Meet Our Kitchen Staff

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Here are the ladies who prepare the meals at my daughter's elementary school here in the District of Columbia. Last week they asked me if I would like to photograph them for the blog. But yesterday the kitchen manager--the woman on the right, affectionately known as "Mrs. G--said her supervise at Chartwells had instructed not to give their names.

That's a shame, don't you think. These are, after all, the real heroes of the cafeteria, the women who feed and nourish our children. They should be celebrated, not hidden away in anonymity. You know they try to serve the best food they can every day with the resources they have available. They put a lot of pride into their work, and parents should be grateful.

Today's entree was a spinach and cheese salad that "Mrs. G" triumphantly claimed as her own creation. "I told you I made it myself," she insisted. Also on the menu: steamed broccoli and a whole wheat roll.

This is so much better than chicken nuggets, no?

A Charter School Does it Right

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

In response to an article about the woeful state of D.C school food I wrote for the Washington Post's "Outlook" section recently, the chef and director of Elsie Whitelow Stokes Community Freedom Charter School in Northeast D.C. published a long letter in the Post last week detailing how they serve fresh food to their kids on a daily basis.

Lisa Dobbs, the chef, and Linda Moore, the school's founder and director, explain how the school moved into a building with an old kitchen and obtained funds for an upgrade from a small non-profit. They used federal stimulus money to purchase more equipment and hire three additional staffers. Now a kitchen contingent of five is making meals for 400 students and staff from scratch using locally-sourced ingredients. They also have a salad bar they say the students pick clean every day.

Serving fresh food attractively isn't necessarily easy, Dobbs and Moore write. It takes lots of hard work. What motivates them is knowing that kids "will not eat -- nor will most adults -- vegetables that have been frozen or processed until they become nasty mush."

You can read the full letter here.