Yearly Archives: 2011

Jamie Oliver is in LA

News

I’ve been reading about how Jamie Oliver is having trouble getting an audience with the folks at LAUSD. Tough crowd over there. Although the district representatives say they don’t want to allow him to reorganize their kitchens because they don’t want “the drama,” they have created a heck of a lot of it over the past week. You’d think they’d be familiar with movie crews and reality shows.

Change is hard, but it’s not every day that Jamie Oliver shows up and tries to help. If you want to sign a petition encouraging the school board to reverse its decision, then you can go to change.org. I believe LAUSD is missing out on an opportunity. Face the music: change is coming to school food, whether you like it or not. Might as well make it fun and televise it.

Interestingly, Dr. Susan Rubin offered an alternative solution: go to preschool and childcare centers. As a mother of a toddler in daycare, I think that is a great idea. Let’s get the kids when they are young. Many childcare centers accept federal funds, but also have a bit more leeway because they receive private funds too (from parents like me). I know my son’s daycare needs to offer better food. I’m only lucky that we can afford to opt out.

Food Justice on Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday!

News
courtesy: famous-people.info

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’m reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr’s life. He passed away at the age of 39. Hearing that hits me hard. He seemed so much older. Most of us aren’t even close to being that wise by the age of 39. In fact, I hope to accumulate just some wisdom by the end of my life. Many people get uptight about growing old, getting ugly. Truth is, it’s a privilege to age. If I make it, I’ll be a feisty old lady.

Dr. King talked about justice. I love that word, it sounds metallic and strong in my mouth, but yet it’s still pretty. He was focused on social justice. What would he have thought about food justice? Is there such a thing? (that’s rhetoric, I know there is)

Some think that food reform is the next big movement for our country. I like that thought. In March of last year, I started thinking about marching on Washington. I’ve had conversations with Ed Bruske (Better DC School Food and The Slow Cook) and when he gets riled up, he wants to get out into the streets. It’s easy for him to march on Washington DC — he lives there!

Will I march in Washington one day? It’s on my bucket list. I’m concerned about the food we are eating in our country. Whether it’s the 29 million pounds of antibiotics US livestock ingest yearly (by some estimates that figure is 70% of all antibiotics administer to people and animals) or the genetically modified fish possibly being sold without a label or genetically modified alfalfa possibly getting approved by the USDA or that one out of every three toys given to American children is from a fast food company, making McDonald’s the biggest toy company in the world, (Chew On This, Eric Schlosser) and food deserts and on and on…

Sometimes, people call me a complainer and even say they feel bad for my husband! Other times I’m called an elitist and a bitch, or worse. You can believe what you want to. I’m voicing opinions on my blog. If you want to read a vanilla blog, you can find many (I know, I read and enjoy lots of different types of blogs).

In the comments last week I wrote: My little blog and my opinion are whispers in a hurricane, but at least I’m not quiet. Until I get the chance to walk that lawn with my son’s hand in mine, listening to amazing people speak about American food and our rights as eaters, I’ll march here, on my blog.

courtesy: latimesblogs.latimes.com

An update

Book club, ,
courtesy: yesvegetarian.com

got health?

My regular doctor recommended that I see a doctor in the practice that specializes in Integrative Medicine. My appointment was last week. It’s awkward to tell people about the blog. In this case, it was easier because after I spilled my guts, the doctor said, “I’ve been to your blog.” Meeting in real life is such a huge relief.

The doctor said, “You’ve really taken one for the team.” It’s true. I’m still not feeling very good. The test results from ten days ago revealed I have a Vitamin D deficiency so that could be some of it. The doctor said it could be because of not drinking milk, but also commented that most people who live in northern states have low Vitamin D during the winter months. I’m to take 4,000 mg of Vitamin D per day. I need to eat salmon and sardines more frequently too.

I”ll be getting on a probiotic. That should be doable. I need to eat even more fruits and vegetables and eat foods rich in Omega 3s. I’m on the road to wellness. I just don’t want to feel so totally wrecked anymore.

Two Angry Moms

I finally had a chance to see the video. Early last year, my husband and I tried to get the video through Netflix, but it’s not available to rent there. The only way to get it is to purchase it.

This Christmas, I ripped open a present and found the Two Angry Moms video. My husband bought it as a Christmas gift! Talk about the perfect gift for me!

