Helping a School Learn to Grow

OK OK I know I've been gone a while. I do apologize. But you see, I've been busy gardening for the last 8 months. Yes, gardening. Since September, when I first proposed a school garden to the PTO at my daughter's school, I've been tending to its needs: getting approvals from the city and the school department; writing a grant (which we did not win, but there are others), preparing a written plan, gathering the support of parents and teachers, and finding people in our community to lend their expertise. Since then, I have collected a wonderful, enthusiastic crew of dedicated professionals who share my vision for a garden that will give our children not only a wonderful outdoor classroom for exploring and experimenting, but also lifelong skills for growing their own nutritious foods.
In addition to a most enthusiastic principal, I now have, as co-chair, a fantastic teacher who is leading the way for the rest of the teaching staff, helping them wade into the dirt and try their hand at planting a more effective kind of seeds in the heads of their little charges.
I have an amazing master gardener, a woman whose own child attended our school many years ago. She has been a gift to us, sharing her expertise on this and that vegetable, flower or herb.
One of our parents is an art student, who volunteered to design our garden logo for our t-shirts, and it came out better than anyone could have hoped.
Another dad, who works in the landscaping industry, had the soil tested and then surveyed and marked the grass for excavation by another local landscaper who wanted to help.
Our PTO president, whose family business is dirt, acquired a great mountain of arable composted clean loam for our six raised beds.
Our facilities manager gave us the go for water and composting and fencing and has been a key player in making it all work.

This weekend, we will gather to build our garden. I don't yet have lumber, wood chips, or weed fabric, but I have faith they will materialize.

For me, this is like the first sprout of a bean, popping out of the soil for its first bath in sunshine:
parents coming together to build a school garden I have tended all year long.

Bread intuition

Anyone who knows me well would NOT call me a great cook. Adequate maybe. No one would associate me with words like "foodie" or "chef" or "gourmand."
Growing up, my dad was a picky eater, and my mom (who loved all kinds of foods) tended to cook to his fussy tastes: lots of meat and potatoes, bread and butter, fried eggs and home fries and greasy bacon. Vegetables? Um, well carrots were plentiful, and usually bought fresh. But green beans came from a can for all I knew. I don't think I ate a tomato until I tried one in college. The same goes for tuna, broccoli and about a half dozen other foods. I just wasn't very tuned in to what I ate.
Now I most certainly am. And I try very hard to not only eat better, tastier, fresher foods, I also try to cook more things myself, rather than buy things prepared. And I have discovered something—I'm pretty good at it. Now, I won't pretend I'm a great cook, but people I feed seem to go away smiling. But I could almost dare to say I am a great baker. I make terrific cookies, cakes, and muffins. And lately I'm all about the bread. When I'm in the process of making it , I can get completely lost. I love everything about it: reading recipes, shopping for ingredients, pulling everything together on the counter before I start. I love making messes and wearing flour on my apron, and having my family walk in and say oh wow what smells so good in here?
I love the dicey moment when I have to put the warm water in with the yeast-- there's a moment of hesitation when I hope it's not too hot— and then there's the decisive feeling I get, knowing I'm committed to it now. The kneading, too, makes me feel strong, as I work the dough just enough to do its magic. It all seems vaguely familiar---like I've always known how to make bread, though I only just learned last winter.

Considering the vegetarian life

I recently read a great interview with a vegan that I found online. I think this guy is right about a lot of things. Eating local, organic food is an act of awareness and also of protest, against an industry that has put profits ahead of food quality. I am inspired to ease in to the vegetarian lifestyle. I am not a big meat eater in general, especially red meat. I am curious to see how I will feel with no meat at all, and perhaps eventually no dairy.

You can see the article here at Attleboro.Patch.com. I'd love to know what you think and if you're inspired to make any changes.

I learned a lot while I was gone...

Hello out there...if anyone is still out there... I'm back after having to take a short break from A Teachable Feast so I could adjust to a new job. If you're reading this, I want to thank you for waiting, and for coming back. I hope I won't need any more breaks anytime soon!

