souffle. This 20-year-old article that I've saved in my recipe files describes several ways to elevate the lowly rutabaga into something sublime. Rutabaga souffle makes an elegant--and delicious--side dish.

Truly, you can turn almost anything into a souffle. It's just a matter of transforming your base ingredient into something you can fold into egg whites. The basic steps are cooking the rutabaga and grinding it into a paste; mixing that into a sauce made with a basic roux and some of the rutabaga cooking liquid; flavoring with cheddar cheese and fortifying with egg yolks; then finally folding the mix into egg whites and baking in the oven.

When you break it down into these steps, it's really not so complicated. But it is a bit of a workout in a classroom situation, especially if you have to run back and forth from the prep table where the kids are working and the stove at the other end of the room. That's why I've started using my portable butane burner more and more for our classes: I can cook right on the prep table where the kids can see what's happening. Not only can they see what's in the pot, but they can take turns stirring, something they love to do.

There's plenty for the kids to do to make this souffle. They get to peel the rutabaga. (Most had no idea what it was, but several surprisingly guessed the connection with cabbage from the aroma.) There's the grinding of the cooked rutabaga in a food mill, the cracking and separating of eggs (always fun, because they get to separate eggs in their bare hands). There's the stirring of the roux and the mixing of the sauce, the beating of the egg whites and the folding of the final ingredients. And seeing the finished souffle emerge from the oven with its glorious brown top is a show-stopper.

Here's how to do it. First, peel 1 pound of rutabaga and cut into 1-inch cubes. Cover these with water in a saucepan, season liberally with salt and cook, covered, until the rutabaga is quite soft, about 30 minutes. Drain the rutabaga but reserve the cooking liquid.

Meanwhile, in a separate saucepan start a roux by melting 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter. Add 1/4 all-purpose flour, stir and cook over moderate heat, stirring continuously, for a couple of minutes. You don't want to brown the flour, just cook it a thoroughly. Add 1 1/2 cups of the rutabaga cooking liquid and continue stirring. You might want to raise the heat at this point as flour won't fully thicken until it reaches the boiling point.

After two or three minutes, you will have a thick sauce. You can now add 6 ounces grated cheddar cheese. (My wife, the professional cook, suggests half cheddar and half Gruyere for more depth of flavor). Stir until the cheese has melted and is completely incorporated. Remove the pan from the heat and add your cooked rutabaga ground fine either in a food processor or in a food mill. We do everything by hand in our classes--no electric gadgets--so we used a food mill for this. Just as well, as it gives the kids something to do with an appliance they find utterly fascinating.

: Rutabaga in the food mill

Separate 6 eggs. Stir the yolks into the rutabaga mix. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg white to stiff peaks. You can add 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar to the whites if you have it. This chemical--potassium hydrogen tartrate--is an acid salt that helps give egg whites more volume and stiffness. Again, we do the beating by hand with a wire whisk, but feel free to use an electric mixer. Just don't go overboard or your stiff peaks will start to get grainy.

Stir about 1/4 of the whites into the rutabaga mix, then pour the mix into the bowl with the beaten whites and gently fold everything together with a rubber spatula. Folding is an acquired skill in our classes. We monitor the kids closely so they are stirring or beating the mix. You're trying to maintain the air in the egg whites--that's where "souffle" gets its name, from the French word for "breathe."

When everything is incorporated, pour the mix into a greased, standard-size souffle bowl fitted with an aluminum collar, also greased. (You can grease with butter. We used a cooking spray.) This collar is made from a sheet of aluminum foil cut large enough to completely encircle the souffle bowl. You can fasten it in place with a piece of butcher's twine, but I found it just as easy (and more convenient) to just hold the two ends of the foil together with a large paper clip. The idea is to contain the souffle when it rises up over the top of the souffle bowl. You'll see: the final mix will come up to the top of the bowl, and if you've done your job well with those egg whites, it will rise from there.

Place the bowl on a baking sheet and then in a 400-degree oven for about 60 minutes, or until the top is deep golden brown and the souffle firm. Don't worry--souffles are not all that fragile. It won't collapse if you open the oven door to take a peak. You'll know it's done when the souffle is puffed and no longer sloshing around in the bowl.

To serve, dig a spoon through the crust all the way to the bottom of the dish. You want everyone to see some of that glorious crust on their plate.

As for the seasoning of your souffle, be your own judge. It does pick up quite a bit of salt from the rutabaga cooking liquid and from the cheese. You can add more when you are mixing the base ingredients. But taste it first.

This is one lesson that left me exhausted, but the kids stayed busy and they had a great time. In fact, I would rate this as one of our all-time best cooking lessons.

Processed Food Industry Shows USDA Who's Boss in the Cafeteria

2011-11-16T07:33:00.008-05:00

: Kids' all-time favorite food: pizza

First it was potatoes. Now it's pizza. The processed food industry is reaching out to its friends in Congress to scuttle new USDA guidelines that were supposed to make school meals healthier.

Politico reports that House and Senate negotiators are likely to approve agriculture appropriations language that would allow the tomato paste on pizza to be counted as a vegetable serving under the USDA's new school meal guidelines. Count this as the result of lobbying efforts by processed food giants ConAgra and Schwan Food. Schwan is one of the world's largest purveyors of frozen pizza and pitching for its sauce is Sen. Amy Knobluchar, Democrat of Minnesota, where Schwan is based.

The new pizza rule comes quick on the heels of a Senate amendment prohibiting the USDA from limiting the amount of potatoes served in school meals. That was pushed by senators from potato producing states Maine and Colorado.

These latest broadsides against the USDA rule-making process--inserting Congress as micro-manager and protector of economic interests over kids' health--point up the pitfalls of trying to use meal standards written in Washington as a way to dictate what kids eat. It also provides a vivid illustration of what happens when you go after the foods kids most love in the lunch line.

Pizza is the all-time favorite school lunch food, followed by potatoes in all their guises. Essentially, the proposed new guidelines would sharply cut back on foods kids really like, and replace them with things they hate: vegetables, beans and whole grains. Turns out there are huge amounts of money at stake behind the foods beloved by the 32 million children who participate in the national school lunch program. Frozen food companies are protecting their share the best way they know how: using their clout with their local congressman.

Ironically, it was Congress back in 2004 that called on the USDA to re-write the nutrition guidelines for school meals so that they would align with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which call for more balance in the way we eat. In other words, fewer potatoes and more vegetables, legumes and whole grains. The USDA contracted the work of writing those guidelines to a scientific panel at the Institute of Medicine. The IOM's guidelines were first released in October 2009. The USDA now is in the process of writing final new rules, to go into effect possibly in the fall of 2012.

Other efforts to mess with pizza also have failed. In Berkeley, for instance, elementary school children get a rectangular pizza made with a locally-produced whole wheat crust. Middle schoolers, however, insist on a round pizza, which has to be sourced through a wholesale food distributor. But Berkeley found a way to make the sauce healthier by cooking it from scratch using all kinds of vegetables in addition to tomatoes.

Last I checked, pizza was still being served twice a week in Berkeley schools, and that was after famed school meal reformer Ann Cooper took over. Cooper tried to remove nachos from the menu entirely. But she was forced to reinstate them in a healthier version--meaning no processed cheese out of a can--after students went on strike, refusing to eat in the cafeteria.

As I've learned sitting in on meals at my daughter's school the past two years here in the District of Columbia, children will go to great lengths to avoid the foods adults consider "healthy." Vegetables, beans and whole grains--they typically get dumped in the trash. Kids will spend inordinate time picking the spinach out of fresh-cooked lasagna, for instance, before wolfing down the pasta.

Since most schools no longer cook food from scratch, the frozen food industry has gained a huge stake in what children eat at school. Politico reports that "both Schwan and ConAgra have quietly helped to finance the 'Coalition for Sustainable School Meal Programs' which maintains a red-white-blue – and yes green – website with the heading 'Fix the Reg.' " Illustrating just how mixed up and incestuous the business of feeding children has become, the coalition is being managed, Politico reports, by Barry Sackin, a former longtime lobbyist for the School Nutrition Association.

The SNA, while claiming to represent the interests of children and thousands of the nations school food service directors, is driven by money from the processed food industry--including Schwan and ConAgra.

The last time we talked to Sackin, he'd been barred from a conference hosted by the American Association of School Administrators. The Service Employees International Union, which also got the boot, had enlisted Sackin to give a presentation on how schools can better deal with food rebates in their contracts with food service companies. Corporate sponsors of the event--which included Aramark and Chartwells--objected.

Apparently, Sacking plays for both sides.

Like other processed food purveyors, Schwan and ConAgra spend enormous sums as "rebates" to entice schools and food service companies to place their products in cafeterias. As I reported recently,ConAgra placed seventh and Schwan eighth among companies that paid the most in rebates to Chartwells as part of its contract to serve kids in D.C. Public Schools.

Kids Make Poached Salmon with Dill Sauce and Cucumber Salad

2011-11-11T07:34:00.008-05:00

: No skimping on the dill

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

It's not always easy getting kids to eat fish. Some automatically gag at the very aroma of seafood--even when it doesn't smell at all. But the kids in my food appreciation classes adored the poached salmon we made this week, especially when it was smothered in a creamy dill sauce. (Some requested it without the sauce, and I have to admit the really little kids--pre-K and Kindergarteners, were not entirely enthusiastic.)

We're still in Scandinavia and I was inspired by a recent "Nordic Day" in D.C. Public Schools sponsored by various embassies. The Norwegian embassy, for instance, flew in 10,000 pounds of salmon for the event. Salmon and dill go naturally together, as do cucumber and dill, completing our meal with a classic Scandinavian salad.

Poaching is one of my favorite cooking methods for fish. It's so gentle and results in the most tender and moist salmon with the essential flavor of the fish intact. Plus, we can easily set up a skillet with poaching liquid on our portable gas burner so that the children can actually watch the fish cook in front of them on our prep table.

Salmon also is rich in heart-health Omega-3 fatty acids.

But you may want to start with the cucumber salad. The flavors need time to meld, and you can easily make it hours or even a day ahead and refrigerate it. Peel three large cucumbers, then slice them in half lengthwise. Use a teaspoon (or even better, a grapefruit spoon) to scoop out the seeds. Cut the cucumbers into thin crescents and toss these with 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt in a colander. Set the colander in a pan and allow the cucumbers to drain for 1 or 2 hours. Use your hands to squeeze more liquid out of the cucumbers.

In a mixing bowl, combine 1/3 cup white vinegar, 2 tablespoons cider vineagar and granulated sugar to taste (about 1/4 cup). The finished dressing should be sweet and sour. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then add 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill. Toss the cucumbers in the dressing and serve.

Likewise, make the dill sauce ahead so the flavors have a chance to develop. It's easy. Simply mix together 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 1/4 cup sour cream, 2 scallions, thinly sliced, the juice from 1/2 lemon, 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill and salt and pepper to taste. You can keep it in the fridge until it's needed.

To make the poaching liquid for the salmon, peel 1/2 onion and cut into thin slices. Toss this into a medium saucepan along with 1 small carrot, peeled and sliced into thin rounds, 1 small celery stalk, thinly sliced, 4 sprigs thyme, 2 sprigs parsley, 1 generous piece lemon peel and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Cover this with 5 cups water, bring almost to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the liquid and discard the vegetables. (You can use 3/4 cups dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc, and reduce the amount of water, but I chose not to bring wine to school.)

To poach the salmon, use individual 6-ounce fillets. If possible, choose wild-caught Alaska salmon rather than farmed salmon. For environmental reasons, ocean scientists continue to discourage the consumption of farmed salmon. But most salmon sold in stores--typically labeled "Atlantic salmon"--is farmed. To find wild caught salmon, you must seek it out. It usually comes from Alaska.

Place the fillets in a heavy skillet and cover with the finished poaching liquid. Bring the liquid almost to a boil (200 degrees, as measured with an instant-read thermometer), then reduce heat and simmer until the fish is just cooked through.

This is always the hardest part poaching fish--deciding when it's done. I've found the easiest way is to insert the point of paring knife into the middle of a fillet at its thicket point. Wait 5 seconds, then press the knife tip to your lower lip. It should feel very warm, but not hot.

Use a spatula to remove the fish immediately from the pan. You can serve it warm, or chilled. with a big dollop of dill sauce and cucumber salad on the side.

Yes, We Have a New Wellness Policy

2011-10-31T12:04:00.002-04:00

: Better food equals healthier kids

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Over the last several months I've been meeting with D.C. school officials and now it can be revealed: We have a new wellness policy that prohibits flavored milk and sugary cereals, requires that all children have at least 30 minutes to eat their food at lunch, limits classroom celebrations to just one per month and mandates that all food served on school grounds--including vending machines, school stores, bake sales and other fundraisers--comply with HealthierUS School Challenge gold-level standards.

Congress in 2004 mandated that all public schools must have a wellness policy in place that sets goals for nutrition education and physical activity and establishes guidelines for the food available during the school days. The federal law also requires that schools involve parents and students in developing the wellness policy. But it doesn't give precise directions on how this is to be done, so parents in too many cases have been frustrated in their efforts to make wellness policy changes.

The policy is supposed to be updated every three years.

Fortunately for us in the District of Columbia, we now have a food services director--Jeffrey Mills--who would like nothing better than serve the kind of food Alice Waters would be proud of. I was pleasantly surprised at how open the process of revising our wellness policy was--even though I didn't get everything I wanted.

For instance, I pushed for a policy that would have prohibited children bringing sodas or sugary beverages from home to drink with their lunch in the cafeteria. But Mills and others thought the community wasn't ready to go this far. They favor a "go slow" approach to avoid controversy. They did include language saying "schools will encourage teachers and families to not bring soda and other beverages high in sugar content on school grounds, including in student lunches from home."

My fellow committee members were also leery of lecturing school staff on what they eat. But we did approve a bullet item stating that "school staff should be encouraged to model healthy eating habits for the students," meaning employees "are strongly encouraged to not consume frood in front of students that do not meet" the HealthierUS School Challenge standards.

Since I first exposed what Chartwells was serving in D.C. cafeterias, school food service has seen some dramatic changes. A "Healthy Schools Act" approved by the D.C. Council established extra funding for meals that include local produce. Mills, after being hired in late 2009 as food services director, undertook a massive overhaul of the Chartwells menu, eliminating flavored milk and sugary cereals and other treats such as Pop-Tarts, Giant Goldfish Grahams and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins. Kitchen workers received extra training, and they now make some meal entrees--such as lasagna--from scratch.

D.C. also pays for a free breakfast for every child that wants one. In elementary schools where more than 40 percent of students are considered low-income, breakfast is served in the classroom. The city also now pays for children who normally would be eligible for a "reduced price" lunch to get theirs free. D.C. Public Schools operates a city-wide supper program for kids who stay late, and further subsidizes meals with $6 million or more in annual deficit spending.

Still, when a school district contracts with a big food service company like Chartwells or Sodexo or Aramark, it should expect to see meals comprised largely of processed frozen foods. The level of oversight Mills and his team brings to bear is unusual. They are now trying to place salad bars in all 121 of the schools under their jurisdiction. (Charter schools operate independently. Indeed, they are each required to draft their own individual wellness policies.)

As we are learning, however, drafting a policy and seeing it actually take effect can be two different things. For instance, in our last meeting we learned that while schools are required to provide at least 30 minutes of physical education for all primary grades, and 45 minutes in senior schools, some principals have instructed their PE teachers instead to have the kids read, to boost test scores. In fact, the school officials at the table urged me and other community members that the best way to address problems like that may be for us to draft a letter to the schools chancellor. Apparently, working up the chain of command doesn't necessarily get results.

Yet under "Healthy Schools," kids beginning in 2014 are supposed to be getting five times as much PE--150 hours per week in elementary school, 225 minutes per week in grades six through eight.

Similarly, although the wellness policy states that every child should have at least 30 minutes to eat lunch "after the last student passes through the line," I don't know of any school where that currently is the case. Especially in schools with high enrollment of low-income children, who tend to take the federally subsidized meal rather than bringing one from home, those lunch lines can be very long. In my daughter's elementary school last year, for instance, the lunch period was only 30 minutes long, and the last kid who went through the line typically did not have much more than 15 minutes to eat.

Woodrow Wilson Senior High School in far Northwest Washington has some 1,600 students, yet only one lunch period for its undersized cafeteria. Lunch is said to be pure chaos.

Next on the agenda for the wellness committee may be figuring out how the school can arrange training sessions for staff so that they actually know what's in the policy and what they need to do to comply with it. Federal rules require that the wellness policy be distributed to staff and made easily available to the public, such as by posting it on school websites and keeping copies for public inspection in the school office.

Other highlights: nutrition education that integrated into other content areas such as math, science, language arts and socials studies and teach "media literacy with an emphasis on food marketing." Schools must provide at least 20 minutes of recess daily, and it should come before lunch "whenever possible." Schools are required to increase participation in meal programs through a "coordinated, comprehensive outreach plan" that builds community coalitions and may include after-school cooking clubs for families, parent workshops and community/school gardens.

Under the federal mandate, we are also required to figure out a way to collect data and masure the impact of implementing the wellness policy. In other words, we still have our work cut out for us.

Swedish-U.S. Farm to School Meetup

2011-10-30T09:44:00.009-04:00

: Annika Unt Widell, left, with Andrea Northup

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

As part of "Nordic Week" in D.C. Public Schools, one of the people I met on my recent fact-finding mission to Sweden was here in the District of Columbia. Annika Unt Widell, spokeswoman for better school food in Sweden, had flown here to mentor Swedish students who had competed for a chance to take part in food preparation for "Nordic Week."

I wish some of my friends in D.C. schools had thought to invite me for all the work that went on behind the scenes--rolling thousands of Swedish meatballs and preparing some 10,000 pounds of Norwegian salmon for Wednesday's lunch. Annika was anxious to see our farm to school program in action, so on Friday I drove with her to the Arcadia Farm at Woodlawn Plantation. In the photo above, she's conferring with another hero of the school food movement--Andrea Northup--whose brilliant idea it was to form the D.C. Farm to School Network.

: A garden for kids at Woodlawn Plantation

Andrea created the farm to school network two years ago after graduating from college. The idea sparked a movement, drawing hundreds of supporters, including many of the city's non-profits involved in agricultural issues and food access and hordes of chefs anxious to get involved in efforts to improve local school food. My own involvement was accidental: I met Andrea while catering a reception for the D.C. Schoolyard Greening organization and wound up on the network's advisory board. But Andrea doesn't need much advice. She's made this idea work mostly on her own, including finding grant money to fuel the project.

Andrea originally found a home for the network at the Capitol Area Food Bank in northeast D.C. But this year she struck up a partnership with a local restaurant business called Neighborhood Restaurant Group and its foundation arm, Arcadia. They struck a deal with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to start a children's garden at Woodlawn Plantation, a property once owned by George Washington and located just a few miles from Mount Vernon in suburban Virginia. It's called Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture, "dedicated to creating a more equitable and sustainable food system and culture in the Washington, DC area and a collaborative space for the many local efforts and initiatives around better food."

The garden and the staff who tend it now host regular visits from D.C. school children. The D.C. Farm to School Network at Arcadia also retrofitted a bio-diesel-fueled school bus to take garden plants and fresh produce to D.C. schools--a kind of garden on wheels.

: Kids love to dig in the garden

On Friday, the garden was hosting a group of children from the private Lab School. Among the organized activities, kids learn about butterflies and how salads grow. But I think their favorite part is just running around and digging in the dirt with rakes. There are plenty of herbs for kids to touch and smell. Straw hats provided by the garden give the kids a real professional gardener look.

: Kids posing as bees deliver pollen

To demonstrate how plants depend on bees and other insects for pollination, the kids get little baskets filled with colored balls of cotton. Their job is to fly around the garden and deposit the "pollen" in baskets hanging from strategically planted wooden posts.

Finally it was time for the children to get a lesson in harvesting greens and vegetables for a salad. They don't need much instruction before they are racing from one raised bed to the next, plucking leaves of lettuce and mustard greens and yanking jumbo-sized carrots out of the soil.

: Catch of the day: carrots

My job was to peel and chop carrots and one giant beet for a salad bar. The garden has it's own weather-proof salad bar in the outdoor "kitchen" and eating area. The kids would also get a demonstration in salad and vinaigrette making from a professional chef, before having their turn at the salad bar.

: A 7-year-old who knows his salad

We couldn't stay for lunch. Annika had to get back to her hotel and prepare for the flight back to Sweden. But I know she was impressed. They may have universal free school lunches in Sweden, but the farm to school concept has yet to catch fire. Schools there simply don't have the funds to transport children to farms on a regular basis. And that's part of the attraction of Arcadia: it's closer to city schools than any traditional farm, and you don't have to find a farmer willing to take visitors.

"I'll always remember this day," Annika said.

Kids Make Swedish Split Pea Soup and Pancakes

2011-10-28T08:30:00.003-04:00

: Sour cream of lingonberry jam on your pancake?

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

If it's Thursday, it must be split pea soup and pancakes with lingonberry jam. At least that's the custom in Sweden where our food appreciation classes happen to be visiting on their virtual world culinary tour.

Concidentally, this was happening at the same time D.C. Public Schools were celebrating Nordic day, with traditional foods being supplied by the embassies of Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

The split pea soup I remember from childhood was thick as mud and full of little bits of gelatinous fat from the ham bone that was cooked in it. The soup we made is over-the-top delicious. Still, it's not especially pretty, except for the bits of carrot (not fat) swimming around in it, and getting the kids to eat it takes a bit of cajoling. But once they find out how good it tastes, they come back for more. And it's such an inexpensive way to make a family meal, even if you just serve bread on the side instead of the pancakes.

Why pancakes with split pea soup? Frankly, I don't know. I guess you'd have to ask the Swedes. It's a bit like dessert--especially if your stuff your pancake with jam. The pancakes are bit more like eggy crepes than the thick, floury pancakes we're used to here. Personally, I like the combination of sour cream and lingonberry jam on mine.

The Swedes are especially proud of their berries, which thrive during the long, northerly days in summer. Lingonberries are a bit tart, like cranberries, which makes for an interesting jam. I was surprised to find it at our local Harris Teeter's. But then my wife brought some home from a shopping trip to Ikea, the Swedish furnishings store, and it was $2 cheaper. It's rather a long way to drive for jam, though.

