I can’t believe I never announced who you voted for as the recipient of the October/November Titanium Spork Award Winner….
I went through my posts from December and wouldn’t you know it, I never announced that he had won (even though the poll results hung out there on my sidebar forever…).
I have been a big fan of his ever since he spent a week in the kitchen of his daughter’s school reporting on the school lunches in Washington DC as well as his trips to both Berkeley, California and Boulder, Colorado to dig deeper into how things work in model school lunch programs. He blogs in two places: The Slow Cook and Better DC School Food.
Congrats and a big thank you for all of your hard work! Because it was a combined award, it’s a double prize of two titanium sporks. Ed, I hope they arrived safely!
Please nominate a candidate to receive the Titanium Spork Award for December (in the comments).
Past recipients have included:
April – Jamie Oliver
May – Lisa Suriano
June – Laura DeSantis
September – Dr. Susan Rubin
October/November – Ed Bruske
There are many people working in the school lunch reform movement who haven’t received any recognition for their hard work and that’s why I want to continue giving out prizes to people making a difference. Please leave a comment with your nomination(s)!
I nominate San Francisco school food advocate Dana Woldow. Her accomplishments in that school system are beyond extraordinary. Perhaps most remarkable of all is that she has worked, and continues to work, as a parent VOLUNTEER. Dana shared lots of very useful and insightful advice recently in her "Everybody’s Guide to Fixing School Food" in this post on The Lunch Tray:
http://www.thelunchtray.com/dana-woldow-another-school-food-reform-superhero-shares-her-advice/
If Dana's accomplishments aren't titanium sporkworthy, I dunno what is.
I would recommend Chef Dennis: http://www.morethanamountfull.com/
Thanks, Mrs. Q. I got my sporkes. Great Christmas present!
I wish you could give a Titanium Spork Award to all the thousands of Lunch Ladies out there who work very hard every day with little recognition from school officials.
I would like to Nominate Ali from Brave New Lunch and also give her a shout out of congratulations on her Food Truck win.
http://www.cityofboston.gov/business/foodtruckchallenge/
I would like to nominate Andrew Nowak of Denver, CO. He has volunteered countless hours in collaboration with Slow Food and other non profit orgs to build gardens on unused school property. He teaches kids where food comes from by making sure every kids takes his gardening class. He also fought to make sure the foods kids grew were incorporated into the lunch menu.
I'm going to nominate Chef Ann Cooper — the renegade lunch lady!
I second Chef Ann Cooper's nomination. If she never wins one I'll be super sad.
I've been a fan since I saw her in Killer At Large.
I'd like to second the nomination for Dana Woldow — she's worked tirelessly on school food reform in SF for almost a decade and has made real headway. And, as Kim noted above, she's incredibly generous with her knowledge — http://www.thelunchtray.com/dana-woldow-another-school-food-reform-superhero-shares-her-advice/ — and time. Yet without a blog or "brand" of her own, she doesn't get enough of the limelight, in my opinion.
I also nominate Dana Woldow! I am an organizer beginning to work on school lunches in a rural school in Humboldt County, CA, and she has provided incredible mentorship. Woldow for spork!
Whoo Hoo! Congrats, Ed!!!
Dana Woldow could probably have been the president of a large corporation, but she has for the past 25 years devoted her enormous energy and talents to improving the public schools, the last 10 being focused on improving nutrition, food quality, and access to healthful food in the schools. She is a leader in the field, and very deserving of recognition.
Dana Waldow is my hero when it comes to school lunch reform! She has been working on it since at least time time my son was in high school in San Francisco–and he started in 2000. Dana has almost single-handedly turned around the San Francisco School District's nutrition program and has worked very hard doing it. She most certainly deserves recognition and accolades for all her hard work.