In the time I was "away" I continued my food education. Lester Esser, my friend the chef, taught a class here called "Taking the Eew Out of Tofu." It was pretty fantastic. He showed us the difference between soft and hard tofu and how to handle them. We learned how to make stir-fried tofu with noodles and veggies, a tofu fruit smoothie, Buffalo tofu, and wow---a tofu creme brulee that was as good as the real deal.

The four guests in the class came away excited to have another element to add to their usual line-up of meals. I hope to work with Lester to offer this class again in the spring or summer. If you'd like to host the class in your house, post a comment here and I'll contact you to make arrangements.

Tales of local food, blueberry soda, and tofu

By the time I arrived at the Boston Local Food Festival (held next to the Boston Children's Museum on October 2) it was in full swing, and frankly, quite crowded. I took this as a positive. The local, slow food movement is far from fringe now; it is front and center and taking off.
There were dozens of entrepreneurs at the festival, showcasing all manner of local, organic, and artisanal foods. Local chefs gave demonstrations, including the carving of a whole roasted pig (but I did not want to see this--I just heard it was spectacular!) We sampled cinnamon-chocolate chip ice cream, purchased fresh produce from a community garden in Roxbury and fresh mozzarella from the Narragansett Creamery (RI), and drank the best root beer in the world from Maine Root, who also make a mean and surprisingly delicious blueberry soda. Other vendors sold vegan cookies and pastry, seaweed salsa, locally-caught seafood and organic pizza.
The place smelled heavenly, and it was a glorious breezy sunny fall day, with live music and dancing babies and people looking pretty happy. Of course, food tends to make most of us pretty happy.
To my great delight, the festival also featured dozens of nonprofit organizations that work to promote everything from the banning of bottled water, to zero-waste events, to helping neighborhoods launch their own community gardens. I got a fantastic agricultural map of Massachusetts, that identifies every farm in the state and what it produces. I met an urban gardening advocate who teaches Boston residents how get a vegetable garden growing, no matter how small their outdoor spaces might be (they use paint buckets if that's what it takes!).
I met the folks at Green City Growers, who will come to your house and build your organic garden and get it growing for you, for a fee. I came away inspired and also newly armed the with information I need to propose that school garden to my PTO. That will be happening this week. I'll post the outcome as soon as I can.

Later this week, A Teachable Feast will hold its third food workshop, "Taking the Eeew Out of Tofu", taught by personal chef Lester Esser. We have a small but enthusiastic group of students who are curious about the best ways to prepare this enigmatic curd. We had an interesting thing happen while enrolling folks for this class. A person dropped out, saying her health-conscious neighbor told her that tofu "is not good for you anymore."

I was surprised by this comment, and looked it up. Sure enough, tofu has come under fire in recent years, with some people denouncing it for causing deforestation as rainforests were cleared to plant more soy farms. Others say it messes with your digestion in large quantities. But there are plenty of soy defenders who say it is still a healthy source of protein-- especially if you are a vegan and don't have other traditional options. Lester and I both feel that moderation with any food is the key to health and happiness. You wouldn't expect to eat cheesecake every day, but I bet you would still take a cheesecake-making class. You wouldn't eat a whole loaf of bread every day, but still you might be glad to take our breadmaking workshop. Moderation, people, is the sweet spot of life.

Happy eating,
Margie

Come to the Boston Local Food Fest, Oct. 2

Tomorrow, my chef pal, Lester, and I will head out to the Boston Local Food Festival in Fort Point Channel. I have never attended one before, but have high hopes of meeting people and finding resources that will help me to bring food knowledge to you .

If you have any interest at all in slow food, local food or sustainability, you may want to get yourself and your appetite over there.

You can find details here. I will post my own impressions on Sunday, and welcome your comments, if you also attend.

Happy eating,
Margie

It's a beginning

I've started the ball rolling towards one day having a garden at my child's elementary school. I'm getting lots of support, inspiration and guidance online at these wonderful sites, posted here so you can consider a garden at your local school....

The Edible Schoolyard

Kids Gardening.org

Sustainable Table

Slow Food in Schools