Make the soup a day ahead so the flavors have a chance to develop. Start by place 1 pound dried yellow peas (we got ours from the bulk section at Whole Foods), 2 onions peeled and finely chopped and 2 carrots peeled and finely chopped in a stock pot and cover with 8 cups water. Add 1 onion studded with two cloves and 2 ham hocks. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat and cook slowly for 3 hours. Remove the onion with cloves and the ham hocks. If there's any meat on the hocks, you can chop it up and add it to the soup if you like. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

About 30 minutes before serving, bring the soup back to a simmer and stir in 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves and 1 teaspoon ground ginger.

The pancakes can also be made ahead and held warm in the oven. This recipe makes about 2 dozen, each about 4 inches across. You can make the batter in a blender or a food processor, but we don't use electric gadgets in our classes. We simply whisked it together by hand. I think the kids get a better feel for the ingredients and the food preparation process working this way.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk until frothy three eggs. Mix in 1 1/2 cups milk, then add 1 cup flour, 1 tablespoon granulated sugar and finally 3 tablespoons melted butter. Continue whisking vigorously until the batter is perfectly smooth, without and lumps.

Over moderate heat, melt some butter in a small, well-cured or non-stick skillet. Pour in some pancake batter. You can make the pancakes as small or as large as you like. When the underside has lightly browned and the top is nearly dry, use an inverted spatula to flip the pancake onto the other side. Cook for about 30 seconds and remove. Repeat this process until all of the batter has been used.

Serve with sour cream and lingonberry jam.

Ann Cooper Rallies Parents in Fairfax for Food Day

2011-10-24T07:04:00.002-04:00

: "Renegade lunch lady" today in Vienna, Va.

Guest Post

By Ann Cooper

Food Day is such an important event to help draw attention to the broken parts of our food system while celebrating all of the wonderful chefs, cooks, farmers, parents, advocates and food service teams that are working to bring healthy and delicious food to our nation’s children. In honor of National Food Day, Monday, October 24, 2011, I will be joined by local DC chef and fellow sustainable food activist, David Guas, to visit the students at Wolftrap Elementary School in Vienna, Virginia where we will be celebrating Real Food For Kids (RFFK).

Real Food For Kids is an education-based advocacy group of concerned Fairfax County parents who are stepping in to improve the quality of food being served in their schools. What started as a small group of parents has now grown into a community-wide machine. RFFK aims to eliminate the high percentage of processed foods laden with dyes, artificial preservatives, and flavorings as well as trans-fats, high fructose corn syrup and excess sugar and salt. In FCPS schools, a hamburger alone has more than 30 ingredients, while a FCPS quesadilla has over 70.

Chef David Guas, who is moved by Real Food For Kids as both a chef but also as a parent of two young boys in the Northern Virginia school system, wants to help “change, inspire, and teach my sons and our community to go for the natural choice.“ With Fairfax as one of the largest public school counties in the U.S., Real Food For Kids, myself and chef Guas will push for these changes, especially when it comes to school lunches. In fact, at Wolftrap Elementary, Guas and I will work with the students to make a truck-full sized salad and a 10-lb grass-fed beef burger thanks to donations from local Maple Avenue Farms and Whole Foods.

To find out more information on our event and Real Food For Kids, visit us at www.realfoodforkids.org.

And here's this from the organizers:

How many ingredients does it take to make a quesadilla? 70. At least in Fairfax County public school cafeterias. In an effort to draw attention to the link between school food and children’s health and wellness, the Fairfax County Real Food For Kids is heating it up for National Food Day, October 24, at 2:30 pm, Wolftrap Elementary School in Vienna, VA, immediately following a 1:30pm food sourcing and planning meeting with the Fairfax County School Board and special guest, Jeff Mills, Director of Food Service for the District's Public Schools, at the same location. All Fairfax County School Board members and candidates have been invited to attend the Food Day event. The organizing group, a grass-roots organization of Fairfax County parents, hopes to urge the school board to take action on getting “real” food affordably back into Fairfax County public schools. The Wolftrap Elementary School PTA is the premier host for the RealKids.RealFood event on October 24.

The GET REAL! RealKids.RealFood event will feature celebrated author, chef, educator and advocate, The Renegade Lunch Lady Ann Cooper from Colorado and culinary personality and award winning chef, David Guas of Arlington’s Bayou Bakery Coffee Bar & Eatery. Cooper will address the Fairfax County School Board to discuss ways to provide “real” food for students without increasing costs. Chefs Cooper and Guas, working alongside some Fairfax County students, will also create a truck-full sized salad and an over-sized grass-fed beef burger! Bigger is better when it comes to real food for your kids- vegetables and 100% protein, straight from the source.

Two Hundred children, from Fairfax County Schools, are expected to attend and will be sporting GET REAL T-Shirts colored in varied rainbow hues of vegetables and fruits. Each child, in their designated colored T Shirt, will be placed in a specific space to spell out each letter from the words GET REAL. What an incredible image to see the children coming together spread out across the School’s grass field. These kids are showing the way to others that healthy food can be seen in vibrant colors and not so bland.

Local farmer Chris Guerre of Maple Avenue Farm is donating over 50 pounds of grass-fed beef, lettuce, tomatoes for the salad (to feed 250) and Chef Tim Ma, owner of Maple Avenue Restaurant, is coming out to lend a culinary hand while doing all the cooking on his portable truck. Whole Foods Market is a lead sponsor for the event, providing free healthy snack vouchers, butternut squash soup to sample for participating students as well as other donations to secure a successful event.

Urging School Board members to come to the table to discuss the problems of childhood obesity and school food that is highly processed, artificial, preserved and dyed, Real Food for Kids’ JoAnne Hammermaster says, “Children deserve healthier choices while they are at school.”

Hammermaster also notes that the group is pleased to be part of a major new campaign that involves some of the most prominent voices for change in the food policy world. Organized by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Day, a nation-wide event, will encourage people around the country to sponsor or participate in activities that encourage Americans to "eat real" and support healthy, affordable food grown in a sustainable, humane way. Food Day is modeled on Earth Day and is led by honorary co-chairs Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT).

Real Food For Kids (www.realfoodforkids.org) has also developed a Food Day education program for Fairfax County Schools, to be disseminated through participating PTAs. For more information, contact JoAnne Hammermaster at contact@realfoodforkids.org or 703-581-3085.

EVENT DETAILS:
2:00 pm – School children arrive please
2:30 pm - Children will spell out GET REAL for photo opportunities.
2:45 pm - Speakers and Cooking Demonstration
3:15 pm - Salad, soup, and other healthy snacks are distributed to the audience.

LOCATION:

Wolftrap Elementary School – 1903 Beulah Road, Vienna, Virginia 22182 (it is near the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts)

For More Information:
Simone Rathle- 703.534.8100
www.simonesez.com

Senate Posts New School Lunch Score: Potatoes 1, USDA 0

2011-10-23T09:14:00.017-04:00

: Spuds win out over kids' health

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

In an unprecedented act of meddling in school lunch rule making, the U.S. Senate last week approved by unanimous consent a measure that forbids the U.S. Department of Agriculture from limiting the amount of potatoes in the national school meals program.

Mainstream media got it wrong: This was not a defeat for the Obama administration or for first lady Michelle Obama. Rather, it was a clear case of congressional double-speak, overturning a mandate Congress itself gave the USDA seven years ago to conform school meals with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Senate action reverses the work of food science experts at the Institute of Medicine, who had spent years at the USDA's behest drafting the new guidelines Congress had ordered.

The problem with potatoes is that kids like them too much and schools serve them all the time in order to comply with the vegetable requirement in the school lunch program. The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, however, recommended eating a variety of vegetables daily and throughout the week.

Here's what those guidelines say:

Consume a sufficient amount of fruits and vegetables while staying within energy needs. Two cups of fruit and 2½ cups of vegetables per day are recommended for a reference 2,000-calorie intake, with higher or lower amounts depending on the calorie level.

Choose a variety of fruits and vegetables each day. In particular, select from all five vegetable subgroups (dark green, orange, legumes, starchy vegetables, and other vegetables) several times a week.

In order to align with those guidelines, the new school meal rules drafted by the Institute of Medicine, and embraced by the USDA, proposed limiting potatoes and other starchy vegetables such as corn, peas and lima beans to no more than 1 cup per week, and increasing the portions of dark green and orange vegetables and legumes.

That touched off a storm of protest from the potato industry, as well as numerous congressmen, who wrote the USDA demanding that the potato restriction be removed in the final rule. Last week's drubbing of the USDA process came in the form of an amendment to the 2012 agriculture spending measure jointly proposed by two senators from potato growing states, Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado.

Collins and others argued the nutrition benefits of potatoes, suggesting schools should simply remove fatty french fries. Proponents of the new rule repeated the call for more vegetable variety in school meals. Perhaps they would have gotten further if they'd pointed out that starchy spuds are not an appropriate food to be feeding children in the middle of an obesity epidemic. A recent Harvard study, which looked at the eating habits of more than 120,000 American men and women over a 20-year period, found that potatoes more than any other food were associated with excess weight gain, regardless of whether they are fried, boiled or baked.

In fact, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that obesity is not caused solely by a failure to burn off all the calories consumed, but by the metabolic effects of eating too many carbohydrates, especially highly glycemic carbs such as potatoes, refined grains and sugar.

The Senate action represents a naked display of agricultural interests and political emotion trumping the science around kids health. So I thought readers might like to see exactly what was motivating members of the Institute of Medicine committee when they wrote their 380-page report, first released in October 2009, proposing the school meal nutrition guidelines the Senate has not tossed overboard.

Here's what the committee said:

The overall goal was the development of a set of well-conceived and practical recommendations for nutrients and Meal Requirements that reflect current nutrition science, increase the meals’ contents of key food groups, improve the ability of the school meal programs to meet the nutritional needs of children, foster healthy eating habits, and safeguard children’s health.

In recognition of the need to update and revise the Nutrition Standards and Meal Requirements for the school meal programs, Congress incorporated requirements in the 2004 Child Nutrition and WIC⁶ Reauthorization Act (P.L. 108-265). In particular, the act requires USDA to issue guidance and regulations to promote the consistency of the standards for school meal programs with the standards provided in the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans...

Among the changes needed to improve consistency with the 2005 edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans are the following:

Increasing the emphasis on food groups to encourage a healthier food consumption pattern, especially by offering variety and a larger amount of fruits and vegetables, and by offering whole grains as a substitute for some refined grains, and
Limiting the intake of saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, added sugars, and salt by offering foods such as fat-free (skim) milk or low-fat milk, fewer sweetened foods, and foods with little added salt.

Charge to the Committee

Specify a planning model for school meals (including targets for intake) as it may relate to nutrients and other dietary components for breakfast and lunch.
Recommend revisions to the Nutrition Standards and, in consideration of the appropriate age-grade groups for schoolchildren, provide the calculations that quantify the amounts of nutrients and other dietary components specified in the Nutrition Standards.
Recommend the Meal Requirements necessary to implement the Nutrition Standards on the basis of the two existing types of menu planning approaches (i.e., the food-based menu planning [FBMP] approach and the nutrient-based menu planning [NBMP] approach). The Meal Requirements are to include
- standards for a food-based reimbursable meal by identifying
  - the food components for as offered and as served meals and
  - the amounts of food items per reimbursable meal by age-grade groups and
- standards for a nutrient-based reimbursable meal by identifying
  - the menu items for as offered and as served and
  - the 5-day average amounts of nutrients and other dietary components per meal.

Illustrate the practical application of the revised Nutrition Standards and Meal Requirements by developing 4 weeks of menus that will meet the recommended standards for the age-grade groups.

Critical Issues for Consideration by the Committee on Nutrition Standards for National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, as Submitted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture¹

There are a number of important issues on which USDA particularly seeks guidance. In the descriptions below, we have raised a number of questions and concerns, as well as tentative policy concepts for IOM’s [Institute of Medicine] critical review. These are intended to clarify the scope of the committee’s charge, but not to constrain or pre-determine its recommendations. We also ask the committee to consider such operational factors as market conditions, impacts on student acceptability of meals, and the decision to participate in the program, in making recommendations in each of these areas.¹

Calorie requirements:

Since the establishment of the school meal programs, the dietary concerns for children have shifted from preventing hunger and nutritional deficiencies to recognizing the increase of childhood overweight/obesity rates while enhancing cognitive performance and academic achievement. FNS [USDA's Food and Nutrition Services branch] requests that the committee provide recommendations for calorie levels in consideration of the best scientific information available (including the DRIs) that reflect the diversity of energy needs in today’s school children. FNS would like the IOM committee to provide minimum calorie requirements, and consider also recommending maximum calorie levels for reimbursable meals that take into consideration age-grade groupings.

Age-grade groups:

The NSLP [National School Lunch Program] nd SBP [School Breakfast Program] provide meals for children age two and older (generally, under 21). The meal programs group children according to age-grade and establish meal patterns with minimum portion sizes and servings to help menu planners design meals that are age-appropriate and meet the diverse nutritional needs of school children. Nutrient and calorie requirements are also determined for each age-grade groups. In light of the childhood obesity trend, FNS is concerned that school meals provide age-appropriate portion sizes and promote the development of healthy eating behaviors. We request that the committee recommend age-grade groups that are consistent for all menu planning approaches and reflect the stages of growth and development in children and adolescents.

School grade structures and meal service operations must be considered to ensure that age-grade group recommendations can be successfully implemented. Specifically, in the NSLP, some schools currently use a single age-grade group to plan meals for children and adolescents. The Department is concerned that for lunch meals intended to provide ⅓ of the RDAs without providing excessive calories, this practice may result in meals that fail to meet the nutritional needs of either group. While the same may be true for SBP, where the meals are intended to provide ¼ of the RDAs, FNS recognizes that there are different operational constraints. In the SBP, children typically participate as they arrive at school, rather than by grade level or other service schedule that would be common in lunch. The single age-grade group currently allowed for SBP menu planning is intended to provide flexibility to meet the needs of the SBP foodservice operation. Also of note, many schools have implemented alternative methods of delivering meals to promote student participation, such as Breakfast in the Classroom or Grab-and-Go Breakfasts. FNS requests that the committee consider the potential impacts that age-grade group requirements may have on the unique aspects of NSLP and SBP meal service, operations, and participation.

Nutrient standards:

FNS requests that in addition to the current required nutrients, the IOM committee consider the DGA [Dietary Guidelines for Americans] recommendations to minimize trans fats, as well as the intake recommendations for sodium, cholesterol, and fiber, which currently do not have quantitative standards in the school meal programs. Program operators are currently required to reduce sodium and cholesterol levels and to increase fibers levels. Monitoring these nutrients has been facilitated by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act requirement that sodium, cholesterol, and fiber amounts be included on food labels and product specifications. Furthermore, trans fats information is now required to be included on the Nutrition Facts label and on product specifications, which would facilitate the ability of Program operators and administrators to monitor compliance with the trans fats recommendation.

Total fat:

The DGA recommendation for fat is to keep total fat intake between 30 to 35 percent of calories for children 2 to 3 years of age and between 25 to 35 percent of calories daily for children and adolescents 4 to 18 years of age. It should be noted that breakfast meals are often relatively low in fat (below 25 percent). The fat recommendation for each of the meals, in addition to the total daily fat range, should be considered in this process.

Available nutrient information:

Program operators and administrators rely in part on nutrition information provided by food labels and product specifications to plan and assess menus that meet the required nutrient levels. FNS is concerned that establishing requirements for nutrients that are not required to be listed on food labels and product specifications by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA, P.L. 101-535), such as the nutrients of concern for children including potassium, magnesium, and vitamin E, would be a burden to Program operators and administrators. FNS requests that nutrient standard recommendations take into consideration the availability of nutrient information on food labels and product specifications.

Sodium standard:

It is well-recognized that the current intake of sodium for most individuals in the U.S., including school-age children, greatly exceeds the DGA recommendation to consume less than 2300 milligrams (mg) of sodium per day. FNS has encouraged schools to reduce sodium in the NSLP and SBP since the implementation of the School Meals Initiative (SMI) in 1995; however, the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Studies (SNDA I–III) consistently indicate that the efforts since 1995 have not resulted in any significant reduction of sodium levels in school meals, on average.

FNS is concerned that the challenge of reducing sodium levels in school meals extends beyond the efforts of Program operators and administrators alone. At present, sodium is a common addition to processed foods and convenience items which are commonly used in school meal programs to save time and reduce labor costs. Additionally, the availability of high so-dium foods at home, at restaurants, and at other locations in and outside of the school meals programs has resulted in a taste preference for salty foods which impacts student acceptability of school meals and Program participation. Furthermore, it takes time to change children’s taste preferences and for industry to respond to a need for low-sodium products in schools and the general market.

The USDA requests that the committee consider student acceptability, Program participation, and market conditions when making recommendations for sodium levels in school meals. Additionally, the Department requests that the committee consider a recommendation that would allow for a progressive or gradual reduction of sodium levels in school meals, such as interim targets, to ultimately meet a standard based on the DGA recommendation over a realistic period of time without adversely affecting program participation.

Vitamin A standard:

Current regulations require that school meals meet minimum levels of vitamin A expressed in Retinol Equivalents (RE), as specified in the 1989 RDAs. The nutrition facts panel on food products provides vitamin A levels in International Units (IU). The most recent DRI standards for vitamin A are quantified in Retinol Activity Equivalents (RAE). FNS is concerned that there is no direct conversion from the DRI recommendations in RAE to IU. FNS requests that the committee recommend a vitamin A standard that addresses the fact that Program operators and administrators rely both on values in nutrient analysis software (which may be in RAE, RE and/or IU) and on food labels and product specifications that quantify vitamin A in IU (i.e., percent of Daily Value in International Units). FNS recognizes that a conversion from levels expressed in RAE to IU may need to be based on representation of a mixed diet for school-aged children.

Menu planning approaches:

FNS would like the committee to examine the adequacy of the current menu planning approaches in meeting the applicable DRIs and DGAs. We are concerned that the structure of the current menu planning approaches, such as the Traditional FBMP and NSMP, may no longer be adequate to provide school meals that reflect the 2005 DGAs. Furthermore, FNS would like recommendations for a single food-based menu planning and a single nutrient standard menu planning approach. FNS requests that the IOM recommendations result in age-appropriate meals and reflect the applicable DRIs and 2005 DGAs under any menu planning approach.

Fruit, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat/fat-free milk products:

The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 amended the NSLA to require increased consumption of foods that are specifically recommended in the most recent DGAs. FNS is requesting recommendations to increase the availability of the food groups encouraged by the 2005 DGAs. FNS wishes to apply requirements for these food groups to ensure that all students in the NSLP and SBP have access to adequate amounts of these recommended foods, regardless of the menu planning approach used by their school foodservice authority.

Current NSLP regulations require that minimum servings of fruits and/or vegetables, fluid milk, and whole grain or enriched sources of grains/breads be offered daily in the food-based menu planning approaches. In the nutrient standard menu planning approaches, fluid milk is the only required food item to be offered and minimum serving requirements are not established. Under all menu planning approaches, whole grains are encouraged but not required. Additionally, all schools must provide a variety of fluid milk types (a minimum of two); regulations do not place restrictions on offering any milk-fat or flavored varieties.

In the SBP, meal patterns and menu structures have been designed to provide schools with flexibility to provide meals that reflect a typical breakfast meal and avoid unnecessary burden on school foodservice operations. FNS requests that the committee consider such differences between NSLP and SBP meal service operations when making recommendations to increase the food groups encouraged by the 2005 DGAs in the FBMP breakfast meal pattern and the NSMP menu structure.

Special considerations for whole grains:

In order to incorporate whole grains into the menus, schools must be able to accurately identify a creditable whole-grain product. An issue for FNS is helping schools easily identify whole grain products that provide a significant level of whole grains. At this time, the FDA has not published a definition of a whole-grain product, or a whole-grain serving. USDA wishes to establish a consistent definition for all the FNS Special Nutrition Programs (including NSLP, SBP, Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), WIC, and the FNS commodity programs).

Special considerations for fluid milk:

The NSLA and program regulations require that lunches include fluid milk and allow fluid milk in a variety of fat contents and flavors. Fluid milk may not be substituted by another beverage or dairy product, except when a disability precludes milk consumption.² Under the FBMP approaches, a minimum of eight fluid ounces is required for school-age children and a minimum of six fluid ounces is required for preschoolers. No minimum quantity is required under the NSMP approaches. Since calcium is a nutrient of concern for children and milk is a primary food source of nutrients for children, FNS is seeking recommendations to implement the recommendations of the DGAs and DRIs. When considering this, the IOM expert committee should also address concerns that offering different quantity for the various age-grade groups in the NSLP and SBP may be operationally difficult to implement at the local school level due to procurement logistics and economies of scale.

Meat/Meat Alternate:

The current meat/meat alternate requirements in the NSLP meal patterns exceed the recommended quantities in the USDA Food Guide, the food pattern that illustrates the recommendations of the DGAs. The School Nutrition Dietary Assessment (SNDA) studies show that current meal patterns require more than adequate amounts of meat/meat alternate to meet the nutritional (protein and iron) needs of children and adolescents. There may be adjustments to existing meat/meat alternate requirements that could help schools limit food costs while still meeting the nutritional needs of participants. Schools could meet the meat/meat alternate requirement over the course of the week as long as a minimum serving of meat/meat alternate is offered daily. Consistent with the DGAs, schools should offer low-fat, lean meat/meal alternates to help children limit the intakes of saturated fat, total fat, and cholesterol. In addition, there is public interest in incorporating nutrient-dense meat alternatives such as soy-based products in the NSLP.

Offer versus Serve:

The IOM committee may need to be aware of Offer versus Serve, a statutory requirement intended to reduce plate waste in the lunch program. The NSLA requires that high school students be allowed to decline foods they do not intend to eat. Offer versus Serve may be implemented at lower grades at the option of the local school district. Program regulations require that students select at least three of the five food items offered in a food-based menu. For nutrient-based menus, the regulations require that students select the entrée. If three items are offered, students may decline one; if four or more items are offered, students may decline two.