The movie is good. There wasn’t a lot of new information for me. If I had watched it a year ago, then I think it would have been educational. I sat there nodding my head. Everything I learned last year either by eating the lunches, blogging, tweeting, researching and through the comments and emails from you wonderful people!

Getting a share

My husband and I have signed up for a share or a CSA (community supported agriculture) or whatever they are call since we are newbies. Last year when we first really became aware of their availability in our area, we tried to sign up and they were all gone. We were advised to start in January and we found one with a pick-up that isn’t too far away.

We’re doing a half-share from June to October (~$300), which means every other week we will pick up our share. Then we added on a half-winter share from October to December (~$50). It’s expensive, but we already spend money on good produce. We might as well try to get it locally. We have to pony up the money now, but we’re banking on spending less on groceries after June.

Since my husband is teaching himself how to cook and I’m cooking more, it seems like a worthwhile investment. Of course we’re going to have to learn how to be creative with whatever they give us. Don’t worry, I’ll blog it!

If you want to find out if there are CSAs in your area, check out Local Harvest’s CSA Finder.

Heartburn Book Club

Please check last week’s blog post to see if your name was chosen as a winner for Free For All giveaway. Waiting for your email! How’s the reading going? I’m moving slowly…

Open thread: Binging on Girl Scout Cookies

Open threads, ,

My name is Mrs. Q. I am a cookie-aholic.

I come from two parents who can’t say no to cookies. My dad puts back lots of unhealthy foods like donuts, cookies, and tons of bread. My mom can eat a whole sleeve of Thin Mints in a night.

Last year, cookies were my drug of choice. They got me through long nights of blogging. Even though I would eat balanced meals, I would undermine it by eating lots of “healthy” cookies. Once I had one cookie, I would eat at least five more. My husband finally put his foot down. He called for a cookie ban in the house: no cookies were to be bought or made by either of us. He has terrific willpower and is not into dessert, preferring to eat seconds at dinner. I come from a family that is dessert-focused so it took some adjusting for me when we first started dating.

Actually, the cookie ban worked really well.

But now that I’m gf/cf, I can still find store-bought cookies I can eat. Sometimes I defy the cookie ban and buy them. The package of cookies above is my usual drug of choice. I can eat this package in 24 hours. It’s binging. I know I do it. I can’t stop because they taste so good.

That brings me to Girl Scout cookies. I’ve read three posts (Spoonfed, The Lunch Tray, and Mama Says) about how bad Girl Scout cookies. Of course, I agree.

However, the thing that bothers me most about Girl Scout cookies is that most people don’t buy just one box. The last time I bought Girl Scout cookies was two years ago in March. This was before my nutritional epiphanies, but on some level I knew they were bad for me. I bought four boxes from a coworker anyway. Would you ever buy four boxes of cookies at once at the grocery store? Somehow buying Girl Scout cookies normalizes over-buying…and overeating.

After I bought those boxes, I came back later in the week, like a junkie looking for a hit. Since it is a once-a-year kinda thing, I wanted to load up. I asked her if she had any extras or leftovers. She did and I bought a package of cookies that I never would have ordered because I didn’t like that flavor normally. But I needed to get my fix.

So. The cookie ban is on again here at home. And Girl Scout cookies? Probably not the best choice for young girls to sell for a whole buffet of reasons. Why can’t they do popcorn (whole kernel) like the Boy Scouts? What should they sell instead? Do you buy Girl Scout cookies? What foods do you binge on?

Friday Lunch Wrap Up #2

Packed lunches

It’s been a long week. I’m really, really tired, but I have good news to share. Next week.

My son has gotten a cold. I think it was three weeks ago that he was sick last, but we were just thinking that it felt like a long time ago since his previous cold. He has transitioned to a new room at daycare and that has been hard on…Mommy and Daddy. He has done well with it, mostly because his very best friend moved at the same time. My son idolizes this other little boy and talks about him at home all the time.
And then he bites him at daycare.
Yep. I have a biter. He bit his favorite little friend twice. Once last month and then he bit him again this week.
We’ve talked about how we don’t bite our friends (he did bite a girl last fall) and, in the last room, they even read a book about “biting apples, not friends.” So he will say, “bite apples, not friends.” Try putting it into practice, kid!
I am mortified. Advice, please! I’ve emailed the boy’s mom to apologize. She said it’s ok, but will she still forgive if he keeps doing this?
MY SON’S LUNCHES
(everything is gf/df because of my son’s tummy issues)
MONDAY

