Whats for Breakfast: Lots of Canned Fruit

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

And now, something totally different: canned pears with cheddar cheese on a biscuit. And on the side, canned peaches. Have you every eaten anything like this before? Sort of like a fruit shortcake without the whipped cream. Toss in the carton of orange juice and you have pretty much an all-fruit breakfast.

Is that a good thing? Maybe not, if the fruit is canned with a sugary syrup.


Meanwhile, this is the standing alternate breakfast for Wednesdays, featuring the granola and yogurt parfait that we like so much. Lots of peaches here.

What's for Lunch: Turkey Sandwich

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow cook

Chartwells had its menu writers working overtime on this one. At its website, the company describes this as "sliced oven-roasted turkey on a whole wheat mini sub roll with cranberry mayo," plus "fresh veggie gardenaria with broccoli and carrots," "seasoned green beans," and "local peach."

Veggie gardenaria?

My dictionary (Webster's New Universal Unabridged) doesn't even list "gardenaria" as a word. It looks to me more like frozen broccoli and "sanded" carrots cooked together, although these broccoli do seem to be holding together better than the frozen variety I've seem steamed into oblivion in the past. The "seasoned green beans" are out of a can. And the "oven-roasted turkey" is simply processed turkey breast that arrives sliced and frozen from the Jennie-O Turkey Store in Willmar, Minn.

According to the packing label, the turkey consists of "turkey breast, white turkey, turkey broth, modified food starch."

I'm not sure how the "cranberry mayo" was made, but it sure was pink. The kids debated each other over what they were supposed to do with it. Some were dipping their carrots in it.

The "local peach" seems to be the one item on this tray not suffering an identity crisis. And being local, it also earns the schools a five-cent bonus from the D.C. treasury.

What's for Breakfast: Egg Sandwich

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Chartwells on its menu website called for a "toasty egg patty sandwich with cheddar on a whole wheat bagel." This certainly comes close, although the bagel looks more like an English mufin. The egg patties and muffins would have arrived frozen, but I have not seen the ingredients or cooking instructions for these items. Chartwells also called for an apple to accompnay the sandwich, but at my daughter's school they served a peach.


Here's another view of the sandwich.

And here's how one girl was eating eat. I asked her if it was good, and she nodded her head vigorously. I guess that constitutes a thumbs up. Or even two thumbs up.

Vegetarian Alternate: Taco Chips

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

This is the standing "cold" alternate lunch for Fridays in D.C. elementary schools, according to the menu posted on Chartwells website. Chartwells calls this, "western corn and black bean salad with whole grain tortilla shells and homemade BBQ ranch dressing."

To me, this looks like frozen corn tossed with canned black beans next to some corn tortilla scoops you usually see in the chips aisle at the grocery store. I don't see the "homemade BBQ ranch dressing." What would you put it on? The pear had been served with the main lunch the day before, and of course milk--either low-fat or non-fat--is always available for the kids to choose from.

How would you rate this meal? Is this a meal?

What's for Lunch: Chicken Sandwich

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

My daughter looked at the Chartwells menu for lunch, saw it was a chicken sandwich and decided she didn't want any part of it. She packed her own lunch. She just doesn't like the processed chicken patty on this sandwich. The lettuce and tomato salad you see here is actually intended as a topping for the sandwich, with a plastic container of barbecue sauce to finish it off. It looked more like peanut sauce to me, and I don't think I saw any of the kids use the salad or the sauce as it was intended. Were they supposed to get instructions in the food line?

What looks like cucumbers is actually "locally grown zucchini," according to the Chartwells website. I assumed the pear was local, but the website does not say so. The schools would get an extra five cents from the District of Columbia to pay for this lunch by virtue of the zucchini being local. But vegetable side dishes are a hard sell in the cafeteria, and the kids were not exactly attacking these zucchini.

I stayed through the entire lunch period to see what the kids did with their pear. Was it ripe? Was it edible? Would they eat it? It turned out to be a little hard, but the kids seemed to like it. Like most whole fruit served in schools, it was bigger than they needed. But what they did eat, they ate with relish. In Berkeley, Calif., the schools have found an orchardist who sells them his small, kid-size apples. Would it be hard--cheaper maybe?--to find growers here who can supply smaller fruit?

What's for Breakfast: Granola Parfait

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Here's a real switch from the Pop-Tarts, Golden Goldfish Grahams and Otis Spunkmeyer Muffins we've seen in past Chartwells breakfasts: homemade granola.

This granola was made from dry oatmeal mixed with brown sugar and baked fresh in the school kitchen. It was then tossed with dried blueberries that arrive frozen and canned peaches, then spooned over the raspberry yogurt I described yesterday. The dish is garnished with more blueberries and slices of local peach.

What a revelation! We don't need to buy pre-packaged, processed "treats" from corporate food factories. We can actually make our own. (Thanks to the local kitchen ladies.)

Not to complain, but the yogurt in this "parfait" hardly needs much sugar with all the sugar in the granola and the peaches. (Chartwells is calling this "all natural yogurt" on its menu website, even though the ingredient list is a mile long and heavily dosed with sugar). Otherwise, this is a great idea for mixing dairy, grains and fruit. And notice the plain, fat-free milk on the tray. D.C. no longer serves flavored milk with added sugar.

What's for Lunch: Baked Chicken

Somewhere underneath all this breading is chicken. Why do schools feel the need to smother protein with more carbs. There are already plenty of carbs in the bread roll, as well as the canned diced pears.

Maybe it's just to make school chicken look more like fast-food chicken. Is that a good idea?

What's for Lunch: Pizza

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Pizza, usually containing donated government commodities, arrives pre-cooked and frozen at D.C. Schools. It's easily transferred to a baking sheet and heated in a convection oven. Pepperoni also arrives frozen in separate bags, so it's no trick to turn plain cheese pizzas into pepperoni pizzas.

The salad is composed of iceberg lettuce shipped in bags from California. Inside the bags of lettuce are smaller bags of processed carrots and shredded red cabbage. Everything is tossed together and served as a "mixed" salad, along with a foil packet of Kraft ranch dressing.

We are grateful for the fresh pear. The pear was not particularly ripe, and it's more than any grade schooler will probably eat. That means lots of waste. But it's better than the canned fruit loaded with sugar the kids usually receive.

Notice the milk: it's not flavored. In fact, I didn't see any flavored milk being served with the pizza. I asked my daughter about this and she said the school does not serve flavored milk with pizza. I've asked the food service director for D.C. schools if, in fact, there is a policy not to serve flavored milk with pizza. I'm still waiting for a reply.