Attainable recommendations:

The majority of schools prepare meals on-site with a small staff and restricted budget. Food purchasing, planning, preparation and service are often carried out by employees with no formal food service or management training. Changes to the meal patterns and nutrition standards must be feasible for school foodservice operators, and should not jeopardize student and school participation in the meal programs. To ensure that the combined set of recommendations are attainable, the Department requests IOM to include in the report separately for NSLP and SBP a set of four-week cycle menus for each of the recommended age groups that meet all recommendations, are relatively cost neutral and would not likely have an adverse effect on program participation.

Nordic Love: Kids Make Swedish Meatballs

2011-10-21T06:00:00.002-04:00

: Best meatballs in 1 hour

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Just in time for the "Nordic Day" festivities in D.C. Public Schools next week, my food appreciation classes arrived in Scandinavia on our virtual world food tour and made the best meatballs you've ever tasted from scratch--including fresh bread crumbs and white sauce--in less than an hour.

It helps to have a portable burner to make the sauce at the prep table. Otherwise, the stove is about 30 paces away, and running back and forth gets tired after a while. The kids love pulling the bread apart for the crumbs, mixing the beef with the toasted crumbs, onions, eggs and other ingredients, then rolling the mix into balls. Nobody refuses the finished meatballs either. The only question at that point is, do you take them with or without the white sauce? And how about the lingonberry jam?

I tried to explain to the kids that the Swedes like their sweet and savory combinations and that lingonberries are a big deal in the land of the midnight sun. Not all were convinced. Still, I was delighted to find authentic Swedish lingonberry preserves amongst the other jams right next to the peanut butter display at my local Harris Teeter's.

Most Nordic countries have a traditional meatball recipe and there are any number of ways to sauce it. I thought the white sauce was easiest for the time we have allotted for our classes. It makes a good lesson in basic sauce construction.

Start with the fresh bread crumbs. And by all means make them fresh--the stuff in the cans won't due. Use about three thick slices of a country-style loaf (I chose a Tuscan round). Remove the crust and chop the white part fairly fine. Spread on a baking sheet and toast lightly in a 450 degree oven. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl beat 2 eggs. Add 1 small onion, minced, and 1 1/2 pounds (or a little less) ground beef. Add bread crumbs and mix well, seasoning to taste with salt, black pepper and a generous pinch of ground nutmeg. You would do well to work the mix for a few seconds with your hands. Kids love squishing it between their fingers.

Use a measuring spoon to scoop out heaping tablespoons of meat mix. Roll these into balls and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving a little space around each meatball. Place in the 450-degree oven and bake until lightly browned and cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes.

While the meatballs are cooking you can make your sauce. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a small skillet. Add 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour and stir together to create a roux. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, for a minute or two, then begin adding 1 cup chicken broth. Stir continuously while you add the broth. The sauce will still be quite thick. As it begins to bubble again, add about 1/3 cup half-and-half, or enough to make a fairly thick sauce. Remember that it will thicken more as it cools. Season with salt and possibly a little nutmeg.

Serve the meatballs warm, covered with sauce, with some lingonberry jam on the side. Our kids got them in hot drink cups with a spoon. Hold any leftover meatballs warm, as your family is bound to ask for seconds.

Nordic Day in D.C. Schools

2011-10-20T07:31:00.004-04:00

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Coinciding perfectly with my recent school food fact finding mission to Sweden, the D.C. Public Schools next week are holding a "Nordic Day," supported by several local embassies. As well as a menu of classic nordic foods for all 45,000 DCPS students, the embassies will be providing musical entertainment and other activities at individual schools.

Here's the skinny:

WHAT: The Embassies of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, together with the D.C. Public Schools’ Office of Food & Nutrition Services and the DC Embassy Adoption Program, will bring Nordic food to all 45,000 D.C. Public School students at 125 DC schools on Nordic Food Day, DCPS’ first ever celebration of international food and culture.

The purpose of Nordic Food Day is to expose students to new, nutritious, appetizing foods in school while encouraging them to recreate these recipes with their parents or guardians at home. A Nordic cook book with easy do-it-yourself recipes will be distributed to DCPS students on the day of the event.

Beginning on October 25^th, Nordic “Food Mentors” sponsored by Nordic Innovation will be visiting 20 schools to introduce DCPS students to Nordic culture and culinary tradition. On October 26^th, authentic Nordic dishes, including Swedish meatballs, Norwegian salmon, Finnish rye bread and Icelandic inspired Skyr, along with Danish inspired open-faced sandwiches, will be served to all students for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Menu items will be prepared by five Nordic chef apprentices who will be visiting D.C. as winners of a Nordic culinary competition.

Four elementary schools which have been paired with the Nordic countries through the D.C. Embassy Adoption Program will have special events take place during lunchtime on Nordic Food Day.

A reception will be held following the day’s events at the residence of the Norwegian Ambassador. A fundraiser for DCPC schools to bring more salad bars into the schools will be held at the Danish Embassy with chef Trina Hahnemann and the band ‘Suspicious Package’.

Nordic Day is the inaugural event for DCPS’ International Food Program. Four food days will be co-sponsored by D.C. embassies annually to introduce students to new tastes and cultural experiences, and to lay the foundation for increased cross-cultural exchange.

WHO: HRH Prince Daniel of Sweden, Ministers, Mayor Vincent Gray, Ambassadors of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, Nordic celebrity chefs, Janey Thornton, USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services and Jeffrey Mills, DCPS Food & Nutrition Services Director.

PARTNERS:

· Nordic Innovation

WHEN: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26TH – 11:00 AM - 1:00PM

WHERE:

Kenilworth Elementary School

Embassy of Denmark

1300 44^thStreet NE

Lunch: tbd

* Chef Trina Hahnemann will share Danish food and talk about eating healthy and sharing a meal at home with your family

*Get your photo taken with a real live ‘Tivoli Guard’

*Piano music, face painting and lots of fun the happy Danish way!

Media Contact:

Pernille Florin Elbech

Senior Advisor, Public Diplomacy & Press

E: perelb@um.dk

O: 202.797.5362

C: 202.320.0098

River Terrace Elementary School

420 34^th Street NE

Embassy of Finland

Lunch: 12:00-1:00PM

*Live music -Finnish singer Meri Siirala & saxophonist Anders Lundegård who are going to sing together with the students in Finnish

* Demo and food tasting by Ambassador's chef

* Lively information about Finnish schools & school food; healthy snack plate

* A short Moomin movie

Media Contact:

Jenni Jarventaus, Media Relations Coordinator

E: jenni.jarventaus@formin.fi

O: 202. 298.5821
C: 202.615.5811

Brookland Education Campus

1401 Michigan Avenue NE

Embassy of Iceland and Embassy of Norway

Lunch: 12:00-1:10PM

*Icelandic Jazz musician Björn Thoroddsen and fiddler Vilde Aasland

*Giveaways from both embassies

*Visitors from both embassies, some of them wearing national costumes

*Food from both Norway and Iceland

Media Contact:

Pia Ulrikke Dahl
Cultural and Information Officer

E: pia.ulrikke.dahl@mfa.no
O: 202.469.3977
C: 202.344.6089

Miner Elementary School

601 15th Street NE

Embassy of Sweden

Lunch: 11:00 AM -1:00PM

*HRH Prince Daniel of Sweden, Mayor Vincent Gray, Sweden’s Minister of Social Affairs and the Ambassador of Sweden

*Cultural Activities offered to the children include tasting station, Pippi Longstocking photo booth, educational & craft station and musicians
*All children at Miner Elementary will be involved in the program, including a tour of the school and a Glee Club performance

Media Contact:

Larilyn André

E: larilyn.andre@foreign.ministry.se

O: 202-467-2644

C: 202-213-2718

Finally Revealed: Processed Food Rebates Dominate School Cafeterias

2011-10-18T06:00:00.007-04:00

: Chartwells gets big rebates serving meals like this

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

When I first started writing about the food being served in my daughter's elementary school cafeteria, I figured there had to be a reason children were being fed Apple Jacks cereal, strawberry milk, Pop-Tarts, Giant Goldfish Grahams and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins for breakfast.

I was right. The manufacturers of those sugar-laden products pay hefty rebates--some call them "kickbacks"--to giant food service companies as an inducement to purchase their highly processed goods. But I have now learned it's not just the lousy food that's fueled by rebates. Just about everything that goes into running a public school cafeteria comes with a rebate check that helps make sure the industrial version of food wins out.

In what may be the first ever detailed look into how industry rebates dominate school food service, documents I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that more than 100 companies paid rebates in recent years to the food service management company hired by D.C. Public Schools--Chartwells--for everything from breakfast cereal, hamburger patties and canned green beans to paper cups, armored car services and drug counseling for employees.

Far and away the biggest contributor to the rebate dollars collected by Chartwells was a company I had never heard of, but one that apparently plays an oversized role in feeding our city's children--Performance Food Group. According to an itemization released by D.C. Public Schools, Performance Food Group paid more than $400,000 in rebates for goods and services supplied to the city's schools over the last three years.

Based in Richmond, Va., Performance Food Group claims to be "one of the nation's largest foodservice distributors" with multiple brands and more than 1,000 products aimed not only at schools and restaurants but "every kind of eatery from coast to coast." The company has operations in 29 states, "from our distribution warehouses in Tennessee, to our seafood facility in Miami, to our cheese processing facility in Minnesota." It employees 10,000 workers just to transport all of its goods, and its trucks "log millions of miles each year," according to the company's website.

Second on the list of biggest rebate providers in D.C. schools is General Mills, the cereal maker, at $41,218, followed by Kraft, supplier of mayonnaise and salad dressings at $36,165, and Country Pure Foods-Ardmore Farms, manufacturer of fruit juices, at $34.991. The list includes many of the nation's top industrial food processors, such as Kellogg's ($20,717), ConAgra ($25,030) and Tyson ($15,792), as well as frozen pizza giant Schwan's ($24.561) and muffin maker Otis Spunkmeyer ($21,377).

Manufacturers pay rebates based on large volume purchases--literally, cash for placing an order. Rebates are said to be worth billions of dollars to the nation's food industry, although manufacturers as well as the food service companies who feed millions of the nation's school children every day--Chartwells, Sodexo and Aramark--treat them as a closely-guarded secret.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that food service companies engaged in "cost reimbursable" contracts with schools credit any rebates they receive to their school clients. For more than a year, attorneys for D.C. Public Schools refused to make public an itemized list of rebates collected by Chartwells, claiming the information constituted "trade secrets." The schools were overruled by Mayor Vincent Gray's legal counsel after I filed an administrative appeal.

John Carroll, an assistant New York State attorney general investigating rebating practices there, has said rebates pose "an inherent conflict of interest" in school feeding programs because they favor highly processed industrial foods. In cases where schools pay a food service company a flat rate to provide meals, the companies are not required to disclose the rebates they collect. In those cases, Carroll recently told a U.S. Senate Panel, rebates tend to drive up the cost of food, cheating children out of nutrition they might otherwise have on their lunch trays.

Carroll also described cases where rebates discouraged the use of local farm products in school meals. Produce vendors can't afford to pay a rebate for local apples. But in at least one case, a produce distributor raised the prices of his goods so that he could pay a rebate to a food service company.

A Homeland Security sub-committee in the U.S. Senate is investigating possible rebate fraud in contracts across the entire federal government.

Here in the District of Columbia, children were being fed meals manufactured in a suburban factory until Chartwells in the fall of 2009 introduced something it called "fresh cooked." As I discovered while spending a week in the kitchen at my daughter's elementary school, what that entailed was reheating pre-fabricated meal components such as chicken nuggets and tater tots. For breakfast, children were often consuming up to 15 teasoons of sugar in the form of processed cereals, flavored milk, cookies and muffins.

Around that same time, D.C. Public Schools hired a new food services director, Jeffrey Mills, who scoured the entire Chartwells menu item-by-item, removing the flavored milk and processed treats and replacing many of the familiar re-heated lunch items. Funds allocated by a "Healthy Schools Act" approved by the D.C. Council helped pay for fresh local fruits and vegetables. But Mills said he sometimes encountered stiff resistance from the local Chartwells manager because the products Mills wanted to serve were not on Chartwell "preferred" product list.

According to Carroll, site managers for food service companies face punishment from their employers if they deviate from products that pay the biggest rebates. Rebates are extremely lucrative, since they generate revenue that requires virtually no labor. Some products trigger rebates of up to 50 percent of their listed value. And while USDA regulations require that rebates be credited to schools with "cost reimbursable" contracts, it is believed that the big food service companies have found ways to profit from them nonetheless.

For instance, it is speculated that manufacturers offer stepped-up rebates for very large purchase orders. Thus, while a single school district may only be entitled to 10 percent worth of rebates on its share of breakfast cereal, an order for cereal covering multiple school districts might trigger a rebate of, say, 20 percent. The food service company would simply pocket the difference.

Chartwells manages food service in more than 500 school districts across the country. The products it uses are supplied by a sister company called Foodbuy, whose employees concern themselves entirely with writing huge contracts with food manufacturers and collecting the rebates on behalf of their parent company, Compass Group, based in Great Britain. Compass group, which owns numerous food service operations in this country--including Chartwells, Bon Appetit, Restaurant Associates, and Wolfgang Puck Catering--claimed some $22 billion in sales in its most recent annual report.

In July of last year, I disclosed that Chartwells had collected more than $1 million in rebates and discounts during its first 18 months of operation in D.C. schools. Subsequently, the schools acknowledged that they had been waiting nine months for Chartwells to make good on a request to produce an itemized accounting of where those rebates came from.

I can now pass along a list of most of the companies involved, compiled from hundreds of data entries contained in the documents obtained from D.C. Public Schools, representing rebates reported by Chartwells since fall 2008. Some of the companies cited in the documents could not be positively identified.

$ 415,051.41 Performance Food Group: food and food service products

$ 41,218.07 General Mills: breakfast cereals

$ 36,165.78 Kraft General Foods: salad dressings, condiments

$ 34,991.20 Country Pure Foods-Ardmore Farms: fruit juices

$ 32,839.50 Jenny-O Turkey Store: processed turkey products

$ 29,075.44 Allen Canning: canned vegetables

$ 25,030.91 ConAgra: prepared foods

$ 24,561.45 Schwan's: frozen pizza

$ 21,377.88 Otis Spunkmeyer: muffins

$ 20,717.38 Kellogg's: breakfast cereal

$ 20,628.47 Ecolab: kitchen sanitation services

$ 19,002.03 Pilgrim’s: chicken products

$ 15,792.67 Tyson: chicken products

$ 13,682.74 Keany Produce: fruits and vegetables

$ 16,583.00 Ford Motor Co.: vehicles

$ 15,011.72 Supply America: food service supplies and equipment

$ 14,324.32 Frito Lay: chips and snacks

$ 13,974.08 JAFCO Foods: breaded chicken

$ 9,959.46 Butensky Services: refrigeration repair

$ 9,830.65 Simplot Food Group: frozen potato products

$ 9,509.46 Smithfield Packing: ham, hot dogs

$ 9,153.11 Pactiv: plastic food packaging

$ 8,226,89 Atlantic Mills: kitchen wipes, aprons

$ 8,056.00 VF Solutions: uniforms

$ 7,344.53 Heinz: ketchup

$ 7,308.33 Dunbar Armored: armored car services

$ 6,727.56 Pinnacle Foods: syrup, pickles, barbecue sauce

$ 6,591.27 Unilever Food Solutions: dressings, sauces, seasonings

$ 6,578.11 Michael Foods: frozen egg products

$ 6,193.99 Coca-Cola: soft drinks, bottled water

$ 5,953.75 Automotive Rentals: vehicle rental

$ 5,680.97 Great Lakes Cheese: cheese products

$ 5,195.30 Mission Foods/Gruma: tortillas

$ 5,152.21 Office Max: office products

$ 4,718.02 McCormick & Co.: spices

$ 4,678.79 Cadbury: chocolate

$ 4,388.70 Cargill Meat Solutions: processed beef

$ 4,368.03 National Paper & Plastic: plastic cutlery, disposables

$ 3,679.00 Network: undetermined

$ 3,571.05 Osborne Co.: undetermined

$ 3,239.65 Sara Lee Bakery: bread, baked goods

$ 3,200.00 Rush Truck Center: trucks

$ 2,882.68 Produce Source Partners: produce, cut fruits and vegetables

$ 2,604.29 Nestle: frozen prepared foods

$ 2,587.67 REMA Foods: canned, frozen and packaged commodity foods

$ 2,516.04 Georgia Pacific-Dixie Foodservice: disposable cups, plates

$ 2,571.30 Tropical Paradise Inc.: frozen fruit slush

$ 1,992.46 Dr. Pepper/7-Up: soft drinks, bottled water, Snapple

$ 1,970.99 Advanced Food Company: Philly steakds, bugers, fajita strips

$ 1,917.71 Schreiber Foods: processed cheese

$ 1,770.04 Hormel: processed meats

$ 1,604.00 MegaMex Foods: salsa, canned jalapeno peppers, refried beans

$ 1,317.36 Lamb Weston: potato products

$ 1,305.25 Campbell’s Foodservice: Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, Giant Goldfish Grahams

$ 1,274.61 Anchor Packaging: plastic food containers

$ 1,219.00 Fabri-kal Corp.: plastic food containers

$ 1,250.20 Iceland Seafood Corp.: frozen fish

$ 1,210.00 Sara Lee Meats—Jimmy Dean: breakfast sausage

$ 1,112.30 Rich Products: frozen foods

$ 963.95 WinCup: Styrofoam cups

$ 913.80 Colavita: olive oil

$ 853.41 Masterfoods—Uncle Ben’s: instant rice

$ 810.25 Ventura Foods-Sunnyland: oils, shortenings, pan coatings

$ 683.94 Verizon Wireless: communications

$ 579.46 First Advantage Occupational Health Services: drug screening, substance abuse assistance

$ 564.24 Schwan’s Bakery: undetermined

$ 539.80 Goodman Foods: undetermined

$ 531.57 Gehl’s Guernsey Farms: cheese sauces

$ 494.54 Bon Chef: food presentation equipment

$ 401.65 Jet Plastica: plastic cutlery, straws

$ 400.80 Smucker's: jams, jellies

$ 400.00 Mickey Truck Bodies: specialty delivery trucks

$ 398.00 Ken’s Foods Inc.: salad dressings

$ 368.75 Wholesome & Hearty Food: vegetarian burgers

$ 314.89 Handi Foil: disposable aluminum containers

Exploring Swedish School Lunch: Epilogue

2011-10-16T06:00:00.005-04:00

: Stockholm is a series of islands

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

At first I thought it was a prank.

On September 7, I received an e-mail purporting to be from the press office at the Swedish embassy in Washington. I was invited to attend a "study visit" of the school lunch program in Sweden just two weeks hence.

"The Swedish Institute is willing to cover costs in Sweden and the Embassy will pay for economy class airline tickets," the note from press officer Larilyn Andre explained. "Or you are free to attend at your media outlet's expense if you are not able to accept this offer."

Well, I certainly didn't have a "media outlet" to pay may way. Could this be legit? Why me? And if it was legit, why the last-minute invite?

As I would later learn, the press junket I was about to embark upon had been instigated months earlier by the Swedish embassy in Berlin. They had contacted the Swedish Institute in Stockholm suggesting that since school food had become such a hot topic, Sweden might want to show off its free school lunch program, especially since the government had embarked upon an intiative promoting Sweden as Europe's new "culinary nation."

The Swedish institute, which promotes all things Swedish, had contacted embassies around the world. Apparently, the memo sat in someone's in box in Washington for all those months. That still didn't explain how they picked me. "I enjoyed your article about the food service agency programs in DC public schools and today's piece on flavored milk, and thought this might interest you," press officer Andre had written.

But while in Sweden, I learned that the Swedish embassy in Washington had been in talks for weeks with food service personnel in the D.C. Public Schools about holding a "Nordic Day" that would feature Scandinavian foods in the cafeterias. The event is now scheduled for Oct. 26, and some of the people I met in Stockholm are scheduled to be on hand. The following evening, Oct. 27, the Danish embassy is hosting a cocktail event to raise funds for salad bars in D.C. schools. (There are definitely perks to be had living in the nation's capital.)

D.C. schools food services Director Jeff Mills now admits that my name had come up in those meetings. "I mentioned you a lot," he said.

Okay, mystery solved. On Sept. 17, I flew off to Chicago's O'Hare Airport to board an extremely comfortable, seven-hour flight to Stockholm. Did I mention the complimentary cocktails? I landed at 7:30 Sunday morning and breezed through customs. But the "free taxi" into Stockholm I'd been promised never materialised and I was soon introduced to the high cost of living in Sweden. The express train from Arlanda Airport downtown--a 25-mile ride--cost an astounding $50. (Alright, it's cheaper if you buy a ticket from the machine on the platform, but I couldn't figure out how to work the machine.)

The city seemed deserted when I arrived at Stockholm's central train station. Using the map inside a guide book I'd purchased in the States (Time Out Stockholm), I managed to locate my hotel on foot, about a mile and a half away on Berzelli Park, near the waterfront.

: Berzelli Park, seen from Berns Hotel

The receptionist at Berns Hotel--a beautifully appointed boutique hotel and famous entertainment complex in downtwon Stockholm--was so impressed by my travails that morning she urged me help myself to the free breakfast buffet, even though the usual check-in was still hours away.

At this point I might as well say something about the Swedish breakfast I experieced at Berns Hotel. It was a protein lovers nirvana. Cheeses, cold cuts, smoked salmon, sausage, bacon, eggs--especially since I'd been warned how expensive restaurants were in Sweden, I was primed to eat my fill. Oh, there were also pitchers full of various yogurts, a variety of granolas and cereals, an entire buffet table devoted to various whole grain breads and rolls. There was even a display of different teas for do-it-yourself brewing, along with a plate of truffles and assorted chocolates.