Lima beans with baked Jasmine rice (to die for!), chocolate cupcake, pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds);
turkey, coconut milk yogurt (Whole Foods) with pomegranate seeds, applesauce and snackTAXI with apple slices

The daycare menu that day was fish nuggets, fettucine alfredo, diced pears, diced carrots with fruit and a blueberry muffin for snacks. My son’s new caregivers tell me that he eats his own lunch happily and doesn’t feel deprived. I’ve visited during lunch and, you know, it’s really hard for me to see my son eating something different than the other kids. I know that doesn’t make sense, but everyone else has exactly the same stuff, the stuff he used to eat before my epiphany, including fruit and veggies from cans…their food is on paper plates and he’s sitting with his own separate food. I don’t want him to feel different, but he’s bound to. That’s why I try to match when I can (like the muffin).

They told me he ate everything…

TUESDAY
Eggs, bacon, steamed carrots, crackers (foil bag) and cheese (not visible) yogurt & pomegranates, crunchy green beans, apples cut up in the reusable bag. Daycare menu: chicken patty on whole wheat, pineapple bits, peas, snacks of fruit and ice cream.
We had two major kitchen failures on Monday night when we were making dinner. My husband prepared a baked lamb dish. The recipe said it needed to cook for two hours. That seemed long to me. We pulled it out of the oven about an hour into the cooking. I thought it looked ready to eat, but he wanted to follow the recipe. So it burnt black around the edges. I humored him and ate some. It would have been amazing…and it would have gone into our lunches.
I got out the old bread machine and tried my hand at making gluten free bread from a box meant for a machine. Everything went great and I pulled it out and cut it up. I enjoyed a piece or two. My husband then asked to see the label. That’s when we both noticed that although it was gluten free, it had “skim milk” and “whey” as ingredients. So not only could I not eat anymore, I couldn’t send it in my son’s lunch the next day. And of course I was sick the next morning.
So what you see above I threw together at 6:30 am.
WEDNESDAY
I roasted a half-chicken with veggies (sweet potatoes, potatoes, carrot, onions) in the oven for dinner the previous night. Delicious and easy! Then I sent along applesauce, chocolate yogurt, crunchy green beans, and mandarin orange wedges in the snack. Daycare menu was: ground beef, buttered whole wheat pasta, applesauce, green beans with yogurt and fruit for a snack.
My husband picked our son up from daycare so I didn’t get the scoop on how much he ate.
THURSDAY
Cut up turkey burger with potatoes, lima beans (container with ketchup for dipping), eggs, watermelon, peas, bar. Daycare menu: scrambled eggs, hash browns (formed patties), apricot chucks, diced carrots with fruit and american cheese with crackers for snacks.
I bought the watermelon at Whole Foods. It’s obviously not in season here. It’s organic and came from Guatemala. I couldn’t resist buying it because my son is nuts about watermelon. Was that a bad thing (because of jet fuel costs)?
My little guy’s cold started up on Thursday so I knew 1) he wouldn’t eat much 2) he loves eggs. So I sent a lot of food and he didn’t eat much. End of story.
FRIDAY
Turkey soup made with chicken stock (from a carton), corn pasta, rice carrots and peas, watermelon, yogurt, bar. Daycare menu: ground beef, macaroni and cheese, diced peaches, peas with fruit and ice cream as snacks.
We had soup for dinner the previous night because my son and my husband were feeling under the weather. My son didn’t eat well for dinner. And today they told me he didn’t eat much of the soup. Tonight we had a nice dinner, which he didn’t eat much of. We know that when he’s sick, he really stops eating. Once he feels like himself again, he’ll go on a bender. So I’m trying not to fret.
MY LUNCHES
(gf/df too)
MONDAY
Wrap with turkey meat, lima beans & bake Jasmine rice (one of my husband’s creations), yogurt and Mandarin orange.
I figured out that if I put the tortilla in the toaster over for three minutes, it got really hard and crunchy and made a wonderful crunchy wrap. I couldn’t really fit everything in the bento box and still close it. So I took the sandwich out.
TUESDAY
Egg, bacon, pepitas, crackers, banana mandarin orange, KIND bar
This was not enough food. I was ravenous at 3 pm. But it was the lunch after our kitchen disaster so I didn’t have a lot of options when I was rushing around like a mad thing in the morning. It should be noted that I did not need silverware with this meal.
THURSDAY
Open
Closed
Cut up apples in the snackTAXI, bagel sandwich with turkey meat, lima beans in a bag, crunchy green beans, yogurt.
The turkey meat we buy is the nitrate free and uber-healthy stuff, which advises “eat within four days of opening.” Don’t push that. I made that mistake last year. It was the fourth day so I piled on the turkey meat. I had trouble closing it, but I don’t care that it’s slightly ajar because it’s inside something else.
THURSDAY
Roasted half-chicken with veggies, popcorn popped on the stove with walnut oil, mandarin orange, KIND bar
I’m obsessed with popcorn. Making it on the stove is so fast and easy. It’s addictive. I couldn’t find the snackTAXI or I would have used it for the popcorn. I had tossed it into the laundry!
FRIDAY
The turkey soup I made, with crackers, pepitas, oranges, and an apple.
I really wanted soup today to try to ward off the cold that’s infecting my house. Last night I slept so poorly that I think that might do me in. I tipped the soup into a large cappuccino cup and microwaved it at work. The container I used is called Fuel and I blogged about it when I bought it last summer. After all this time fantasizing about packing my own lunch, here I am doing it.
***