: My breakfast at Berns Hotel

Who needs lunch or dinner when you can eat a breakfast like this? In fact, what I mostly did for other meals while in Stockholm was snack on the nuts, cheeses and sausage I'd brought from home. I was later struck by how thoroughly Swedish officials try to minimize fat in school lunch. The milk offered in cafeterias is .5 percent. And rather than serve butter with the ubiquitous displays of traditional crispy bread, schools are urged to offer margarine instead.

As I mention in part six of this series, school meal recommendations are much more concerned with serving children copious amounts of potatoes and bread.

: Breakfast tea and chocolate display

Apparently the reason I was flown to Stockholm on a Saturday, when the press tour didn't start until Tuesday, is that it was cheaper for the Swedish government to put me up in a boutique hotel for two extra nights than to pay weekday air fare. That gave me most of Sunday and all day Monday to sight-see and adjust my inner clock to the six-hour time difference.

I spent most of that time just walking the Stockholm waterfront, which is extensive, since the city is built on a series of islands connected by bridges and water taxis. But I especially wanted to see the Vasa museum housing a 17th century wooden war ship that sank to the bottom of Stockholm's harbor shortly after setting sail on it's maiden voyage. Apparently, after two years in construction, the hull was not designed to carry enough ballast and the ship simply blew over in a strong wind. It filled with water through the gun ports.

: View of the Vasa museum--and romance

A short film explains how the Vasa was accidentally discovered and carefully raised from the briny depths with help from the Swedish Navy in the 1960s. It was then moved to its current location and surrounded by the museum building. The ship is huge, rising more than 40 feet from the waterline at the stern and weighing the equivalent of three jumbo jets. Great pains were made to examine the skeletal remains found on the ship and reconstruct lifelike faces and period clothing.

Many of those on the ship apparently suffered a variety of ailments due to a steady diet of porridge.

: Gamla Stan, Stockholm's old town

Stockholm is among the few large urban centers in Europe that sustained no damage during World War II. Sweden remained neutral while much of the rest of Europe was in flames. Stockholm's old town on the island Gamla Stan--also site of the royal castle--maintains the charm of centuries-old cobblestone streets and colorfully painted townhouses. You can tell this is tourist central from all the stores displaying postcards on the sidewalks and kitch in the windows. Still, it's worth a stroll, and possibly even an afternoon fika--the traditional break for coffee and pastry.

: 7-Eleven stores are everywhere in Stockholm

America's food influence on Sweden is impossible to miss. There seems to be a McDonald's on every corner, including the one a block from my hotel--in the middle of one of Stockholm's most fashionable neighborhoods--where the Big Mac dinner was priced around $10. In case you needed a candy bar or soda, 7-Eleven was never far away.

: A taste of the U.S. is never far away

T.G.I. Fridays also has a spot close to the downtown waterfront. The "sizzling fajitas combo" sells for $32. Everywhere I went, school officials and chefs complain that the fast food culture makes it hard to get children to eat the healthier food they serve. Sound familiar?

: Visitng organic dairy farm outside Stockholm

Early Tuesday morning I met up with my fellow journalists--four Germans from Berlin, one Russian based in Prague--and our guide, Kasja Guterstam of the Swedish Institute. Among the Germans was a writer for Slow Food Magazin, another from FOCUS Magazin, a third from Die Tageszeitung, and one gentleman representing a group that advocates for better school food in Germany, Schulverpflegung.

The Germans did not seem terribly impressed with the idea of free school lunch. Why should it be free? they asked. But they were fascinated to here about all the drama occurring around school food in the U.S. Apparently, a national school food program is not something that exists in Germany the way we know it and the journalists I was traveling with--one of whom had lived in Washington--were not seem especially concerned about it. The school day in Germany typically ends early, they explained. Kids eat at home.

They were particularly amused to hear about nutrition guidelines for U.S. schools, and the impending new ones that would sharply cut back on potatoes in favor of green and orange vegetables. "What's wrong with potatoes?" they asked.

Mostly what we did for two days was zip from one meeting to the next--10 in all over two days--in a hired taxi. Our last stop involved a ferry ride to an island-bound organic dairy farm where Arla, the giant Swedish dairy company, pays the farm family to host visits from school groups. Otherwise, we were told, the farm to school concept has not taken a strong hold in Sweden, mainly because schools can't afford to send the kids on farm outings.

We did have our evenings free. One night I decided to splurge for dinner and walked past the McDonald's to a huge department store near the hotel--Nordiska Kompaniet, or simply NK, a cherished institution in Sweden. Along with several restaurants, the store boasts a huge grocery, deli and prepared food department. I spent 74 Swedish Kroner--nearly $12--on a simple microwave meal that turned out to be a rather good version of Thai curried chicken over rice.

: Department store Thai chicken curry

For convenience sake, the store provides e a few eating tables in the prepared food section (also a bar with a full menu), along with a microwave machine, plastic utensils and pitchers of drinking water.

Before leaving the U.S., I had reached out to friends for any contacts they might have in Sweden with school food experience. I was soon corresponding with a number of families there--some American--as well as several of chefs who had learned about my visit through Facebook and other social networking sites and wanted to share their experiences. One of those exchanges resulted in part seven of this series, My Life as a Swedish School Chef.

I got some heat from the Swedes for not painting their school lunch program in glorious hues. But from the many people I corresponded with, I learned that all is not perfect with the Swedish system. It has warts, just like ours. But I was most encouraged to see that the Swedes are not afraid to let their children serve themselves in their "school restaurants," and that so many professional chefs are pursuing careers leading school kitchens.

: Swedish chefs only boast in private

Apparently, not everyone in Sweden is happy with all the acclaim some of those school chefs have gotten. Chef Michael Backman, at the Annersta School, said he's received no small amount of grief from the school food community because of all the favorable publicity showered on his restaurant-quality school meals. "In Sweden, no one's supposed to be that much better than everyone else." You have to travel deep into the rear of his kitchen to find a blackboard where Backman has scribbled a simple message about the pride he feels in the food he and his staff produce.

"We are the best!" the message declares in Swedish. "Vi ar bast!"

The rest of the message requires no translation.

Mashed Potato Cabbage Love

2011-10-14T06:00:00.001-04:00

: Simple pleasures are often the best

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Sometimes the simplest foods are the best.

Into that category I would place Irish colcannon, a rustic mash-up of potatoes, cabbage and onions. Some versions add ham or bacon. But we stuck with the vegetarian original. They say this is traditionally served for Halloween. All I know is the kids in my food appreciation classes went wild for it.

But what's not to like about mashed potatoes? They aren't exactly on my diet. But cabbage adds all kinds of health benefits and the kids didn't seem to notice that they were actually eating a beneficial vegetable besides the potatoes.

Plus, they would gladly spend all day peeling and chopping vegetables.

Start by cutting 1/3 green cabbage into 1-inch pieces. Place these in a steamer basket set inside a heavy pot with water and steam over moderate heat until the cabbage is tender and has turned an olive color.

Meanwhile, peel and cut into 1-inch pieces about 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes (you can use ordinary Russets as well). Cover with water in a heavy pot and cook until tender.

In a heavy skillet, saute until soft and lightly browned 2 medium onions cut into medium dice in three tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (or bacon grease).

When the potatoes are done, drain the water from the pot and mash the potatoes with 3 tablespoons butter and a generous splash of milk. Stir in the cooked cabbage and onions. Season with salt and pepper.

Garnish with chopped scallions and serve warm.

What Does Sweden's Free School Lunch Say About Us?

2011-10-13T06:00:00.001-04:00

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Imagine a school cafeteria where lunch is free for all children, where there are no cash registers, no a la carte lines, no vending machines, where kids serve themselves from long food bars loaded with different entrees as well as salads, and where they pour themselves plain milk or water to wash it all down.

That would be the school lunch I saw in Sweden where, since 1997, all "primary" school children--or those through age 16--are guaranteed a free lunch. Unlike our system here in the U.S., where free lunch carries the stigma of being poor, and where cafeterias serve fast food in order to entice paying children to help finance the program, the Swedes pride themselves on a cradle-to-grave social welfare system that serves everyone equally.

But as I quickly learned during my recent trip to Stockholm, there's no need to idealize the Swedish system. It has plenty of its own problems.

"Fun and interesting article you wrote, I think. We were hoping, though, that you'd be a bit more impressed with the Swedish school meals in general."

That was the comment I received from Annika Unt Widell, the spokeswoman for Swedish School Meal Supporters, after I published the first installment in my recent series on Swedish school food. But as I replied to her, I was terribly impressed with the Swedish school lunch I witnessed. I was also impressed, however, by the number of issues the lunch program there shares with ours here in the U.S.

Chief among those is money, and the fact that the government doesn't supply enough to do meals right.

Things work a bit differently in Sweden, though. There, the money for meals comes out of the general education funding supplied by the national government for each child. It filters through 290 municipalities, then through the individual schools. At each step, school meals may or may not be given high priority. Schools that allocate the most for their cafeteria operations spend three times as much as those that spend the least. While school lunch may be universally free in Sweden, that doesn't mean it is universally good. Sometimes it can be pretty awful.

"My son's school is great but the food is not," said Bronwyn Griffith, and American living in Stockholm with children five and eight. The food in that school comes from Sodexo, the giant international food service company that also has a huge presence in the U.S., and Griffith said her son refuses to eat it.

In the U.S., meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture reimburses schools $2.77 for each lunch it serves to a "low income" child. (That's five cents more than last year, to compensate to inflation.) Children whose family income is too high to qualify for free meals, but still low enough for "reduced-price" meals, earn a $2.37 subsidy. For kids who pay "full price," the federal government chips in 26 cents. The rates are a little higher in schools where at least 60 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

U.S. schools say they can barely scrape decent meals together because they only have around $1 out of the federal subsidy money to spend on ingredients for each meal. Spending disparities in Sweden result in vast differences in food quality from one district to the next. "I have 7.5 Swedish Kroner ($1.19) per lunch per student. Another school in the same town can have 12 Kroner ($1.90)," said Even Bakke, the chef at a school "restaurant" in Goteborg. "That doesn't sound like much of a difference. But it's a hell of a difference for us."

The Swedes are also just getting around to requiring that their meals meet specific nutritional requirements. U.S. school meals if anything are over-regulated. The USDA sets forth strict guidelines specifying not only what kinds of food schools must offer students in order to receive those federal reimbursement dollars, but what the serving sizes must be. Kids have to pass a cashier or "point of sale" not only to make payment, but to demonstrate to a cafeteria employee that the food on their trays qualifies as a "meal," as defined by the federal government.

And this year those rules become only more strict. Schools will have to remove from the steam table most of the French fries and other potato products kids love and offer more stuff kids don't like very much: green and orange vegetables and whole grains.

Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised to hear that Swedish chefs and school administrators alike describe their biggest problem as getting children to actually eat the better foods they put on their buffets. Like their counterparts here, kids in Sweden grow up surrounded by fast food. The one thing they don't have are food commercials on television aimed at them. That's forbidden in Sweden. To our everlasting shame, we in the U.S. can't get the processed food industry to agree even to voluntary guidelines on marketing to minors. Rather, we've allowed corporate food interests to hijack the health of our children under the guise of "free speech."

As in the U.S., there's a move afoot in Sweden to place more professional chefs in school kitchens. Trained chefs know how to make more out of less--and make it better. As I found in Boulder, where culinary school graduates were drawn into school kitchens by the allure of working with "renegade lunch lady" Ann Cooper, there is a yearning on the part of some chefs to do something more meaningful with their skills than slave over a hot stove in a fancy restaurant. Schools should be looking for ways to attract more of them.

The cafeteria design and service method in Sweden also has something to teach us. Lunch should not be about force-feeding children green vegetables and whole grain pasta, too much of which ends up in the trash. We need to engage kids in the act of making healthier food choices. Swedish children from the earliest grades learn to serve themselves from a food bar. Not only do they learn to like foods they might not otherwise try, they help loosen the Gordian knot around school lunch finances by taking only what they really want. (That's not to say there isn't food waste in Swedish cafeterias. There is, as I described in part three of the the series.)

"No child offered food ever starved," my wife likes to say. The U.S. national school meals program would do well to embrace that maxim. Why not just pay schools for every kid who picks up a cafeteria tray and let them make their own choices? Of course, that would mean the USDA would have to undo many of the rules and regulations it has spent decades putting in place. Government bureaucrats would be horrified to lose their strict accountability standards. But really, U.S. school lunch has become a Rube Goldberg contraption that seems to be more about following government rules than serving children.

"The more dishes, the easier to satisfy the students!" said chef Bakke of the buffet spread he lays out every day in Goteborg. "We serve three different lunch dishes every day, plus a salad buffet and freshly baked bread. The students have no reason to complain about the lunch when they have so many alternatives."

Truthfully, I don't think school meals will ever be universally free in the U.S. It's just not in our DNA. Still, we may have more in common with the Swedes than not. Just like in Berkeley and Boulder, it's obvious that the greatest progress in Swedish school meals is being made by chefs and school administrators who buck convention. As true as it is in other walks of life, this maxim holds for running a successful school meals program: following the rules is a surefire recipe for mediocrity.

It's time to change the rules.

Horrors! Kids Exposed to Beef Tongue!

2011-10-12T06:00:00.002-04:00

: Kids love playing with their food

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

In the five years I've taught my "food appreciation" classes at a private elementary school here in the District of Columbia I've never gotten a call from my boss like the one I got yesterday.

She'd heard I'd been teaching the kids about beef tongue. In fact, I had two tongues brining in the milt-purpose room fridge. Both she and her supervisor, she said, were worried about the reaction they might get from parents. Maybe, she suggested, she should be keeping a closer eye on what I'm doing.

Until now, there's never been a controversy over my "f0od appreciation" curriculum. Among the goals of these classes is to teach kids about foods they may not have been exposed to previously, about the roots of our foodways, about food cultures in other countries, about making food by hand and eating more sustainably. Since we currently are sampling the cuisine of the British Isles, where offal such as beef tongue has a long and proud tradition, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to teach the kids about eating the whole animal. Cows, they should know, were not put on the planet just to provide hamburger patties.

There are also a number of sustainability issues attached to eating beef. I happen to believe that raising beef on factory farms (confined animal feedlot operations, or CAFOs) is a bad idea and destructive to the environment. But I also believe that animal protein has an important place in the human diet, and that ruminants fit quite nicely into the agricultural landscape, especially when raised on pasture where cultivating vegetable crops may not be practical.

The most popular meat in the world is goat, a food source that may prove vitally important on an overheated planet.

As a food educator, I believe we should be raising sustainable eaters. We need to remind kids that there are many other edible parts of the cow besides the chuck and the T-bone steak. I want them to see, smell and touch foods that may be foreign to them. And guess what? They loved holding the beef tongue, the same way they've handled chicken livers, raw fish and squid. (At least the younger kids did).

My boss, meanwhile, is bracing for the worst.

What do you think?

Take The Slow Cook's School Lunch Challenge

2011-10-11T06:00:00.001-04:00

: How does your school lunch stack up?

Just in time for National School Lunch Week, the anonymous school lunch blogger Mrs. Q last week unmasked herself on Good Morning America and released a new book recounting her experiences eating lunch in a Chicago cafeteria every day for a year.

Special education instructor Sarah Wu--her real identity--captured the imagination of thousands of internet readers with her lurid photos of truly awful school grub. All the recent attention brought out school lunch defenders such as Diane Pratt-Heavner of the School Nutrition Association, a group representing school cooks across the country as well as the processed food companies that supply them.

"We have seen a tremendous change in the cafeterias in what they are offering and what they are promoting," Pratt-Heavner was quoted as saying in USAToday. Wu's story, she said, is "one snapshot in one school across the country." Pratt-Heavner suggests that parents need to get out to their local cafeteria and see what's happening.

We'll, I've gone one better. I've already been sitting in on breakfast and lunch daily at my daughter's school here in the District of Columbia and seen some of the changes that took place when a new food services director finally brought Chartwells, the giant food services management company, to heel. Having spent a week in an elementary school kitchen here in D.C. and documented the junk Chartwells was serving, I then took off for other parts of the country, living for a week in a school kitchen in Berkeley, then a week in Boulder. I also took up residence in a "boot camp" outside Denver where lunch ladies had the processed chicken nugget routine drilled out of them and learned to cook from scratch.

Of course those Berkeley and Boulder meal programs are some of the best in the country, having been done over by Ann Cooper. I'd love to continue this school lunch safari by documenting the work being done in some other school kitchens. But it's a funny thing: Most school officials apparently are just too embarrassed to have a journalist who really knows something about school food actually witnessing what goes on behind the scenes. Imagine, a program that feeds some 32 million kids every day but operates in virtual secrecy.

So last week I issued a challenge to the School Nutrition Association and I repeat it here to every school district in the nation: Give me a chance to spend five days in one of your kitchens, with no gags on the lunch ladies and freedom to roam the cafeteria and photograph the food and I will travel anywhere in the country at my own expense. I really do want to see how schools are making all the improvements Diane Pratt-Heavner told USAToday about. I want to tell the world and celebrate the work your schools are doing.

Just e-mail me at euclidarms(at)yahoo(dot)com.

This is my contribution to National School Lunch Week. So far, I have not heard back from the School Nutrition Association. But I hope you will take me up on my offer.

Kids Make Irish Stew

2011-10-07T06:00:00.002-04:00

: Getting Irish stew ready for the oven

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Even after five years working with the kids in my "food appreciation" classes, I am still occasionally bowled over by their reactions to certain foods. This week they dove into the process of making a classic Irish stew. They were not at all grossed out by the site of lamb being sliced and diced. On the contrary, they wanted to touch it, feel it, love it. And they were swept away by the final dish. They adored it.

And what's not to like? The aroma of lamb browning on the stove top got the attention of everyone who passed by the multi-purpose room. If I do say so myself, the final dish was superbly delicious.

The original Irish stew apparently consisted of lamb plainly cooked in water with potatoes. To kick the flavors up a notch or two, we browned our meat--lamb shoulder, purchased with the bones in and cut by the butcher into 1 1/2-inch thick chops.

We trimmed the meat away from the bones and cut it into 1-inch cubes. Season the lamb with salt and pepper, then brown it in batches in a heavy pot or Dutch oven liberally greased with your favorite cooking oil. The pieces of meat should not be touching--give them some room. You want to brown them, not steam them.

Remove the meat to a bowl. The bones, meanwhile, can be spread on a baking sheet and browned in a 450-degree oven. Most likely, the bones will have a fair amount of meat on them. All the better to flavor the stew. You can easily pick the meat off later, when the stew is finished.

Add more cooking oil to the pot if necessary and add three medium onions, roughly chopped. Over moderately high heat, cook the onions, stirring and scraping any bits of meat off the bottom of the pot, until they are tender and lightly browned. Toss in 1/4 cup all-purpose flour and mix well with the onions. Slowly pour in 3 cups water, allowing the mix to come to a boil. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and place the meat and bones in the pot, along with a few sprigs of fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves). Push the meat and bones with the back of a wooden spoon into the onion broth. When it has returned to a boil, cover the pot again and bake in a 300-degree oven for 1 hour.

After an hour, remove the pot from the oven and spread over the meat 1/2 pound carrots peeled and cut on an angle into 1/4-inch slices, 3 medium-sized purple-topped turnips peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces, and 3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1 pound) peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces. Cover the pot and return to the oven for another 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the carrots are tender.

To serve, stir all the ingredients in the pot together with the broth. Remove bones, carefully picking them over for meat that you can return to the stew. Ladle into warm bowls and present at the table with a loaf of hearty whole-grain bread and plenty of butter.

How Rebates Keep Local Produce Out of Schools

2011-10-06T06:00:00.003-04:00

: No rebates for local carrots?

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow cook

Just in time for Farm to School Week, the state prosecutor investigating fraud in school food rebates in New York yesterday told a U.S. Senate panel how the industry practice of awarding rebates to food service providers for large volume purchases discourages the use of local farm goods in school meals.

Assistant New York Attorney General John Carroll, testifying before a Senate panel investigating rebates in government contracting, said manufacturer rebates have become a pervasive practice in school food service that favors large companies and discourages purchases from small suppliers and local farmers.

"In fact in one instance I observed that a local produce wholesaler increased the prices it charged to the school district for fresh produce, including locally grown produce, so that it could pay the food service company a rebate," Carroll said in his prepared testimony. "In that same market I also observed that the local site manager found it difficult to meet buy local requirements and still comply with the food service company requirement that the vendor pay rebates."

Carroll said the managers who operate local school food operations on behalf of large food service companies face "tremendous pressure" from the parent company to buy products only from suppliers who pay rebates. "So for example, the local site manager wanted to try to buy apples from a local grower directly, but felt pressure not to do so, because the local apple grower could not pay rebates on par with what the food service company expected based on expectations from larger food vendors."

"One of the ways food service companies seek to maximize rebate earnings, is to restrict the number of sources local site managers, the food service employee working in the school, can use to buy foods," Carroll told the panel. "Food service companies endeavor to create lists of the companies which site managers buy from, and site managers are evaluated based on compliance, that is, the degree they adhere to purchasing from the company's list of vendors."

He continued: "I do not think it will surprise you to know that by and large, all vendors on food service company's list of approved vendors pay rebates, and the vendors which do not pay rebates rarely appear on the lists of approved vendors. Food service company site managers - the food service company employee managing a particular location - are strongly discouraged from making purchases from non rebate paying vendors. My investigation determined that some food service employees are evaluated and compensated based in part on the amount of 'compliant' purchases such employees make for a particular account--that is, from vendors which pay rebates."

New York last year collected $20 million from the giant food service company Sodexo after it alleged that the company had failed to credit schools and other state government clients for rebates it collected from manufacturers. Since 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the national school meals program, has required that rebates collected by companies such as Sodexo, Chartwells and Aramark engaged in "cost reimbursable" contracts with schools be passed along to the schools.

New York State has had the same requirement in place since 2003.

Carroll said school food accounts represent hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates to food service providers from giant manufacturers such as Tyson, General Mills and Coca-Cola.

His investigation continues. This week a Suffolk County-based company--Whitsons Culinary Group--agreed to pay the state and 30 schools $1.6 million for rebates it failed to pass along to those clients, according to the New York Daily News.

Subpoenas have been issued to 10 food vendors as part of the probe, the Daily News reported.

Companies engaged in "fixed rate" contracts with schools are permitted to keep the rebates they collect, although Carroll said that practice disguises the actual costs of operating school cafeterias and denies children nutritional food they might otherwise have on their trays.

Carroll testified that "to the extent that it is difficult to determine or there is obscurity as to the true value of the food going into the final meal, the more difficult it will be to be certain that school children or our soldiers in the field are getting a healthy meal that they will actually want to eat."

Manufacturer rebates are called "kickbacks" by some because they involve secret arrangements between buyers and sellers that do not appear on invoices or in annual corporate reports. It's an area of food service treated as a closely-guarded secret by the industry. Carroll said rebates were hardly a factor in school meals before 2000, but have since become rampant. A Senate Homeland Security subcommittee is investigating the implications of rebates on contracts affecting the entire federal government.

Carroll said rebates typically amount to 10 to 15 percent of all purchases made by food service providers for school meals in New York. My own investigation here in the District of Columbia revealed that Chartwells claimed it had collected more than $1 million in rebates during the first 16 months of its contract with D.C. Public Schools. But that represented only five percent of Chartwells' total purchases, according to invoices I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Carroll said rebates represent "an inherent conflict of interest" in school food service, placing monetary interests ahead of the nutritional needs of children.

"Rebating, by any reasonable view, is an intentionally opaque practice." he said. "It is a practice intended to obscure the actual costs incurred by food service companies, and also to obscure the relationship between food service companies and food distributors and vendors."

John Carroll discussed his investigation into rebates at length before a gathering of the School Nutrition Association earlier this year. You can see a video of Carroll's remarks here.

My Life as a Swedish School Chef

2011-10-04T06:00:00.009-04:00

When Swedish school chef Fredrik Kampenberg heard I had been in Stockholm learning about school food there, he sent me an enthusiastic e-mail mentioning that he had started a Facebook page where he could talk with students about the food service operation he runs at a high school in Orebro, a town about 125 miles north of Stockholm. (See Part 4 of this series.) There ensued a rapid correspondence in which I encouraged Kampenberg to elaborate on his experiences being a school chef in Sweden, where the cafeteria is referred to as the school "restaurant." The result is this essay, which I have stitched together from Kampenberg's e-mails. His English is very good, so I've only made minor edits for grammar and clarity.

Swedish school kitchens employ some 30,000 chefs, prep cooks, dishwashers and other personnel. This would be the story of just one of them--Ed Bruske, aka The Slow Cook

Guest Post

By Fredrik Kampenberg

I worked as a chef in the public sector for many years, mostly in restaurants in Sweden, in ski-resorts and others. I´ve also tried my luck in fine-dining—starred restaurants in Stockholm. I ventured to the States, Australia and Tokyo for a few months in my early twenties too.

Originally I am from the north of Sweden, as it is called. Geographically it´s more in the middle of the country: Östersund in Jämtland.

I studied at Örebro University, in Grythyttan, where the oldest and most renowned culinary school is located, then moved to a small city called Karlskoga and worked as a head chef in a new restaurant there. Later I started commuting to Örebro, which lead me to move here!

I was out of work for a while and applied for just about everything, including school restaurants. I had a job at another new restaurant in town, but there weren’t enough hours. So when a job came up as head of a school restaurant, I had to apply for it. But, with my professional background, I really had my doubts. I really didn’t want to work with that kind of cooking.

School food had a bad reputation--even for me!

A few years ago there was a TV show in Sweden with famous star chefs going to school restaurants, trying to change them into better restaurants with higher standards. In some episodes their negative criticisms of the kitchen and how things were done landed on the people working there. Sometimes the criticisms were accurate, but very often they should have been aimed at those in charge--the government and so on. A lot of people in the business of school food took offense.

The show ran for two years and as one of its followers I thought it was interesting to see—largely because the famous chefs were sort of my idols then and seeing them in that environment made it all the more interesting, especially since the kids didn´t always choose their version of meatballs over the processed ones made by the food industry. It was a lot like what happened to Jamie Oliver when he showed the kids how chicken nuggets are made.....

As I said, that was a few years ago when I had no intention to begin working with school food. But it sure made an impression on me when I did become a school chef.

This job gave me secure employment at a time when the numbers of unemployed were rising. And since I have a son, now seven, the hours and the security of course became more important, so I gave it a shot.

Turns out it was one of the best choices I've made so far!

I started learning from the ladies in the school kitchen, all the different routines and what it means to have a job where taxpayers are the ones paying my salary. Then I changed everything, trying not to cook typical “school food,” or meals with the typical school food taste.

This proved to be too much for the young adults at the school (16 to 18 years old). When a local newspaper came around with their web camera, and the kids had a chance to say whatever they wanted, they called my food “gross” and “strange.”

I was very saddened by that—and angry with the newspaper for showing only one side of the story and the negative side at that. So I called them up, demanding to give my version. The ball started rolling from there.

That’s when I really started to work for good, healthy, fair, homemade cooking in the schools. I soon realized that we had to raise the reputation for school food and for the people who make it, one of the more important jobs in the country! It´s important for everyone in school restaurants—myself included. I refuse to associate with food that’s called "gross,” “bad,” or “disgusting." That’s how it was for 40 years and no one raised an eyebrow.

It`s time to take a stand--not dwell in the shadows--to step up, take responsibility and show that we are able to change the way the general public views school food. We are chefs like any other chefs. We just have to stop buying prefab food—crap that looks like food, tastes like food, and smells like food, but is nowhere near the real stuff that contains love, passion and knowledge.

Now, being the boss at a place funded by tax money calls for certain things--for example where the money is spent and how that information is public. There were routines to be learned. Especially I had to learn about being responsible for a staff in a way that a boss and chef in the private market isn´t. That takes a bit of time.

When I finally had some of those things figured out, I began looking at the menu.

The menu where I work is decided by a man who is the boss of seven high school restaurants. It´s different in almost every municipality, since they can decide for themselves how things are done, as long as they follow the law (sort of...).

He makes the menu, using recipes that are nutritional and in budget--typical school restaurant menus and recipes, meaning boring and often based on pre-fabricated components. For instance, meatballs, hamburgers, pancakes, bread and such. I used his menu and tried to understand what the main ingredients were. Instead of buying ready-made meatballs, I bought minced meat and the other things that a meatball consists of. You get the idea.

But it took time to get the ladies in my kitchen to do those things—make meatballs from scratch—so we exchanged industrial made meatballs for something like homemade meatloaf, which is basically the same, just another shape. You get the idea, again!

I remember when we were supposed to serve cauliflower soup, or something like that, and I served [the Thai soup] Thom Ka gai instead, using fresh lemongrass, kaffir leaves, red curry, etc. I even had one of the students who was from Thailand taste and help out with the soup. I thought it was fab! Usually we thought the food was great in the kitchen. But the kids did not!

Ever since, we in the kitchen love to comment on how much we like the food. We know that if we like it, the kids won’t. (Hee, hee!)

In fact, the most activity we’ve had on our Facebook page so far was when I removed the ketchup that used to be displayed at every lunch. The kids frequently used it, and I think it wrecks good food, almost like salting food and using pepper before tasting. Ketchup is the perfect companion to pre-fab food I think, as it disguises the poor taste and quality, covers up all those additives.

It’s a funny thing. We’ve had lunches where we gave the students a choice between a prefab fish with breadcrumbs, lots of additives and processed meat, and a fish that we made ourselves, with no additives. When we served the two different fish, we displayed them with labels listing all the additives and different ingredients. Of course the list with our homemade fish was much shorter.

There wasn’t such a big reaction—except we learned that the kids really liked our fish. So we’ve made it a few times since…

But the ketchup. Oh, boy. There was an uproar when we took it away. It’s been a year and the ketchup issue still comes up. Now we serve ecological ketchup—sometimes a ketchup we make ourselves. Why not? I don’t think there’s any harm in eating fast food or ketchup or candy or soda—as long as it’s not an everyday thing.

I think I was a big winner in this, cutting ketchup back from five days a week to one.

Whether you’re a famous Swedish chef or Jamie Oliver, homemade food is still hard to "sell" to the kids. They are in high school and they’re used to a certain taste and texture in food. Homemade food is very different and not every hamburger or meatball looks the same.

I gave a lecture once and reflected on this: "I was standing there, at the hot stove, making hamburger after hamburger, trying to get the color and the shape as perfect as possible. I was nervous knowing the kids wouldn´t like it otherwise. And then it hit me: I was trying to make my hamburgers as perfect and as much like industrial-made burgers as possible, when at the same time, the industry is trying to make their products imperfect to simulate homemade. It´s just sick!"

I created my menu together with my staff for a long time. The staff was involved and our experiments and ideas led to great recipes that were served in the restaurants. We listened to our guests—the kids-- and tried to reason with them, teach them, give them what they wanted. And I think we were on our way. The staff dared to experiment. They felt pride in the food we served. They were becoming creative and using the most important spice of all: love.

It´s hard for people to change 23 years of opening cardboard boxes, to stop doing what you´ve been told all those years and begin creating, thinking, taking risks and to invest feelings in their work. But they did, and they put their love into the food.

Then we were told that all schools that my boss was in charge of had to have the same menu. That set us back a bit! At the time, I had already received awards and a lot of media attention. My name was becoming known. But now the school food method that had made municipalities infamous was hitting us too.

But that will soon change again and we keep developing our two school restaurants in other ways. For example, one of the restaurants just got renovated this summer. I saved the old steam table and turned it into a cold buffet for salads and dressings and such. Our salad bars are now twice the size as before.

We also have a blog now as well as a Facebook page. I suck at it, but I’m learning. It´s about a dairy cow that lives on a farm 10 minutes from Örebro—how she lives, how milk is produced, how much milk is in one piece of cheese, how much time and effort the farmer puts into the operation every day.

It’s all about teaching ourselves and our guests—the kids--how things really are, to learn respect for the food and make conscious choices. Not just in school, but in life! That’s what I’m hoping for, at least.

Our "adopted" cow just had a calf--a bull. There’s only one ending for a baby bull. So it fits my plan perfectly. Maybe some of the kids will stop screaming for more beef now….

Photo credit: Andreas Hythen.

How Swedes Spell "Nutritious": P-O-T-A-T-O

2011-10-03T06:00:00.002-04:00

: What's wrong with potatoes?

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

U.S. potato growers and members of Congress who support them are ready to storm the U.S. Department of Agriculture over proposed regulations that would sharply curtail the use of potatoes and other starchy vegetables in school meals. Kids love potatoes, but school food activists say they need "more balance" by eating things they hate, like green vegetables and whole grains. And there's good scientific evidence indicating that too much starch in the diet only contributes to the childhood obesity epidemic.

But in Sweden, the spud is still king. "Pupils’ consumption of potatoes, pasta, rice, barley, couscous, bulgur and millet should be encouraged as much as possible," read the school meal recommendations published by Sweden's National Food Administration. "From an environmental point of view, potatoes and barley are at the top of the list," says the NFA.

The agency suggests children eat 4.25 portions of potatoes every two weeks, but acknowledges that "it is often difficult to get pupils to eat 175 grams [6.2 ounces] of potatoes if they are served boiled. Add variety with potato wedges or potato gratin."

The recommendations, developed by a group of "school meal experts" from several municipalities, along with the Center for Applied Nutrition, and based on the 1997 Swedish Nutrition Recommendations, call for Swedish school children to get a minimum 47 percent of their calories from carbohydrates.

"A good-sized portion of a foodstuff rich in carbohydrates and fiber is the cornerstone of every meal. The food we eat in Sweden today often contains too few carbohydrates," the food agency intones. "A school lunch with too few carbohydrates is not as filling and provides less energy to get through afternoon activities."

As to the green and orange vegetables the USDA and lobbying groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest say kids should eat much more of instead of potatoes, the Swedish recommendations are virtually silent.

A potato a day, it seems,will keep the doctor away in Stockholm.

The Swedish school lunch program has been in place since the 1940s and since 1997 every school district is required to provide a free lunch to all students enrolled in primary school, or between the ages of six and 16--about 1.4 million. Remarkably, in all that time, the Swedish program has not had firm nutrition requirements in place for school meals. The country's 290 municipalities are supposed to each have a "dietary plan," but according to the advocacy group Swedish School Meal Supporters, fewer than a third of the country's school cooks know what's in their local plan or follow it.

The situation in Sweden contrasts sharply with the school meals program here in the U.S. The USDA has book-length regulations stating exactly what kinds of foods schools should be serving--even the serving sizes children must be offered in order for schools to collect the federal reimbursement dollars on which the program depends. This year those regulations are being revised to restrict starchy vegetables such as potatoes, lima beans and corn to no more than one cup per week, and require bigger servings of green and orange vegetables and whole grains.

Importantly for Swedish schools, the government there this year amended its education act to require that school lunch be not only free, but also "nutritious." Exactly what that means remains unclear. But according to School Meals Sweden--a collaboration of the Karolinska Institute, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, and the Swedish National Institutes of Public Health--the precise nutritional requirements are likely to be determined by the agency tasked with monitoring compliance, Skolsinspektion.

School Meals Sweden says it will soon unveil a questionnaire it plans to send to all of the nation's school districts that should reveal in great detail the kind of lunch service the schools are providing. The schools could then use the questionnaire results to demonstrate compliance with the new nutrition requirements.

Meanwhile, I thought it might be instructive to look at the guidelines already in place at the National Food Administration and see how they compare with the buffet lunches I ate at two schools during my visit to Stockholm and described in parts one and three of this series.

In Sweden, school lunch should provide 30 percent of daily calorie requirements, or 625 calories for children aged 10 to 12. It should consist of at least one and preferably two cooked main dishes, along with bread and "low-fat margarine," mixed salad, skimmed milk and water. Children should be getting 20 percent of their calories from protein, a maximum 33 percent from fat (11 percent saturated fat), and 47 percent from carbohydrates. Bread should be a part of every lunch.

A hearty salad or soup can serve as an alternative main course as long as they contain enough carbohydrates. The agency urges the following rules of thumb to provide enough energy with soups and salad:

"All soups should have potato, pasta, rice or dried pulses as their base, and this should make at least one third of a portion."

"Supplement the soup with dessert or soft bread and cold cuts, cheese, etc."

"Include potatoes, pasta and rice or couscous-based salad in the salad."

Beware of dishes too heavy on protein, and light on carbs. "Dishes like black pudding, fish pudding, lasagna and beef casserole often contain too few carbohydrates, so it is good to supplement them with filling salads or extra bread," the agency suggests.

On the subject of bread, the agency says kids can hardly get enough.

"The aim is for each pupil to eat at least one, and preferably two, pieces of bread with lunch. An appetizing range of both soft and hard breads can be a way of encouraging pupils to eat more bread," according to the recommendations. "The bread should be served with a 5 grams portion of low-fat margarine. Soup should always be served with extra bread if there is no dessert, and often three slices of hard or soft bread with cold cuts, cheese, etc. are needed to supplement the soup."

Milk and dairy products "provide valuable protein and are also an important source of calcium," the guidelines state. But full-fat milk, cheeses and yogurt should be limited because of the saturated fat they contain. "If these guidelines are followed and pupils eat the recommended amounts of main dish, salad, bread and fat, they will get the calcium they need even without drinking milk with their food, mainly from the milk products used in the meals themselves."

Children should eat 100 to 125 grams (3.5 to 4.4 ounces) of fruits and vegetables with every lunch. From the protein category, the following number of servings every two weeks is considered optimal: boneless meat or poultry, two servings; minced meat, two servings; sausage, 1.5; black pudding or liver, .5 minimum; fish, two servings; dried pulses, .5 minimum; eggs, .5; cheese or milk, 1 serving.

If you must serve porridge such as rice pudding for lunch (hopefully not very often), make sure to accompany it with milk, three slices of bread with margarine, enough cold cuts to cover two slices of bread, a mixed salad and fruit.

A yogurt-based meal should be served with musli or corn flakes, fruit or jam, three slices of bread with low-fat margarine, enough cold cuts for three slices of bread, and enough cold cuts to cover three slices of bread (think ham, fish, eggs, cheese), plus a salad and fruit.

Lunch buffets in Swedish schools typically contain a wide variety of "salad," although I did not see many leafy greens or other garden-type vegetables we typically association with a salad bar here in the U.S. Here are what the Swedish guidelines recommend for salads:

At least two items from the "Vitamin C list": cauliflower, broccoli, pepper, mixed salad, white cabbage, orange, kiwi, small citrus fruit.

At least three items from the "carbohydrate/dietary fiber list": beans, lentils, chickpeas, carrots, parsnip, rutabaga, sweetcorn, peas, peas-sweetcorn-pepper, American vegetable mix, green beans, potato salad, pasta salad, rice salad, salad with couscous or bulgur, pear, kiwi, apple.

An "unlimited amount of garnish": tomato, lettuce--iceberg and head lettuce, cucumber, radish.

"The salad dressing should contain no more than 15 percent fat."

The recommendations also contain a long section on constructing vegetarian meals, and suggestions for making lunch more international and welcoming for immigrants.

And besides providing adequate and balanced meals, schools should maintain a dining environment that promotes healthful eating.

"Lunch sitting should be organized in such a way that all pupils are able to eat their lunch in peace and quiet."

"Each class should be served lunch at the same time each day."

"Lunch should be served more or less in the middle of the pupils' working day, and at the very earliest at 11."

And what are Swedish kids supposed to drink with their lunch?

"Skimmed milk and water should be served with school lunch. No other drinks are suitable to be served on a daily basis," the National Food Administration admonishes. "Vitamin C-rich juice may occasionally be served."

You can read the full text of school food recommendations set forth by Sweden's National Food Administration in English here [PDF].

The Voice of School Meal Reform in Sweden

2011-10-02T08:13:00.001-04:00

: Annika Unt Widell

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Annika Unt Widell immigrated to Sweden from Estonia when she was nine years old. A communications consultant by trade, she's been an advocate for better Swedish school lunch for the last 10 years, and was recruited to be spokeswoman for Swedish School Meal Supporters, a group funded by the Swedish Federation of Farmers. Widell is the go-to expert on school lunch in Sweden when journalists come calling. I and a group of reporters from Germany and Russia met with her for an hour in Stockholm, where she was releasing on new book showcasing the results of her travels to school cafeterias around the country, or what she's calling a "school lunch safari."

Sweden, along with Finland, has the only free school lunch program in the developed world. Still, Unt Widell thinks the Swedes can do better. Here are a few of her thoughts.

Q: How did you become an advocate for better school food in Sweden and what is the work you do for Swedish School Food Supporters?

A lot of people all around the country are working for good quality school meals, so I am definitely not alone standing up for pupils’ rights in this matter. I was asked to be the spokesperson for Swedish School Meals Supporters (SSMS), and couldn´t think of a better task. I have a great passion, or almost obsession, for school meals – I really love the fact that any kid here gets a free hot meal every day. It affects the public health and gives every student the possibility to do their best at school. As a dietician, I know the importance of nutritious food, but being also a mother I know for a fact you have to also make the healthy food tasty for it to end up in the children’s tummies.

The Federation of Swedish Farmers, called LRF in Sweden, for the last 10 years has been financing the work of the SSMS. We try to get the attention of the media and the politicians so that school meals are strongly supported and the quality of meals secured all over Sweden. We have an Education Act that says that school lunches must be free and nutritious, but a lot of decisions regarding the quality of the meals are up to each municipality or even individual schools. So the quality can vary and that is why Swedish School Meal Supporters publishes how much municipalities spend per pupil each year, and the extent to which the guidelines set by The National Food Administration are followed.

Q: What were your personal experiences like with Swedish school lunch?

I myself am an immigrant and will never forget the happy experience of my first hot school lunch in third grade. I thought I was in heaven. What a luxury it felt like, and the friendly welcome in the canteen was just as important as the food.

In recent years I have been seeking out good examples of school lunch in Sweden. And I have found a lot of them, tasting them all and getting to know the dedicated chefs.

Wise politicians making the right decisions and allocating sufficient resources, the right knowledge and passion in the school-kitchen, shortening transportation links for food, and an ongoing communication between the kitchen and the pupils – all of that makes good school food.

Q: What are the most extreme examples of Swedish school food that you find unacceptable?

When the pupils won´t eat the lunch for some reason, even though it is free. This is quite rare I would say, but sometimes things go wrong when organizing meals, on delivery, or while cooking, and of course the pupils will notice and protest. School lunch means a lot to them. It just has to be at least OK. Sometimes the kitchen has a budget that is just too small. It is not possible to make good meals out of nothing, even if the kitchen staff tries their best.

Q: How would you describe the level of interest in school food in Sweden? Are parents concerned?

Well, every Swede has an opinion on school food, as the meals are paid forthrough taxes. Parents mostly so, of course. But there is no national parents organization or anything like that. Parents protest locally when school meals are not up to standards. Often I hear from them and try to advise. We have quite a lot of info on our website on how to proceed.

Q: What are the most urgent needs for improving school food in Sweden?

In some municipalities, a bigger budget is urgently needed. Most important are funds to educate kitchen staff and purchase high quality raw materials. Local politicians need to decide on a Dietary Plan that states the intended quality of meals in all schools and pre-schools.

Q: How has the government responded to your advocacy?

We have an ongoing dialogue, I would say. Now there is a book out, good examples of school kitchens, and a national educational program for the staff - two of several projects receiving governmental funding. I feel the matter of school meal quality is high on the agenda, being a part of the national strategy “Sweden – Europe´s new culinary nation”.

Q: How did you identify the examples of excellent school food programs for your book, and what is the secret to their success?

I have had the good fortune during many years now to visit a lot of schools. Also I have a great network of school food lovers all around Sweden who keep me informed. And articles in local media have been helpful in my search.

All these schools have experienced chefs in well equipped kitchens who love to cook really good food – local to some extent, mixing Swedish traditional food with modern international tastes- -and who really appreciate working with children, seeing them as guests at their restaurant.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

I dream of free school meals in every country, rich or poor. It can be very hard also in a rich country, if you are poor, or living in a dysfunctional family. That is why this is a really great idea, (even though I am not directly involved in this, yet):

United Nations Association-Sweden is an umbrella organization supported in around 100 national civil society organizations. It enjoys the support of 7,000 individual members organized in 120 local chapters.