Regarding the snackTAXI — there seems to be some confusion over the interior material because I’m not a fabric expert. It’s waterproof. You can run your fingernail over it and it will make a zipping noise. What kind of fabric is that?

***

Today at work there was a small picture of a grandma in some materials.

Kid A piped up, “Grandmas give out candies!” Kid B added, “Yep, lollipops!”
I said while nodding, “Oh, ok.”
Kid B then continued, “Grandmas don’t wear high heels.”
I asked, “Why not?”
Kid B answered, “Because they could fall down.”
I asked, “Well, who wears high heels then?”
Kid B answered, “Big adults.”
Gotcha!

Good news in school food

News, ,

In case you missed this, I thought this article in USA Today was really cool — USDA calls for dramatic changes in school lunches

Ths USDA is issuing new standards for school food. The new requirements:

  • Decrease the amount of starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, corn and green peas, to one cup a week.
  • Reduce sodium in meals over the next 10 years. A high school lunch now has about 1,600 milligrams of sodium. Through incremental changes, that amount should be lowered over the next decade to 740 milligrams or less of sodium for grades through 9 through 12; 710 milligrams or less for grades 6 through 8; 640 milligrams or less for kindergarten through fifth grades. 
  • Establish calorie maximums and minimums for the first time. For lunch: 550 to 650 calories for kindergarten through fifth grade; 600 to 700 for grades 6 through 8; 750 to 850 for grades 9 through 12.
  • Serve only unflavored 1% milk or fat-free flavored or unflavored milk. Currently, schools can serve milk of any fat content.
  • Increase the fruits and vegetables kids are offered. The new rule requires that a serving of fruit be offered daily at breakfast and lunch and that two servings of vegetables be offered daily at lunch.
And it continues:

Over the course of a week, there must be a serving of each of the following: green leafy vegetables, orange vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, summer squash), beans, starchy and other vegetables. This is to make sure that children are exposed to a variety of vegetables.

  • Increase whole grains substantially. Currently, there is no requirement regarding whole grains, but the proposed rules require that half of grains served must be whole grains.
  • Minimize trans fat by using products where the nutrition label says zero grams of trans fat per serving.
I’m thrilled. I guess this is the first time nutritional standards have been raised in 15 years. I’m happy that somebody is paying attention to the lunchrooms. The question remains how do we fund it?

***

In other news, here are three stories showing some great things happening in schools in our country!

1) Here’s a story out of Connecticut — The subject is the menu: Three schools serve in a pilot program for a new approach to lunch — Sounds like the kids love the new food!

2) In NYC, other good news — MELS, an NYC School Where Food Policy Is Part of the Curriculum — Very innovative.

3) And a NBC video newstory, which I embedded below, out of California (The Bay Area) — Organic School Lunches — Partnering with Revolution Foods, kids are getting organic school lunches for the exact cost of the federal reimbursement rate. I didn’t think that was possible!

And here’s the video:

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/video.

Review: snackTAXI

Giveaways,
Oooh!

I’ve been on the prowl for creative lunch accessories to help me re-learn how to pack. When I saw snackTAXI, I thought they looked really interesting so I emailed them and asked if I could do a product review. They said sure!