One of the fund-raising campaigns is carried out in cooperation with the World Food Programme School Feeding Program. The idea is to offer poor children free lunch at school, something which has several positive effects for the children themselves as well as for their families, communities and countries. The Swedish school feeding campaign cooperates with well-known Swedish restaurants and the coffee shop Barista Fair Trade Coffee. Both campaigns have enrolled famous Swedish entertainers, media representatives and sport stars as ambassadors.

Kids Go Wild for Oats

2011-09-30T07:44:00.003-04:00

: Giving oatmeal a loving stir

Who knew kids could love oatmeal so much?

Our food appreciation classes have landed in Scotland. This is the land of oats, and I looked for a way to make the traditional haggis. You know, that delectable pudding of sheep hearts, lung, liver and oats all cooked together with fat and onion in a sheep's stomach. But I couldn't think where to get a sheep's stomach locally. In fact, it's my understanding that until recently, it was illegal to sell sheep's stomach. So I settled for oats.

This turned into a marathon cooking lesson--quite grueling, actually--as the kids made not only oat scones, but oatmeal three different ways.

To start the class, I showed the kids three different varieties of oatmeal: standard rolled oats, which are made by passing the grains under intense pressure through steel rollers. "Quick oats" are rolled oats that have been cooked, then dried, so they can be rehydrated in boiling water almost instantly. Steel cut oats are whole grains or "groats" that have been chopped into bits with steel blades, hence the name. These are my personal favorite as they retain a pleasant toothsomeness after they're cooked. They're available in bulk at Whole Foods, or sold in cans or boxes under the famous McCann's label.

I had my doubts about an oat scone. Would it really be edible, or hard as a rock? They turned out to be quite good.

Start by stirring together in a large mixing bowl 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups rolled oats, 1/4 cup sugar, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup dried currants or raisins. In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg until frothy, then add 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter and 1/3 cup milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until everything is incorporated.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. It will be slightly sticky. Knead it two or three times until it holds together, then flatten it out with the palms of your hands or a rolling pin to a thickness of 1/2-3/4 inch. (For small scones, divide the dough into two wheels.) Cut the dough into wedges and place these on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake in a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes, or until the scones are beginning to brown. Serve with a glass of cold buttermilk.

Steel cut oats take much longer to cook than rolled or quick oats. Plan on 35 minutes, approximately. First, toast 1 cup steel cut oats for two or three minutes in 1 tablespoon melted butter in the bottom of a moderately hot saucepan. Add 3 cups boiling water, reduce heat and cook gently, covered, for 25 minutes without stirring. When 25 minutes have elapsed stir in 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup buttermilk. Cover and cook an additional 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in 1 heaping tablespoon brown sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon.

Rolled oats can be ready to eat in 10 minutes. Originally I had planned to have the kids chop fresh apples to add to the oatmeal, but we were so pressed for time I completely forgot. First bring 1 3/4 cups water and a dash of salt to a boil. Stir in 1 cup rolled oats and cook over moderately low heat for five minutes. You definitely do not want your oatmeal to boil over. When five minutes had elapsed, stir into the oatmeal 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 cup dried cranberries and 1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional). Cover and let sit off the heat for five more minutes. Stir in 1 tablespoon molasses or maple syrup and a generous splash of milk. Serve hot.

Quick oats are ready literally in a minute. Just follow the manufacturers instructions, which typically involve pouring 1 cup oats into 1 3/4 cup boiling water with a dash of salt. Add whatever you like to the finished oats--chopped apples, perhaps, a bit of maple syrup, cinnamon, milk. It's all good. And good for you.

What's for School Lunch in Sweden? There's an App for That

2011-09-29T07:11:00.002-04:00

: App developer Andreas Egerup

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Andreas Egerup says he was standing in the grocery store trying to think what to make for dinner when it occurred to him to find out what his daughter had eaten for lunch at school. He didn't want to repeat something she'd already had, so he went to his iPhone and started to look for the school menu.

Minutes passed. Egerup busily worked the phone, clicking from one web page to the next. It seemed to take an awfully long time and a lot of effort to find that school menu. And then the proverbial light bulb clicked on: there should be an app for that.

One year and 500,000 Kroner ($ 80,000) later, filmmaker and entrepreneur Egerup is the proud owner of Sweden's first and so far only app for school lunch menus. Already he's placed it in 103 of the country's 290 municipal school system. There have been 150,000 downloads so far this year. And in April it was the number two i-Phone download in Swedish.

Apparently, where school lunch and technology are concerned, the sky's the limit.

"The school food thing was very important to me to be a good dad," said Egerup, who lives and works out of the remote town of Lulea, nearly 600 miles north of Stockholm. "Now you can see what's for lunch on your mobile phone."

According to Egerup, parents as well as students are downloading the app--called Dinskolmat, or Your School Meal--to four different types of "intelligent" phones currently available in Sweden. Along with expanding use of Facebook and other social media, the trend is injecting some glitz into the once staid school lunch scene, connecting families with school cooks, chefs with chefs, and increasing momentum for better school meals across the country.

Here's how it works: Egerup sells access to the app to individual municipalities, who pay 250 Kroner (about $40) for a one-semester subscription for each school in the district, up to five schools. If there are more than five schools, all of the other schools are covered at no extra charge.

So far he's signed up 103 districts, giving him plenty of room to grow. At this point, he doesn't have to leave his office much. Sales are spreading by word of mouth. To push things along, he started a Facebook page where students and parents can sound off. "People complain that their school isn't covered. I tell them to tell the kitchen manager." As of yesterday, the site had 1,053 "likes."

Egerup said it only takes a few calls from parents before a school administration will call him, requesting to subscribe.

In some districts, one app will cover all the schools because they all share the same menu. But other municipalities had multiple satellite kitchens with different menus. Individual districts or schools enter their menus into Egerup's data base. When you call them up with the app, they appear in the same format under the Skolmat logo.

For instance, here's what the current menu looks like for the Langbro Valley School in Stockholm. Here's another for Osteraker municipality outside Stockholm. Here's a third for the John Bauer High School in the city of Vaxjo. (Use your browser's translation feature to view these menus in English.)

To promote the idea, Egerup created posters the schools can hang in their dining halls. Egerup says the technology is drawing communities much closer to their school chefs.

"They get so much positive feedback from students and parents," he said.

Chefs are getting hip to the social media craze. Some have started their own Facebook pages where they can talk directly with their customers. Frederik Kampenberg, the head chef of a school in Orebro, 125 miles north of Stockholm, has a Facebook presemce here and here.

"Originally I was going to create a website, but the I thought, Where are the kids? On Facebook, of course," Kampenberg said. "I wanted to show in pictures that we really put our heart into the food--and lots of time and effort, too. It was a way to communicate more directly with students. They can comment on anything and nothing is censored."

Meanwhile, Swedish School Meal Friends, the principal advocacy organization for school lunch quality, has started an online chat room where school chefs from all over the country can talk to each other about issues affecting the program, share strategies, recipes and tips.

: Software for planning school meals

As part of a press tour organized by the Swedish Institute, I and several other journalists from Germany and Russia visited a software firm in Stockholm that produces Mashie, an online menu planning program aimed at schools that allows chefs to view nutritional information for meal components and integrate their menus with food procurement.

The Swedish government this mandated that in addition to being free, school lunch must also be "nutritious." Specific guidelines have yet to be developed. But when they are, program like Mashie are certain to be more in demand. So far, the company has sold subscriptions to more than 100 of the country's 290 municipalities.

One feature of the program is color coding of meal ingredients according to healthfulness--green for good, yellow for less good and red for really bad. Call up a hamburger, for instance, and you get a pie chart full of red.

Apparently, Mashie doesn't like saturated fat.

Please Pass the Pancakes and Lingonberry Jam: What Swedish Kids Eat at School

2011-09-28T06:00:00.006-04:00

: My lunch plate at Lilla Academy

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

On a press junket paid for by the Swedish government, it's hardly surprising I was steered toward some of the best school food the country has to offer. I didn't get to see schools where the food is awful or even below par. But what I did see at two different schools in Stockholm gives a rough idea of the kinds of lunches being served to the country's 1.4 million primary school children every day.

At the Lilla Academy, a school devoted to music instruction on the campus of what was a 19th-century hospital, the lunch buffet consisted of numerous dishes simply displayed in large bowls and steamer trays in a somewhat cramped, semi-subterranean dining hall. Unlike the restaurant-style food at Annersta School I described in the first part of this series, where the kitchen is run by a chef with years of restaurant experience, the meal at Lilla was simple but incredibly varied.

There was a bowl of sliced carrots, a bowl of Brussels sprouts, marinated olives, two different kinds of cole slaw--one with vinegar, the other creamy--cottage cheese, sliced beets, black beans with red pepper and feta cheese, an entree of meat loaf stuffed with shredded vegetables, a vegetarian alternative of falafel. At the end of the buffet was an intriguing display of bowls containing roasted eggplant (like baba ganouj without the tahini), a chutney of coconut, mint and lime and an apple chutney with balsamic vinegar.

Naturally, I had to try all of it and I can attest that while some of the items were extremely rudimentary, it was a most stimulating meal.

A self-serve buffet with numerous salad-type offerings is typical of Swedish school lunches, although the quality can vary widely and students voice many complaints, as I described in yesterday's post. This buffet with its many moving parts was the work of two remarkable women--Karin Berglund and Karina Gummeson--who've been working so long together they finish each other's sentences.

: Karin Berglund and Karina Gummeson

According to the group Swedish School Meal Supporters, two out of three schools in Sweden employ at least some staff with professional chef training. Berglund and Gummeson studied nutrition and meal planning. Before coming to the Lilla Academy, they spent 10 years together managing 25 school kitchens. And when they aren't cooking at school, they spend their off hours running a food consulting business.

In a small kitchen they call "the submarine," Berglund, Gummeson and another helper make an average 420 meals each day--375 for kids, the rest for staff.

Half of all Swedish schools prepare meals in their own kitchens, while the other half have meals catered from a kitchen they share with other schools. In some municipalities, the cost of transporting meals from a central kitchen to individual schools represents a significant expense. Some schools opt for professional catering companies to provide meals.

When Lilla Academy was established 13 years ago, it was proposed that the school share a kitchen with several other nearby schools. But principal Bo Lindgren was determined that his students would have freshly cooked food from their own kitchen.

"It was not so popular to start a kitchen," said Lindren, who apparently had no easy time convincing his bosses they actually needed to invest in one. The cost was around 3.5 million Kroner ($555,000). Lindren approached equipment manufacturer Electrolux, which agreed to install the kitchen on loan.

"The food is absolutely necessary for the results we achieve in the school," Lindren said.

Meals are cooked from scratch, mostly using raw ingredients, although Berglund and Gummeson do use frozen components as well. They also bake their own bread. Typically, they prepare eight to 10 different "salads" each day and their entree menus follow a pattern: one day for pasta, one day for fish, one day for a typical Swedish dish such as meatballs, one day for something international and one day for soup.

Student participation in the lunch is nearly 100 percent. Food from home is not permitted in the dining hall.

Because Sweden lies so far north, it's growing season is short and fresh vegetables are precious. I did not see any leafy greens or what we in the U.S. would consider typical salad ingredients on the two school buffets I visited. The focus instead is on storage vegetables such as cabbage and root vegetables. Often there are three different kinds of cole slaw on the buffet at Lilla, and Swedish cuisine would hardly be Swedish without potatoes, whether mashed, baked or boiled. Carrots, beets, turnips and rutabaga all play a role. Berglund and Gummeson were proud to show us chips they had made by roasting thinly sliced parsnips. They said most of the produce they use is organic.

: Dispenser for fresh, cold milk

Both schools we visited offered milk and water in the cafeterias. Children serve themselves milk from electric coolers, the water from plastic pitchers. The Swedes are big milk drinkers and dairy is an important part of the diet everywhere. In keeping with current health trends, the milk is low-fat--actually .5 percent--something I found somewhat ironic considering that just a few feet away was a display of traditional Swedish crispy flat bread--knackebrod--along with a tub of butter or margarine.

A school meal would hardly be complete without knackebrod, so you typically see clusters of children gathered around the bread display, grabbing the butter knife and slathering their bread. If they were offered jam--Sweden is big on berry preserves--they'd no doubt smear that on as well.

: Swedish kids are wild for knackebrod

Note: Swedish schools do not serve chocolate milk or other flavored milk products, nor do they have a la carte lines offering all sorts of junk food for sale.

Children eat from re-usable plastic plates using metal knives and forks. That keeps a dedicated dishwasher busy most of the day. Because of the small size of the dining room at Lilla, students eat in several shifts according to age, the youngest at 10:45 a.m., although Swedish nutrition guidelines recommend that lunch not be served before 11. Lunch is served through 1:30. The small children come back at 2:30 in the afternoon for a snack, typically some form of dairy such as milk or plain yogurt, homemade bread, butter, perhaps a meat pate and fruit.

For an idea of what other schools are serving, here are recent menu listings for Kramfors, a municipality of about 20,000 inhabitants 300 miles north of Stockholm on Sweden's eastern coast. The menu, translated by Google, shows meat/vegetarian entrees:

August 22: hot dogs and mashed potatoes/soy burger; Aug. 23: soup, bread, cheese/carrots and parsnips; Aug. 24: fish gratin and potatoes/potato and root vegetable casserole; Aug. 25: taco mince pie and rice/taco mince with quorn; Aug 26: chicken stir fry/vegetable stir fry; Aug. 29: pasta with spaghetti sauce/pasta with tomato sauce; Aug. 30: sausage and mashed potatoes/squash casserole with lentils; Aug. 31: fried salmon and potato with sauce/vegetable pate; Sept. 1: steak, roasted root vegetables, potatoes, gravy/shredded root vegetables with bean sprouts; Sept. 2: black pudding/potato buns.

"Our school meals were excellent," said Annika Brancato, who grew up in Kramfors but now lives outside Toronto with her husband and three children. "Unlimited milk, bread and specialty food for kids with allergies, etc. I wish I could have lunches like they do. I did not know it at the time," Brancato continued, "but our community allocates more money per student for their lunches than many other communites in Sweden. Kramfors is among the top five Swedish communities as to how much they spend."

Ten years ago, said Gummeson, afternoon snacks consisted of sweets. But not so much any more. Even the traditional Swedish fika--or mid-afternoon coffee break observed in work places across Sweden--seems to be trending away from cinnamon buns and other pastries toward lighter options like fresh fruit. Annika Unt Widell of School Food Supporters said that while tacos and pancakes are among the most popular foods among children, tacos are served only occasionally, and pancakes typically appear only as an accompaniment to pea soup or as a dessert.

One chef said he serves classic pancakes with lingonberry jam only as a special after-school treat. But at the Langbro Valley School in Stockholm, pancakes with blueberry jam and vanilla quark, or sour cream, were listed as the featured lunch entree yesterday.

One problem that continues to plague U.S. schools is the feasting around pizza, cupcakes and other junk food in frequent classroom celebrations. At Lilla School, Berglund and Gummeson throw a party for the students once a year to celebrate everyone's birthday.

What disturbs these school cooks most is all the food the children don't eat and throw in the trash. That's something I see every day in my daughter's school here in the U.S. Kids gladly eat the foods they like most--pizza, potatoes, chicken--and toss the things adults think they should be eating, like vegetables and whole grain products. Kids in Sweden also avoid certain foods in these categories, like the barley pilaf chef Michael Backman serves at the Annersta School.

"We're calling it 'Swedish rice.' It's more expensive, but the kids don't eat as much of it so it balances out," Backman said. "Kids aren't used to it. But I'm trying to get them to like it."

Backman said the worst waste occurs on days when he serves things kids especially like. They always take more than they can eat.

"One day we gathered up all the food the kids threw away the day before and placed it on a table where they could see it when they came in to eat," said Gummeson. "But what was their reaction? They just looked at it and shrugged their shoulders. So what?"

"What I would really like to do," said Berglund, "is just sit next to the trash can during lunch, maybe read a book, so they could see me. I think it would remind them to eat their food and not throw it away."

Swedish Schools Struggle Toward Healthier Eating

2011-09-27T06:00:00.004-04:00

: Do Swedish kids eat too many sweets?

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

School lunch may be free in Sweden, but apparently that doesn't make advocating for better food any easier.

"We've been lobbying for years and we still see schools cutting costs, serving porridge or breakfast instead of lunch," laments Annika Unt Widell of the advocacy group Swedish School Meal Supporters (Skomatens Vanner).

Unt Widell has expressed outrage that spending on school lunch only increased 2 percent in the last year, while the Swedish government imposed a new mandate that school food must be "nutritious."

Some look to the Swedish lunch program, which serves free lunch to all primary school children, as a potential model for the rest of the world. But not all Swedes see the food served in school in such glowing terms.

Students, for instance, have voiced deep dissatisfaction. Ratings given by some 4,000 students in 2009 produced these results, according to the Swedish School Food Friends website (as translated by Google):

Nearly half--47 percent--say there isn't enough to eat.

More than half--57 percent--say there aren't enough tables and chairs for students to eat at the same time.

More than half--58 percent--say they must rush to finish their meals.

Forty percent say they cannot hear one another at the lunch table without shouting.

Only 21 percent say they eat lunch at the same time each day.

Barely a third--36 percent--say the dining room is fresh and tidy.

And free lunches are not required in the nation's high schools, many of which give out meal vouchers instead. High-schoolers can often be found eating at McDonald's.

According to Unt Widell, Sweden spends some three billion kroner ($476 million) on school meals annually, or around 30 kroner ($4.76) per lunch, 40 percent of which is typically devoted to food purchases, the rest to staff and transportation. Unlike in the United States, where payments for meals pass directly from the USDA to schools, the money for lunch in Sweden is taken out of general school funds and can vary greatly from one jurisdiction to the next.

"Very little is known about where the money goes or how it is spent," said Liselotte Schafer Elinder of the Karolinska Institute, which is launching a major study of the school meal program. According to School Meal Supporters, schools at the upper end of the spectrum spend three times as much on meals as schools on the low end.

The nutritional value of Swedish school meals also has been questioned. The country's 290 municipalities each are supposed to have a "dietary plan," but a survey of food service directors found that fewer than a third of them know what's in the plan or follow it. The meaning of the new law requiring that school food be "nutritious" has yet to be clearly defined.

"What is the effect of school meals? We don't know," said Schafer Elinder. "We have so many welfare policies that have just been introduced and there's no research on them."

: Obesity expert Claude Marcus

Sweden has it's problems with overweight children, although the trend appears to have leveled off, said Claude Marcus, professor pediatrics and obesity specialist at the Karolinska Institute. According to Marcus, 20 percent of Swedish children are considered overweight or obese, down from 23 percent a few years ago. That compares to around 33 percent in the U.S.

Marcus said the problem with Swedish waistlines began to escalate around 1990. Between that year and 2005, he said, the incidence of overweight and obesity increased by three or four times the previous rate. He attributes that to the ready availability of fast foods and sweets in the Swedish diet. "There's been an explosion of fast food restaurants," Marcus said. "They're everywhere, and they're available 24 hours a day." Portion sizes increased, while the cost of sweetened drinks dropped and the price of fresh produce only went up.

: Bulk candy display at 7-Eleven

Indeed, McDonald's is ubiquitous in Sweden. One outlet was located just a block from my hotel in downtown Stockholm. Across the street was another burger joint called Max's. Both did a brisk business all day long and well into the night. Just a bit farther up the street was a T.G.I. Friday's. Yet another U.S. import--7-Eleven--is never far away. The one near my hotel had a huge bulk candy display just inside the door, and the refrigerator cases groaned with Coke and Pepsi products, as well as sports drinks and "energy" drinks such as Red Bull.

Swedish law prohibits marketing to children. But fast food has a high profile: it's everywhere you look. Vending machines are rare in Swedish schools. Still, Sweden likes its mid-afternoon fika, or coffee break, traditionally with a cinnamon bun or other pastry. Schools were used to serving flavored yogurt, berry desserts, ice cream and cakes in after school and these do contribute to the problem, Marcus said. "Ice cream used to be a treat. Now it's part of everyday life."

In one study, researchers noted that rates of overweight and obesity were significantly reduced when all sweets were removed from school. In a group of five schools where children were denied access to sugary foods, the rate of overweight and obese students dropped from 22 percent to 16 percent, while in five uncontrolled schools the figure rose from 18 percent to 21 percent.

The study also yielded a pleasant surprise. Researchers expected that the parents of children who were denied sugary foods at school would compensate by giving them more at home. But just the opposite occurred. "When we were very strict at school, they were also better at home," Marcus said. "We think many parents want to give kids healthy food. But it's very difficult for parents to be more strict than the professionals at school."

: Lunch buffet at Annersta School

The implications of school food choices for children's health has failed to rouse Sweden's pediatric community, however. In the U.S., pediatricians have been actively involved in removing sodas from school and in lobbying the U.S. Department of Agriculture for improvements in the school lunch program. Not so in Sweden. "The Swedish pediatric organization has been surprisingly passive on this issue," Marcus said.

He also laments that the law requiring school meals to be "nutritious" will not apply to high-schoolers. "I think we have a system that works reasonably well for the younger children," he said. "We should have the same regulations for high schools that we have for the other schools."

In Swedish schools, teachers are required to accompany their students to lunch where they can coach them on better eating habits. At the Annersta School in Stockholm, principal Bjorn Grunstein goes a step further, giving out free meal coupons to parents at the beginning of each school year, encouraging them to eat in the cafeteria as well.

"We want the parents to know what their children are eating here, because hopefully the kids like the food so much, they'll encourage their parents to make it at home as well," said Grunstein. "It could have a positive effect for the whole family."

Next: What Swedish kids eat at school.

Sweden's School Lunch Paradox: Free, But Not Always Good

2011-09-26T06:00:00.008-04:00

: Students serve themselves lunch

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

After years working as a restaurant chef in Stockholm, Michael Backman was ready for something different. He'd had it with complaining customers. He wanted to feel inspired by his work again. So the advertisement he stumbled across in a free weekly newspaper six years ago grabbed his attention: "Wanted: Head Chef for School Restaurant."

"I had four teenage children who kept talking about how bad the food was at school," said Backman. "I didn't believe it could be that bad. But when I finally saw it, I realized it was."

Meanwhile, the man behind the ad, a burly, no-nonsense school principal and karate instructor named Bjorn Grunstein, had been fighting his bosses in the schools administration to place the ad. According to their personnel book, there was no such thing as a "head chef" for his school. Grunstein was supposed to be looking for a "kitchen matron," they said.

Grunstein doesn't play by the book. He ran his ad anyway, adding "kitchen matron" in minuscule type. He figured the chef he wanted would get the message.

"Many years ago we took in a company to provide our meals. It was one of the largest catering companies in Sweden and they serve shit," Grunstein growled. "They didn't like me very much, because I'd walk around the cafeteria holding a plate of mashed potatoes upside-down. There was more glue than potatoes."

As it turned out, Backman the discontented chef and Grunstein the iconclastic school principal were a perfect match. Working together, this pair of mavericks dumped the regular fare of gluey mashed potatoes and processed chicken nuggets and replaced them with gorgeous, scratch-cooked buffets.

The day I visited the Annersta School last week was 'vegetarian Wednesday.' The entree on display was something I'd never seen before on a school menu: leeks and potatoes in a curried cream sauce. Next to it was a baked pasta dish with a tantalizingly herbaceous tomato sauce, along with an array of salads: cole slaw, red cabbage, cottage cheese with pimento, creamy sliced apples, a pilaf of pearled barley and carrots. There was also an Iranian-style tomato and egg soup.

In Sweden, kids serve themselves. And at Annersta School, located in a a low-income community dense with immigrant families and refugees, they were really digging into the curried leeks.

"I told him [Grunstein] that if he did what I said, he'd have the best school food in Sweden within three years," said Backman.

By many accounts, he does.

: Lunch at Annersta School, Stockholm

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about lunch at Annersta School is that what most Swedish students eat pales in comparison. Sweden has had a school lunch program since the 1940s. In 1997 the national government declared that all children--around 1.4 million--are entitled to a free lunch through primary school, or age 16. This year, the government mandated that those meals must be "nutritious," although exactly what that means is still unclear.

But "free" lunch doesn't necessarily mean good food, even in a country as progressive as Sweden. According to prominent Swedish school food advocate Annika Unt Widell of Swedish School Meal Supporters (Skolmatens Vanner), a group funded by the Swedish Federation of Farmers, some children get porridge or other cheap breakfast foods for lunch. In most schools, Swedish-style pancakes and tacos are the most popular items and the kind of leafy greens and other uncooked garden vegetables we in the U.S. usually associate with fresh salad rarely make an appearance.

Stockholmers were recently stunned by reports that at least 50 high schools in the city were not serving lunch at all, but instead give students vouchers to eat at local fast food outlets. Many high-schoolers routinely take their midday repast at McDonald's.

Kids, meanwhile, complain they don't have enough choice at lunch, that the food is overcooked or undercooked, or that it just doesn't taste very good.

Still, many Swedes have fond memories of their school lunches and have good reason to beleive they are better overall than what children are fed in the U.S. "I tend to think of the Swedes as spoiled sometimes," said Amy Leval, an American who lives in the Stockholm suburb of Solna with her Swedish husband and two daughters, five and seven. "They lose sight of just how amazing they have it and how lucky they are. There is a large sense of entitlement here which stretches into the school lunch program."

Unlike here in the United States, where a tightly regulated school meals program is administered and paid for by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, rules in Sweden are rather lax to non-existent, although most municipalities have a "dietary plan," according to Unt Widell.

In the U. S., schools that participate in the meals program must offer children specified amounts from different food groups both at breakfast and at lunch. The USDA only reimburses schools for meals that are actually served, and only low-income children are entitled to free food.

In Sweden, schools are only required to offer a vegetarian option. Money for meals comes from the total education funding the national government metes out per pupil, around $6,000 per year, depending on age. How that money is used is determined first by 290 municipal authorities, who may well spend it on things other than education, and then by school officials, who may not be especially engaged in the school dining experience.

: Grunstein demanded better food

What's driving concern over school food in Sweden now are the same issues bedeviling parents in the United States. Even though commercial food marketing to children is forbidden in Sweden, kids there have grown much too fond of fast food, sodas, french fries and non-nutritious junk.

"The problem I have isn't money, it's getting the kids to eat the food," said Grunstein. "In some families, dinner is McDonald's. So they are not used to eating the kind of food we are now serving here. In their world, fast food is very important."

Grunstein sees a healthy, attractive lunch as essential to raising successful citizens--part of his mission to address all the needs his students bring to school. "It's an important part of everybody's life," he said. "If I want my pension to grow, they have to to out into the world and get good jobs. It's part of every school to educate, not just teach. We teach for life, not just for school."

I was invited to Stockholm to join a small group of journalists from Germany and Russia on a two-day tour of Swedish school food sponsored by the Swedish Institute, a government agency that promotes Swedish culture. The Swedish government has included public feeding programs such as school lunch as part of an initiative called "Culinary Nation," conceived by the government's rural affairs minister, Eskil Erlandsson, as a way to celebrate Swedish cuisine and create 20,000 rural jobs by developing food exports, agri-tourism and artisanal farm products.

The government paid for my travel expenses to and from Sweden, as well as my lodgings in downtown Stockholm.

Two days is hardly enough time to fully explore what is happening in Sweden's school cafeterias. But in 10 meetings in as many different locations--including lunch at two different schools and a visit to an organic dairy farm--we did cover a lot of territory. What I learned is that Swedish children are subject to many of the same pressures as their counterparts in the U.S., and many of them are benefiting from a growing intervention by professional chefs who see the school cafeteria as a place where they can find greater personal rewards by improving the food served to children.

: School chef makes money stretch

In fact, injecting professional chef experience into school kitchens may be even more important than the extra money so many advocates assume is the answer to rehabilitating school food's shabby reputation.

"It doesn't matter that much how much money you have," said Backman. "It's what you do with the ingredients."

Backman and the food service directors at a second school we visited said they spend around eight Swedish Kroner ($1.27) or a bit more on ingredients per meal. Annika Unt Widell said the figure is closer to 12 Kroner ($1.90) nationwide. But dollars don't go as far in Sweden as they do in the U.S., where the average outlay on food per school lunch is reckoned to be around $1.

Professional chefs, as opposed to minimally trained "kitchen matrons," or even the housewives who used to run Swedish school cafeterias to earn "fur money," bring a depth of experience making food dollars stretch. Preparing food from scratch, they can economize with ingredients and make appealing dishes for less than the cost of processed factory foods. Leftover salad dishes are mixed into new salads the next day, for instance. Uneaten entrees are frozen, to live another day as part of some other dish. Say, curried leeks with pasta.

"This is my favorite place in the kitchen," says Backman, opening the door to the walk-in freezer. Plastic buckets of frozen leftovers, all carefully preserved by Backman, line the stainless shelves.

: Freshly baked bread for school lunch

"In the restaurant business, you are working for someone who wants to make money. There's no room for waste," said Backman. "For the same amount as the school was paying that caterer, we are making two main dishes instead of one, plus a soup. We are baking our own bread. And we've raised the percentage of organic ingredients we are using from zero to 25.9 percent."

Backman accomplishes all this--feeding 700 children and 100 staff every day--with help from four other kitchen workers. The local personnel office says he should have six.

I spoke to Backman in the cafeteria or what Swedes like to call the "school restaurant," a huge room well-lit by a bank of windows and globe lights suspended from the ceiling. Students serve themselves at four long food bars, then sit in stylish molded plastic chairs at gleaming white tables. Swedes take pride in their reputation for sleek design (think Ikea). But many of the country's school cafeterias are cramped and congested, forcing children to eat in a hurry and on odd schedules.

As we talked, a young girl suddenly made her way toward Backman. She beamed up at him and said something in Swedish I couldn't understand, then scampered away.

Backman smiled. "The kids here want to tell the chef what great food he makes," said Backman. "I can tell you, you don't get very many hugs from customers working in a regular restaurant."

Next: Swedish schools struggle towards healthier eating.

Hello, Stockholm!

2011-09-18T06:00:00.001-04:00

: In Sweden, school meals are free for all students

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

As this goes to press, I should be landing in Stockholm. At the invitation of the Swedish government, I am attending a two-conference on how the Swedes feed their kids in school.

What I've gleaned so far is that Sweden is virtually alone among developed countries in providing free meals to all students. The kids serve themselves, so there are no "reimbursable meal" requirements, apparently, like the ones set forth here in the States by the USDA. Also, no book-size regulations describing precise nutrition requirements. In Sweden, school meals must merely be "nutritious"--at least that's my understanding so far.

The reason for this particular post is to request intel from anyone who may have children in Swedish schools--or had children in school there at one time, or was a student recently in a Swedish school. Please let me know what your experiences were with the food. Or perhaps you know someone who fits this description and can pass along my message.

You can e-mail me at euclidarms(at)yahoo(dot)com.

I hope to have a complete report sometime after I return.

Kids Make Cottage Pie

2011-09-16T08:22:00.004-04:00

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

The biggest issue teaching cooking classes with kids is keeping them busy.

Children in groups will soon start a riot if they lose focus. So one of my primary aims when designing our "food appreciation" sessions is making sure they have plenty to do. Here's a recipe for "cottage pie" that keeps them busy peeling and chopping vegetables, stirring, and finally mashing potatoes. And they love the end result.

Most of you are probably more familiar with "shepherd's pie," but in traditional British Isles cookery that's made with lamb. (Make's sense, no?) This version with beef has a long history as "cottage pie," with the same ending: you smear the beef and vegetable layer all over with mashed potatoes.

Start by peeling 3 large Russet potatoes (about 2 pounds) and cutting them into 1 1/2-inch chunks. Place these in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook until potatoes are soft. Drain.

While potatoes are cooking peel two medium onions and cut into small dice. Peel three medium carrots and cut into small dice. Place onions and carrots in a saucepan greased with 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter (or extra-virgin olive oil) over moderately high heat. Season with salt. Cook vegetables till soft, then add 1 1/2 pounds ground beef. Brown the beef, stirring occasionally.

Season beef and vegetable mix with 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 1/3 cup beef broth, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the kernels from one ear of fresh corn (about 1/2 cup), and 1/2 cup frozen peas. Continue cooking until most of the liquid has evaporated, then pour the mix into a baking dish.

While the potatoes are still hot, mash them with 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter. Add about 1/3 cup warm milk and continue mashing until potatoes are smooth. Season with salt, then spread potatoes evenly over the beef and vegetables.

Place in a 400-degree oven four 30 or 40 minutes---until the "pie" is bubbling hot and potatoes have begun to brown around the edges. Switch oven to broil and remove when potatoes are lightly browned.

Your "pie" can easily be made ahead, refrigerated and reheated. I suppose it could be made with ground turkey instead of beef if your family objects to red meat. You could even substitute kidney beans for the meat for a vegetarian version.

Serve this with a green salad and you have a simple dinner kids will love. And they'll hardly notice the vegetables.

Kids Make Berry Trifle

2011-09-12T06:00:00.001-04:00

: Sifting flour into pound cake batter

Welcome to season four of our 'round-the-world culinary tour.

My food appreciation classes have now landed in Great Britain after a gustatory sojourn in France. England, bless her heart, isn't exactly known for her great cuisine and I wanted to start the new school year with something fresh. I turned to the trifle--and I don't mean a small thing, but one of our favorite catering dishes. Traditionally, this is a cakey, pudding-like desert layered in a straight-sided glass bowl. Ours called for lots of fresh berries, pound cake and a filling of whipped cream and lemon curd.

Just remember this is a dessert, not a snack. It's full of sugar.

In a perfect world, I'd start this trifle two days ahead. Make the pound cake first, then after layering all the ingredients in your bowl, place it in the fridge overnight to set. Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time in our cooking classes, so our trifle turned out a bit runny. And while you could use a store-bought pound cake for this, we opted for making our own, which meant a very busy class. Kids love trimming and cutting the strawberries. And they love all the steps involved in making cake batter.

What's a pound cake, anyway? Apparently, the original recipe called for a pound each of flour, butter, eggs and sugar. Or so the story goes. Our cake is not nearly so heavy. Start by greasing a 9x5-inch loaf pan, then lining it with parchment paper. Spray the parchment with Baker's Joy (flour and oil) and set aside.

In a large bowl (or using an electric mixer) beat 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) soft but still cool butter until smooth and shiny. We used the back of a wooden spoon for this. Gradually beat in 1 1/2 cups sugar and continue beating until the mixture is fluffy and almost white.

Meanwhile, in a measuring cup mix together 3 eggs plus 3 egg yolks, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract and 1 1/2 teaspoons water. Gradually stir this into the butter mixture until fully incorporated. Then beat in 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Sift 1/2 cup cake flour into the butter and egg mix and fold gently until completely incorporated. Do this twice more, for a total of 1 1/2 cups flour. Scrape the batter into the loaf pan and place on the middle rack of a 325-degree oven. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the crack that forms in the top of the cake comes out clean, or about 70 or 80 minutes. Invert the cake onto a wire rack, then invert again onto a second rack to cool.

For the fruit, toss 1 quart strawberries, trimmed and quartered, in a bowl with 1 pint blueberries, 1 pint raspberries and the juice from 1/2 lemon. Stir in 1/4 cup sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons corn starch, then pour the fruit into a saucepan and cook over moderate heat just until the fruit is soft. Allow the pan to cool, then place in the fridge to chill.

Meanwhile, spoon 1/2 11-ounce jar lemon curd into a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whip 1 pint heavy cream with 1/2 tablespoon sugar until soft peaks form. Fold some of the whipped cream into the lemon curd until smooth, then add the rest of the whipped cream and fold until fully incorporated.

Spread some of the whipped cream mix to cover the bottom of a small trifle bowl (or something similar). Cover with pound cake cut into 1/2-inch slices. Break slices into pieces if necessary. Spoon some berries with their liquid over the pound cake and cover with whipped cream. Repeat this process until all of the ingredients are used up, forming three or four layers. Place in the fridge overnight to set.

To serve the trifle, insert a large spoon all the way to the bottom, snagging pieces of cake, some berries and lemony whipped cream, now infused with berry juices. We turned this out in cups for the kids. But if you really want to impress your guests, you might place a slice of pound cake on a fancy plate, cover it with a big spoonful of trifle, then top with more whipped cream and some reserved berry juice. In either case, it's a pretty decadent taste of a British classic.

Get Ready for Farm to School Week

2011-09-09T09:01:00.000-04:00

: Kids learn where their food comes from

Guest Post

By Andrea Northup

What’s a child’s first reaction to a bright orange roasted sweet potato on her cafeteria tray? “Weird!” or “What’s that?!” But take that child to a nearby farm and show her how sweet potatoes are grown; or bring a local chef into her classroom to make a delicious sweet potato dish. Then what? That sweet potato in her school meal is gone before you know it.

The D.C. Farm to School Network is pleased to announce that the third annual D.C. Farm to School Week will take place October 3-7, 2011 in schools across Washington, DC! The week will get students excited about local food and where it comes from. Schools will feature seasonal, local foods in their school meals, and engage students in hands-on food education.

Get your school involved! Learn how at www.dcfarmtoschoolweek.org, where you’ll find tools, resources and instructions for registering your school. The D.C. Farm to School Network will help every step of the way.

Sponsor the event! We're looking for organizations and individuals interested to help make D.C. Farm to School Week a success. Read our Sponsor Packet to learn more.

The event will kick-off the first ever National Farm to School Month in October, celebrated by schools all over the country. Last year, over 150 schools served up seasonal specialties such as honey-braised local apple and collard green salad, and Asian slaw with local cabbage during D.C. Farm to School Week. And dozens of schools coordinated farm field trips and chef demonstrations to engage students in the farm-to-table process. Let’s make this year’s event even better.

For more information, visit www.dcfarmtoschoolweek.org or email Andrea Northup, D.C. Farm to School Network Manager at the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture, at andrea[at]dcfarmtoschool[dot]org. This event is brought to you by the D.C. Farm to School Network and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education Department of Wellness & Nutrition Services, in conjunction with schools and other community partners. And remember, D.C. School Garden Week will take place Sept. 26 - Oct. 1.

Pediatricians on Flavored Milk: Epilogue

2011-09-07T07:21:00.004-04:00

: Who can you trust on flavored milk?

In yesterday's post about the American Academy of Pediatrics' stance on flavored milk I attempted to stay as close as possible to the results of my interviews and other reporting rather than my interpretation of what that reporting revealed. Some explanation is in order, since the way in which the information was gathered was somewhat out of the ordinary.

While attempting to illuminate the American Academy of Pediatrics' flavored milk policy, I quickly learned that the academy has no single "spokesman." Rather, I dealt with a "contact" named Gina Steiner, who insisted she not be quoted. Instead, she put me in touch with members of the academy who were deemed best positioned to answer my questions. All of my interviews were conducted by e-mail, and sometimes the pace was agonizingly slow. Thus, I exchanged a total of some 45 e-mails between Steiner and academy sources over a period of two months, between May and July. I waited to write this report until after summer vacation had ended and families again were focused on sending their children to school.

Readers may be surprised to learn, as I was, that the AAP really has no formal policy focused on the feeding of flavored milk to children, other than brief mentions in its policy addressing sugar-sweetened beverages in schools, where flavored milk--along with plain milk, fruit and vegetable juices and water--is cited as a "healthful alternative" to sodas, and in the academy's statement on increasing children's bone density and calcium intake. Rather, AAP messaging on chocolate milk seems to depend more on its "partnership" arrangements with dairy organizations such as the National Dairy Council and MilkPEP, groups that are desperate to keep flavored milk a beverage of choice in the school meals program.

Is it really coincidental that the Dairy Council and MilkPEP are also financial contributors to the pediatrics academy? The academy insists that these contributions in no way influence its policies or messaging. But the dairy groups make liberal use of the academy's name in its chocolate milk promotions, as well as the names of pediatricians who are "appointed" as "unpaid advisors" to the dairy industry when they rise to positions of influence.

Some may be disappointed that the academy is not more transparent on questions of exactly how much money it receives from dairy interests, or exactly what its "partnership" arrangements entail. But more important is the question of trust and how that is compromised by the academy's acceptance of funding from the dairy industry.

Also, the academy gives parents no specific guidance on how much--or how little--sugar-sweetened milk products they should feed their children. Rather, the pediatric group leaves parents to ponder the question on their own. Here's how Jatinder Bhatia, chair of the AAP's committee on nutrition, put it to me:

"Parents should look at the child's total intake of sugar for the day. If they are getting it in flavored milk, then look at their cereals, snacks, etc. to be sure it's limited there. Also, many parents allow their kids to have flavored milk at school, but they serve plain milk at breakfast or dinner."

The AAP's silence on this question sets it apart from the American Heart Association, which recently released guidelines recommending that children consume no more than half their "discretionary calories" in the form of sugar. It should be noted, however, that calculating exactly what those discretionay calories are [PDF] for any given child can pose a challenge.

Dr. Robert Murray, until recently chair of the AAP's council on school health, says my questions suffer from a "common missperception" about what the AAP's statement on sugar-sweetened beverages means to say. But the statement is written in plain English and speaks for itself. And keep in mind, when you ask the AAP for its position on flavored milk in schools, this is what you get. The problem is not with missperceiving AAP policy, but with the fact that the personal opinions of individual pediatricians--opinions that so neatly align with those of the dairy industry--are bandied about where no formal AAP policy exists.

Indeed, some readers may find it curious that a professional organization with the reach and influence of the American Academy of Pediatrics should give so little formal policy guidance on the subject of flavored milk at the same time it is accepting money from the dairy industry and participating so closely in the industry's promotion of that same product. Its inaction on this point seems all the more confounding in light of the controversy flavored milk continues to stir in the school meals program--a program that feeds an estimated 32 million of the nation's children daily--and at a time when so many parents and school administrators are desperate for guidance from the medical community.

The academy says it is in the process of revising it policy on sweetened beverages in schools. This would be the perfect time to set matters right.

Have Pediatricians Sold Out to Big Dairy?

2011-09-06T06:00:00.009-04:00

: Does your doc recommend chocolate milk?

The Dairy Industry widely touts the nation’s pediatricians as supporting sugary chocolate milk for children. But when I went looking for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy on flavored milk in school, what I found was hardly a sweeping endorsement.

Instead, the group representing some 60,000 of the nation's pediatricians cites flavored milk along with plain milk, water, fruit and vegetable juices as “healthful alternatives” to the problem of sodas in school. But sodas aren’t served in most elementary schools, and are on the way out in many middle and high schools as well.

A 2010 report by the Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois, Chicago, found that only 17 percent of public elementary schools offer sugar-sweetened beverages such as sodas or sports drinks. The percentage of middle schools that offered sodas with meals shrank from 35 percent to 26 percent between 2007 and 2008. In high schools the decrease was from 46 percent to 36 percent.

When I pressed the head of the AAP’s nutrition committee to explain how pediatricians might continue to support chocolate milk if there were no sodas offered in schools, he abruptly ended our interview.

“I think we are belaboring the issues and I do not have any answers to address your concerns,” said Jatinder Bhatia, chief of neonatology at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

So what explains the cozy relationship between the American Academy of Pediatrics and Big Dairy.

Bhatia acknowledged that he serves as an “unpaid advisor” to the National Dairy Council. And as I would later learn, the American Academy of Pediatrics receives funding from dairy interests, although it refuses to say how much.

The AAP issued a statement saying: “The American Academy of Pediatrics receives grants and contributions from the federal government and foundations as well as from a number of corporations. These contributions help support the AAP's mission to promote the health and wellbeing of all children. In the 2009-10 fiscal year, just 7 percent of the AAP’s income came from corporate support. This includes contributions from the National Dairy Council and MilkPEP. “

(MilkPEP--or Milk Processors Education Program--is an industry group funded through a congressional mandate that promotes dairy with media campaigns such as “Got Milk?” and “Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk!”)