Ahhh!

snackTAXI sent the cutest package of both a snack-size snackTAXI (Dimensions: 6″ W x 4.5″) and a sandwich-size snackTAXI (Dimensions: 7.5″ W x 6″ H). I love their choice of the mushroom print. Too cute!

It’s sturdy and well-made

They arrived in the mail in December and it felt like a gift. I kept them in a safe spot for a little while because I loved them too much to use them. (You know how you save things you treasure, when you really should use them? I did that a lot as a kid. That’s how I felt.)

And sealed with velcro!

The outside is a print, but the inside is a stiffer, more durable fabric that is meant to hold up to a lot. They are machine washable.

I opened one to find an info card

I’ve been using them all week (photos to come tomorrow for my weekly lunch wrap-up) in combination with our usual stuff. I love that every time I use one, I am saving a single-use plastic bag from going into a landfill.

Food for thought…

My son thinks the snackTAXIs are cool and if he glimpses one, he will insist that he eats a snack out of it. In my son’s lunches I’ve been sending apple and orange slices in the smaller one and then rolling it up to fit in his case. The bigger, sandwich-sized snackTAXI is really quite large. Today I put a bunch of apple chunks in it and a small-to-medium-sized bagel sandwich (photos tomorrow in my lunch wrap-up post) in it. It worked great. If you repeat snacks over a few days, I don’t think there’s a pressing need to wash them.

I liked the snackTAXIs so much that I went to their website and ordered a couple more. They have a massive catalog of prints. It’s really hard to choose because they are all so cute. For my son, I ordered two of the small snackTAXIs with the soccer ball print. Then, I decided to order the exact same set you see above for my sister. I thought about giving her the gnome print (hilarious!), but because I liked the mushroom one so much, I thought she would too. I think the price is affordable (the snack-sack is $6.95 and the sandwich-sack is $8.95) and it makes a nice, unique gift that is under $20 to send to someone far away.

In sum, I liked snackTAXIs because:

  • Earth-friendly
  • Not made out of plastic
  • Saves a plastic bag
  • Machine-washable.
  • Adorable looking.
  • Sized appropriately.
  • Wide selection of prints.
  • Adult and child friendly
  • Nice gift for under $20
  • Affordable
  • Compatible with waste-free lunches

FCC full disclosure: I received two free snackTAXIs to review. I was not given any cash compensation for sharing my opinion on the product. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely mine. If I claim or appear to be an expert on a certain topic or product or service area, I will only endorse products or services that I believe, based on my expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.

Guest blogger: Restaurant Day & Dumplingpocalypse

Guest Blogs,

Joon-Yee Chuah is a middle school math and culinary science teacher in Austin, Texas. He infrequently updates his blog, whyhenrycooks.blogspot.com, now that his mother has learned to read things on the Internet.

Hi, everyone! This is the story of how 40 sixth graders opened a restaurant for one five course meal and served 140 people. I know it doesn’t sound plausible, but overall – it was not that bad, and I’ll do it again.
Last year I started teaching a Culinary Science elective, wherein I blogged my lesson plans and eventually posted a guest blog here about the undertaking called “Kitchen Day” (Guest blogger: Culinary Science Class April 2010). Both sections of my elective had the opportunity (twice each) to go to the home economics laboratory (which is, among other things, a big kitchen) and cook a full meal for themselves in no more than an hour and thirty minutes. This year I got the ridiculous idea to one-up myself and shoot for something much bigger. (I’ve been told that this is what we call “progress.”)
Inception (not the movie)

I was having a conversation with my friend Mike, who is a professional chef, about the state of the restaurant workforce in Austin. He’s been cooking for more than 25 years in some of the finer establishments here in town. Mike observed that people catching “foodie fever” often don’t understand the line between the world of hobbyists and that of professionals. The lines have become blurred; some people thrive while others misunderstand the challenges of taking on a career in the culinary world.
Whereas the focus of last year’s Kitchen Day was to give students a taste of what it’s like to cook for themselves, the focus of this year’s activity was to give students a perspective on what it’s like to serve people. 
140 people.
The Menu