The AAP statement goes on to say: “Safeguards and disclosure procedures are in place to protect against conflict of interest by either the AAP or its physician members who develop policy for review and approval by the AAP. The AAP conforms with all industry standards for disclosure of financial relationships…Outside funding has no effect on the AAP's policies, guidelines or messaging on any aspect of child health.”

If dairy money has no influence on AAP policy, it may help grease the wheels for what the pediatric group describes as “partnerships” with dairy interests to promote its products—including flavored milk.

For instance, the AAP last year joined a MilkPEP Halloween blitz that advised parents, “If you’re hosting a Halloween Party, serve low-fat chocolate milk as a nutritious treat in disguise.”

The AAP has also signed on to the National Dairy Council’s “3 Every Day of Dairy,” campaign, urging everyone to consume at least three servings of dairy on a daily basis. The AAP participates along with prominent sports figures in the dairy council’s “Fuel Up to Play 60,” promoting dairy and an hour of exercise in schools.

What’s more, the AAP appoints prominent members such as Jatinder Bhatia to “advise” the dairy industry.

When I asked to see a copy of the AAP’s partnership agreement with the National Dairy Council and MilkPEP, I was told, “We do not have agreements available for public inspection.”

This is the second in an occasional series of reports responding to an Associated Press article published in May that falsely asserted that several professional groups—including the American Academy of Pediatrics—had issued a “joint statement” supporting chocolate milk in schools.

My reporting reveals that most of the groups cited receive money from dairy interests as part of a carefully crafted public relations campaign designed to boost sales of flavored milk in the face of plummeting sales of plain milk. Schools account for only 7 percent of all milk sales, but more than half of all flavored milk. The American Dietetic Association and the School Nutrition Association also receive dairy industry money and enthusiastically support the chocolate milk campaign.

Dairy interests also pay for “research” to bolster their claim that children will lack the calcium they need for healthy bones if they are not offered flavored milk with added sugar.

Dairy groups trumpet the participation of individual physicians such as Jatinder Bhatia, publishing long lists of "advisors" that help create an aura of medical approval around the industry’s chocolate milk promotions.

In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not have a formal policy explicitly focused on flavored milk. The AAP's 2006 statement on optimizing children's bone health and calcium intake states that flavored milk, cheese and yogurt containing "modest amounts of added sweeteners" are "generally recommended." In the absence of more specific guidance, the dairy industry has created the illusion that it exists: Drink chocolate milk!

Pediatricians are hardly unanimous on the question. Robert Lustig, a prominent specialist in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, has called the sugar (meaning fructose) in chocolate milk “poison” because of its metabolic links with obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardio-vascular disease and fatty liver disorder in children.

Lustig was prominently featured in a recent New York Times Magazine article on the perceived dangers of fructose. But he declined to comment on the findings in this article, saying the American Academy of Pediatrics has, in fact, “embraced the issue of sugar in obesity.” He cited a recorded panel discussion the AAP recently sent its members in which Lustig and other specialists discuss the hazards posed by sugar in children’s diets.

“The issue of flavored milk is a complex one,” said Lustig in an e-mail, “and my opinion and comments are not for distribution.”

(When I interviewed Lustig in January and asked, "Do you think it's wrong for schools to be serving milk with added sugar?" he replied: "Short answer, of course. But it won't get fixed any time soon. The Dairy Industry is very tight with the USDA.")

The chocolate milk AAP policy suggests as an alternative to the sodas and sports drinks offered in schools typically contaings 3.5 teaspoons of added sugar in an 8-ounce serving. But Jatinder Bhatia was vague on the question of how much of it children should drink, saying, "AAP does not have policy on the number of servings of flavored milk per day."

Bhatia recommended “two glasses a day in younger children and three a day in older children,” adding that “moderation is key.”

“Although I personally am a proponent that we need to reduce sugar in the American diet in general and in children in particular, I also believe that it is not the flavored milk rather than the number of times the flavored milk is consumed.”

Bhatia continued: “We need to start in infancy when we start weaning infants from breast feeding or formula feeding and not offer them high sweet drinks and foods so as to not let them acquire a ‘sweet tooth.’ That way, we would not have to resort to flavored or other milks since children would have not acquired a sweeter taste.”

In its online publications, meanwhile, the dairy industry prominently quotes Bhatia as saying that “flavored milk could be a nice alternative [to plain milk] since the contribution of added sugars to the overall diet of young children is minimal.”

When Bhatia balked at the question of whether schools should serve flavored milk in the absence of sodas, I was told that this particular AAP policy, first approved in 2004 and “affirmed” without change in 2009, is likely to be revised soon.

I was then referred to Dr. Robert Murray, a professor and child nutrition specialist at Ohio State University, and until recently chairman of the AAP’s council on school health. “The policies of the AAP,” Murray said, “have been unwilling to sacrifice the nutrients in milk just to avoid a couple teaspoons of sugar.”

“Your question reflects a common misperception: that our directive to the public to limit sugar-sweetened beverages is based on the fact that sugars are ‘bad’. This is not the case,” Murray said. “Sugars, even simple sugars, can be a part of a total diet, just like any other component.”

According to Murray, “We did not write the soft drinks policy because of a concern about sugar itself, as much as a concern about energy-dense and nutrient-poor drinks being promoted by schools through industry contracts. The implications of that on increasing added sugars and lowering diet quality was the focus.”

School food advocates such as Ann Cooper contend that routinely serving flavored milk as part of the federally-funded meals program teaches kids to expect sugar in their food. But Murray says chocolate milk has become “a whipping boy” in the school food debate.

“Removing flavored milk is detrimental to overall pediatric nutrition and unlikely to affect overall added sugar consumption in any meaningful way,” he said.

Murray, who also served a term as a National Dairy Council advisor, said “neither the AAP Committee on Nutrition nor any other national nutrition organization has proposed a specified limit on flavored milk.”

But an advisory published by the American Academy of Family Physicians at its website lists drinking flavored milk as a “key unhealthy eating habit.” It says children should drink no more than 12 ounces of flavored milk per day.

The American Heart Association, meanwhile, recently set guidelines that would have children consume no more than half of their “discretionary calories” in the form of sugar. Millions of children may already be exceeding that standard because of the chocolate milk they drink at school with their federally-sponsored breakfast and lunch. Many are drinking even more in snack and supper programs.

Massachussetts Bans Chocolate Milk

2011-07-18T10:34:00.008-04:00

Massachusetts has become the first state in the country we know of to ban flavored milk systemwide in school vending machine, snack shops and a la carte lines. The move came last week in a decision by the state's Public Health Council to issue strict food standards for schools outside federally-subsidized cafeteria lines that will eliminate sugary drinks, french fries, high-calorie snack foods and white bread.

The council, composed of, health advocates, doctors and other professionals, also ordered smaller portion sizes for fruit juices, more servings of whole fruits and vegetables and water free of charge for all students.

With its strict new standards, Massachusetts joins Los Angeles and the District of Columbia in removing chocolate and other flavored milk products, although L.A and D.C. have removed milk with added sugar entirely, including the regular lunch line. The Health Council agreed to delay implementation of its limited ban until 2013 so that schools have time to teach children to drink plain milk.

“We knew that people were going to have strong feelings about this and were concerned that overall milk consumption would drop,’’ said Dr. Lauren Smith, medical director of the Department of Public Health. “We wanted to give schools time to prepare so it can be done in a seamless way.’’ Studies have shown that when flavored milk is banned, milk consumption drops slightly but then rebounds, she said.

And Now for Some Good News About School Food: Breakfast in the Classroom

2011-06-30T06:00:00.002-04:00

: Berkeley's breakfast in a bin

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

When I worked in Berkeley's central school kitchen a year ago one of the things that impressed me most was something I'd never heard of before: breakfast served in the classroom.

Every morning at the crack of dawn we'd start loading plastic bins. The meals were so simple: a loaf of banana bread, a bag of kid-size apples, cartons of plain milk. Sometimes there might be yogurt, or packets of Nature's Path organic cereal. At Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, the bins were rolled out on shelves to the front of the "dining commons" where students soon arrived in pairs to carry them to their classrooms.

It couldn't have been easier. Yet participation was nearly 100 percent, and because of a quirky California real estate tax law, breakfast in Berkeley generated "meals for the needy" funds on top of federal subsidy dollars, helping to pay for a scratch-cooked lunch.

When I left Berkeley, I wondered why every school district hadn't thought of breakfast in the classroom. But now many of them are. In fact, this may be the hottest new trend in school food.

"Breakfast is such a winner on so many levels. But it’s a federal program that’s underutilized," said Madeleine Levin, a senior policy analyst with the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), which advocates on food access issues in schools. Most schools offer breakfast, but fewer than half of all children eligible for a free or reduced-price breakfast actually eat one. Last year 1.97 billion breakfasts were served in the federally-subsidized meal program nationwide, fewer than half the number of lunches--5.28 billion.

FRAC last year was one of several groups--including the National Association of Elementary School Principals Foundation, the National Education Association Health Information Network, and the School Nutrition Foundation--that partnered to help start classroom breakfast programs in five school districts: Dallas, Little Rock, Memphis, Prince George's County, Md., and Orange County, Fla. They received $3 million from the Walmart Foundation, about $2 million of which went to the schools, mostly to pay for equipment, such as refrigerators and coolers.

"Some principals felt uncomfortable changing their routines, as did some teachers and food service directors. We were able to address those groups at the school level to show them how this can work, how there can be a constructive process to plan and implement a program that benefits everyone," said Levin. "The power of the funding was to meld the partnership together."

According to Levin, it doesn't take much to start a classroom breakfast program. Yet research demonstrates that when children gather around breakfast in a familiar classroom setting, readiness to learn increases while tardiness and discipline problems decline. Eating breakfast also fights obesity. "It will benefit them for the rest of their life," says Levin. "It's proven in research to have a real impact."

: Nothing beats breakfast at your desk

Here in the District of Columbia, there's been a marked increase in the number of children eating breakfast since breakfast in the classroom was implemented a year ago. Breakfast is served free to any D.C. Public Schools student who wants it. In 37 elementary schools where breakfast is served in all classrooms, participation stands at 78 percent, an increase of 26 percent from the year before. Meanwhile, in elementary schools that serve breakfast only in the cafeteria participation is just 10 percent.

D.C. Hunger Solutions has been working closely with local schools to make the new breakfast program a success.

Levin doesn't advocate breakfast in the classroom as a money maker, but school food consultant Kate Adamick does. Especially in districts with large numbers of needy students, federal subsidy dollars can more than pay for breakfast, meaning extra cash to help support the entire meal program. In "severe need" schools, the federal reimbursement rate is $1.76, compared to the usual $1.48.

Adamick says the break-even point for schools typically occurs when at least 50 percent of the student body qualifies for a free or reduced-price meal. "For districts that exceed 60 percent free and reduced, breakfast in the classroom programs generally result in significantly increased net revenue for school districts," Adamick said. "The higher the level of free and reduced kids, the higher the net revenue generated."

Schools can increase the profitability of breakfast by cooking more from scratch, Adamick says. "The good news is that simple scratch-cooked breakfast meals are often much less expensive than the highly processed products that are currently served in most schools, which helps keep the costs in line and lowers the free and reduced levels necessary for a financially viable breakfast in the classroom program. "

The USDA's proposed new meal guidelines could upend that math, however. By requiring more whole fruit, whole grains and adding a 1-ounce serving of meat (or meat alternate), the guidelines would add a whopping 51 cents to the cost of serving breakfast. Some school administrators say they may have to drop breakfast altogether.

Parents often express concerns that eating breakfast in the classroom will eat into the time children have available to learn. But teachers and school administrators say children are more focused when breakfast is served in the classroom, and eating a meal together creates a family atmosphere. At a school I visited in Boulder--Columbine Elementary--the beginning of the school day was moved up--from 8:30 to 8:15--to make room for breakfast in the classroom.

: Breakfast delivery, Boulder style

I watched the kitchen manager, Margaret Traverton, load bins with apples, breakfast bars, and milk, then wheel the bins around the school on a cart, dropping them outside classroom doors. I went back a few minutes later to watch the children unload the bins and arrange breakfast at their desks. Assigning kids tasks--like unloading bins, or collecting trash--gives them a sense of responsibility, and takes some of the load off the teachers.

Chicago instituted breakfast in the classroom in all of its schools this year, sparking loud complaints. But Levin attributes the discontent there to requiring that breakfast be served in classrooms in even the most affluent schools, where many children may not need it. "The concerns are coming from a small group of parents," said Levin. "In other districts where they’ve gone district-wide it’s worked really well—Houston and Newark, for instance.

Here in D.C., schools where less than 40 percent of students qualify for free or reduced price meals can opt not to serve breakfast in classrooms. It's offered in the cafeteria instead.

Levin says many other school districts are exploring the breakfast-in-the-classroom option. FRAC has received more than 100 inquiries just from its website. But the next frontier is getting older kids interested in eating breakfast. At one high school here in D.C., I met with students who would rather grab a bag of chips at a corner convenience store than eat a breakfast for free at school.

"If you talk to marketing people they’ll tell you that making something free doesn't necessarily make it attractive," said Levin. "It’s not cool. Or to use a more modern term, it’s not 'fresh.' They’d rather hang out in the hallway with friends."

In D.C. last year, middle school participation in breakfast was just 21 percent. It was even less among kids in high school: only 11 percent.

So how do we make breakfast "fresh?"

This article originally appeared at the Beyond Breakfast blog.

What's for Lunch: Local Beef

2011-06-29T05:02:00.004-04:00

By Andrea Northup and Anna Chute

Lisa Dobbs, Chef and Nutrition director at E.W. Stokes, will stop at nothing to make sure that the 350 students she serves each day have healthy, delicious meals. Cooking from-scratch and using no processed foods, she and her staff prepare breakfast, lunch and supper in their antiquated kitchen for the school’s population of mostly low-income students. Lisa incorporates fresh, locally-grown foods whenever possible, especially on the school’s salad bar. And she works with the rest of the school staff to ensure that the school’s garden, nutrition and wellness programs are coordinated with her healthy menus.

As the Director of the D.C. Farm to School Network, I heard about Joy Evans from a friend who works in a local farm-to-table restaurant. Joy and her husband operate a business called Shenandoah Foods, which delivers meat, cheese and eggs from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to Washington, DC-area restaurants. Joy takes a delivery fee from her clients to run her business, and then farmers deal directly with customers to handle food costs. I reached out to see if she might be interested to work with Washington, DC schools.

Getting local meats into school meals is difficult. Most schools buy pre-cooked commodity meat from large distributors. It’s cheap (less than $1 per lb) and can be ordered in the evening and delivered the next morning – a system that’s hard to beat. But we’re not quite sure where it comes from, and it’s not always the highest quality product. But with about $1 per meal to spend on food, school food service directors have to make difficult choices about what they can afford.

I invited Joy and her husband to Washington, DC to meet with a few schools interested in buying local meat. We had a lively discussion about what products schools want, how much they need, what prices they can afford, and how to handle invoicing and delivery. We tried some delicious cheeses, Virginia-grown ground beef hamburgers, and fresh yogurt with local berries. If your mouth isn’t watering, it should be - the school food service providers could taste difference.

Joy and Lisa connected, and decided on a trial-run of 200 pounds of lean ground beef for $2.60 per pound. Joy picked up the meat from D&M Meats in Harrisonburg, VA in her refrigerated van, and delivered it to E.W. Stokes in conjunction with her regular restaurant deliveries. Lisa and her team expertly sautéed and seasoned the ground beef, and served it with pico-de-gallo, tortilla chips, and fresh guacamole. The result? A delicious and healthy meal for hungry students, which put money into our local economy, supported a sustainable small producer and made clean-beef fans out of Stokes’ young scholars.

Lisa Dobbs, Food Service Director at E.W. Stokes says the quality of the Virginia-grown beef is unparalleled. There isn’t murky liquid left over after cooking – something she’s used to with the lower-quality products. “We would never go back to the beef we were cooking before! We would drop beef from our menu entirely if we had to go back,” says Lisa.

Lisa can’t serve local meat every day, but it’s on the menu about once or twice a week, and they are looking to incorporate other items like chicken and eggs. We’re working to get more schools on board, and we’re excited for the potential to grow this partnership.

Andrea Northup is manager of the D.C. Farm to School Network. Anna Chute is the network's intern. This article originally appeared on the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture blog.

D.C. Schools Chancellor Defends Decision to Ditch Chocolate Milk

2011-06-28T05:41:00.004-04:00

: Not coming back to D.C. schools

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

D.C. Public Schools officials apparently have no intention of reinstating chocolate milk in local cafeterias despite a recent grilling by D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown and the pleadings of a first-grader who polled his fellow students.

In an e-mail to Brown dated June 22, newly-confirmed schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson says the decision to remove chocolate and strawberry-flavored milk from schools was part of an ongoing effort to make school food healthier, that the sugar in flavored milk puts many students at risk of obesity and heart disease, and that not serving more expensive flavored milk frees money that can be used to improve the the quality of meals served.

During recent confirmation hearings before the council, Brown tried to get Henderson to commit to bringing flavored milk back to city lunch lines based on findings of a 7-year-old student at Lafayette Elementary School that 58 percent of his school mates do not drink milk. "Kids won't drink milk unless it's chocolate," Brown said. The boy questioned why chocolate milk had been removed when schools continue to serve fruit juice that contains as much sugar as flavored milk, but not the protein.

In her e-mail to Brown, Henderson noted that Los Angeles schools, the second-largest school district in the country, recently opted to remove chocolate milk and that other school districts appear poised to do so as well. As for juice, Henderson said the sugar in fruit juice occurs naturally, unlike that added to flavored milk, and that juice is only served once per week in D.C. schools as a replacement for whole fruit.

A debate over the chocolate milk issue played out recently in Washington Post reporter Mike DeBonis' column after I broke the news in this blog about Kwame Brown's interrogation of Henderson. The father of the Lafayette Elementary student, Chris Murphy, wrote DeBonis insisting that his son "is not a dairy lobbyist." But a copy of the boy's testimony has since been widely circulated by the National Dairy Council as evidence that kids prefer chocolate milk to plain milk and risk not getting enough calcium to build healthy bones without it.

Chocolate milk has become a flash-point issue in the battle to improve the quality of food served in the nation's schools. The dairy industry spends tens of millions of dollars promoting chocolate milk as an alternative to soda and other soft drinks. While sales of plain milk have plummeted in recent decades , sales of flavored milk have tripled. But some health experts have become concerned about chocolate milk's roll in promoting children's consumption of sugar and say that kids can get the calcium they need from a range of other foods.

My reporting of D.C. school food indicated that as recently as a year ago, children were being offered the equivalent of 15 teaspoons of sugar with breakfasts in which chocolate and strawberry-flavored milk were served alongside Apple Jacks cereal, Pop-Tarts, Giant Goldfish Grahams, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins and fruit juice. Under the aggressive approach taken by food services Director Jeffrey Mills, schools have removed not only flavored milk, but also sugary cereals and processed foods.

Henderson says the response to D.C. schools removing flavored milk "has been positive."

Here is the full text of Henderson's e-mail to Brown:

Chairman Brown--

In response to the discussion that arose during my confirmation hearing, I would like to share information with you about our decision to eliminate flavored milk from our menus.

The decision to stop serving flavored milk in DC Public Schools (DCPS) was made in support of our goal to serve healthy, natural foods to our students that are additive, artificial flavoring and coloring-free. This change was implemented, beginning last summer, in conjunction with new DCPS nutrition standards. Our new standards require that all menu items and competitive foods comply with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) standards, the federal HealthierUS Schools Challenge Gold Standard, and with our own district-specific standards which regulate/restrict sugar content in our meals.

Flavored milk contains significantly higher amounts of sugar and sodium than plain milk. An 8-ounce carton of flavored milk contains 14 grams (approximately 3 ½ teaspoons and 64 calories) of added sugar per serving. The American Heart Association recommends that no more than half of an individual’s discretionary calories come from added sugar. For young girls ages 9-13, for example, 8 ounces of flavored milk would constitute nearly a whole day’s added sugar allowance. Considering the fact that DCPS offers three meals a day, it is feasible that some students would choose to consume three cartons of flavored milk, thereby exceeding their recommended daily sugar intake by 128 calories. Other American Heart Association research cautions that the average child consume over 20 percent of their daily calories in the form of sugar, a habit that undoubtedly contributes to heart disease and obesity-related illnesses.

To the point that some have made about the amount of sugar in fruit juices, we mention that the sugar in juice occurs naturally, that all of the juice we serve is 100% juice, and we only serve it once per week as a replacement for fruit. Additionally, the amount of protein in milk does not vary between flavored and unflavored; some milk products have added milk solids (protein), but this additive is not unique to flavored milk.

DCPS currently serves only skim or 1% plain milk. Despite removing flavored milk and making significant menu changes, we are on track to serve nearly 2.5 million more meals this school year than last, meaning 2.5 million more milks have been purchased. Flavored milk also costs approximately $.05 more per carton than plain milk; and so, the additional volume comes at a cost savings to the District, allowing us to funnel more resources into buying more high-quality, healthy foods for our children.

Our Office of Food and Nutrition Services (OFNS) has been tracking district policies around flavored milk across the country. Just last week, Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country, stopped serving flavored milk, and according to indications within the school food service community, many other districts are planning to pull it in the coming school year.

While we do not take lightly the advocacy of our students, we also know that the District ranks 9th among all states with high overweight and obesity rates among adolescents ages 10-17 (DC DOH 2010 Obesity Report). It is also important to note that the majority of feedback we have received from the DCPS community regarding the decision to eliminate flavored milk has been positive. Spurred in part by the Council’s own nationally-recognized Healthy Schools Act legislation, we at DCPS have been working aggressively to develop nutritional health and fitness initiatives and approaches to help combat this challenge. Through this and other changes, DCPS hopes to give students the gift of a healthy palate and an active mind.

Sincerely,

Kaya Henderson

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Calorie requirements:

Age-grade groups:

Nutrient standards:

Total fat:

Available nutrient information:

Sodium standard:

Vitamin A standard:

Menu planning approaches:

Fruit, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat/fat-free milk products:

Special considerations for whole grains:

Special considerations for fluid milk:

Meat/Meat Alternate:

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Attainable recommendations:

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