The challenge of preparing an elegant menu to serve many people with a relatively untrained staff is to create recipes that look flashy, but are deceptively simple and require little expertise.
Ricotta sage dumpling over carrot puree with apple, green onion
Spring greens with Asian vinaigrette, supremed orange, sprouts, green onion
Shitake straciatella with parmesan, green onion
Soy braised chicken or tofu with tamarind glaze, Hainan style rice, sesame cabbage, bonito, cilantro, green onion
Flourless chocolate cake
This is work

Well, yes, the whole thing is a lot of work, but I’m not talking about work on my part. We planned to do this on a Saturday. Students would report for duty at 8AM with a sack lunch and service would start at 11:30AM. Why a sack lunch? If you’re working in a restaurant, you either bring your own lunch or eat a simple meal out of the restaurant’s larder. If it’s something like a fast food setup or a restaurant designed to serve several dozen tables, employees are typically given a discount on food. In a smaller restaurant, employees might eat a “family meal” – something simple the chef prepares to be eaten before service. There are few nice restaurants that serve their employees a complete production meal. In the case of Restaurant Day, I didn’t have the spare labor, equipment or finances to feed my staff.
RSVP

Students were allowed up to four guests. Guests were also asked to RSVP as vegetarian or vegan. Somewhere around 165 people RSVP’d by the deadline, which meant planning a meal for approximately 170 guests. Strangely enough, only 6 people RSVP’d as vegetarian. 
This would come back to haunt me.
Spreadsheets are your friend

After going over the menu with the students, their job was to set up a spreadsheet to calculate scaled recipes, per plate costs and waste. Needless to say, it was a fairly complex process. It always begins with a recipe, but leads to some very convoluted math. The problem with standard recipes designed for no more than a dozen servings is that not only do they frequently fail to scale properly (especially in a “times 15” situation), they also don’t take into account interacting with multiple courses. Rather than trying to scale a recipe by diners, it’s much easier to work with serving sizes in ounces. The students and I used an electric scale to perform some basic yield testing. How many ounces of onion goes into a serving of soup? What is the yield percentage of a carrot? How much does a handful of salad weigh?
spreadsheet.gif
In the end, we determined that if all 165 diners arrived, our average plate cost would be around $3.71. We set the suggested donation at $5 to offset the cost of hiring a custodian, and any no-shows.
Prep, Service, Clean Up

All are important. Let me repeat that – every single person in a restaurant is important. I divided the students into three labor camps – food prep in the kitchen (12 students), service staff in the front of house (20 students) and bus/drinks/cleanup staff (8 students) to grease the wheels. I spent almost all of my time on the actual day in the kitchen, but did a fair amount of training work with the service staff. They had to know the menu inside and out in order to serve the customers. People have extremely diverse dietary needs and everyone needed to be accommodated. I would say that the from a mental standpoint, the waiters had the toughest job. They were responsible for memorizing every ingredient on the menu, timing service across five courses for up to three tables with six diners each and – possibly the most challenging thing of all – providing customer service to a dozen and a half adults. (Believe it or not, a few of which were unruly.) Each student was given an order card to help with the task of managing the orders.
card.gif
Dumplingpocalypse

How do you make 200 dumplings in three hours with twelve students? You don’t. You make them a few days in advance during class when you have all of them sitting in one place. Some students are better at folding dumplings than others. Here’s what they look like:
dumpings.jpg

“And that, kids, is the story of how your father killed and braised a 160 pound chicken with 79 left legs and 81 right legs.”

No, I don’t have kids of my own.
The difficulty of individual portions is that when you buy chicken in bulk, there is rarely a precision count of exactly how many legs are in one ten pound bag. They say “40 to 50 count.” In reality, it’s closer to fifty. The night before kitchen day, I got a head start and did the braising. Immediately I ran into a problem. The three ovens that I had to work with could only hold about forty pounds of chicken at a time and the braising process took approximately two hours for each pan to come to a safe temperature of 180 degrees. (180 degrees sounds overcooked but… aha! We’re braising so the chicken always remains tender.)
I called up Mike (who thought I was calling about happy hour at a local bar with pretty girls) and asked him for advice on how to proceed (which was a far less exciting conversation topic than happy hour). He suggested that I get out some stock pots and poach the chicken. The original idea was to preserve some of the fat content in the chicken for this step with a low braising depth, which would not work in a water bath. However, faced with the prospect of spending a second 8 hour day at work, I went ahead and punted. It only took me about 5 hours to braise the 160 pounds of chicken. Also, I listened to a lot of Lady Gaga on my iPod while working alone that night.
And We’re Off!

Most of my “staff” arrived on time. I had the assistance of my wonderful administrator in front of house matters. One of my front of house students, the maitre’d, became the de facto shift captain for the front of house and arranged… well… everything. I was impressed when I saw how smoothly things ran, even though I had no idea what was going on because I was buried up to my ears in chicken. Without this student, everything would have fallen apart.
Kids surprise you.
In the back of the house, I had a team constantly glazing chicken and running it in large pans under a broiler. One team was responsible for baking six flourless chocolate cakes. (I. Don’t. Bake.) Yet another team was responsible for cutting up about sixty pounds of vegetables. They had a lot of work cut out for them. (Ha!) Having only twelve people in the kitchen as opposed to the twenty something from last year’s experience really made a big difference in efficiency. There was one accident wherein a student who was supreming an orange cut themselves, but they were able to quickly follow the safety protocols we went over in class. Notify me, bandage themselves, put on a glove, reassign themselves to other duties and have me clean up the contaminated work area.
I had a few students assigned to the kitchen that showed up late. I had already reassigned their recipes by the time they showed up and they weren’t quite able to figure out how to make themselves useful. Yes, I understand that they’re sixth graders and are in the process of maturing, but this is work. You don’t show up to work late, and when you show up to work – you work. Some of my students literally grew up that day. I was told by many adults that they saw a definite change in their student server from the beginning of service to the end. They stood up straighter, spoke with more clarity and walked with more deliberateness and confidence. Others, well… they did exactly what you would expect sixth graders to do.
Food

I didn’t manage to take a snapshot of a completed version of everything, but here’s some of what I have.
dumplingdish.jpg
Dumpling appetizer
salad.jpg
Salad
entree.jpg
Entree
Post Mortem

What went wrong:
  • The dumplings didn’t get enough steam time. It’s really hard to steam that many dumplings at once. We had to “MacGyve”r a large steamer together at the last minute and just didn’t start early enough. Some of them turned out a little hard.
  • We ran out of salad. Some of the servers started getting impatient with the speed of the platers and started trying to plate themselves. This was a big no-no, as the service staff wasn’t trained on portion sizes or presentation.
  • I left the kitchen, went to the cafeteria and jumped in at the point at which we started serving soup. Do you know what it’s like to ladle 150 bowls of soup? Somewhere around bowl 80 you say, “uhh… haven’t I hit 150 yet?”
  • There weren’t enough vegetarian entrees. Meat eaters changed their mind at the last minute and went vegetarian. It wasn’t something I had planned for, but should have.
  • The flourless chocolate cake went into the ovens at the wrong temperature. The ovens were still hot from broiling chicken, steaming cabbage and whatever else we were using them for.
What went right:
  • The front of house team got my props. They managed to accomplish more than I had trained them for. They did it autonomously. They did it admirably.
  • People LOVED the entree, despite not understanding what bonito was and asking for it to be 86’d. Bonito is flakes of dried Japanese fish. It’s used in making authentic miso soup. Also, it sounds gross when a kid tells you that you’re eating “fish flakes.”
  • Even though we had a number of no-shows, people were extraordinarily generous and donated far past the suggested donation price. We were more than able to cover costs and the leftover funds will be used as capital to do this again.
  • In other news, I’m going to do this again, this time as a fundraiser for our school’s quiz bowl team. We’re going to sell tickets to have funds up front and an exact guest count.
  • Also in other news, people think I’m nuts.
The Nutcracker

This took place in December. I know, I’m a slacker and didn’t write it up until just now. (Vacation.)
A number of students had tickets for our local ballet’s performance of the Nutcracker, just after Restaurant Day ended. Most of them fell asleep in the first act.

Here’s what we discussed in class:

  • The students worked some of the hardest, most demanding jobs in the world for a mere six hour shift for one day.
  • Most restaurant workers work at more than one restaurant, sometimes with as few as six hours of sleep between closing one restaurant for a night and opening another the next morning. (Mike calls it a “clopening.”)
  • At minimum wage, this is barely enough to support oneself, much less a family.
  • Go. To. College.
Anyway, thank you for reading this far! If you’d like to take a look at my Picasa album, here’s the link. You’ll get to see, among other things, a jillion green onions, 8 gallons of vegetable stock simmering, 18 pounds of supremed oranges and a partridge in a pear tree. (Note: Partridge in pear tree not included in this album.)