school lunch

Did you know that Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is buying free-range, hormone-free turkey from Ferndale market, carrots and red potatoes from the Hmong American Farmers Association, squash from L & R Produce, and kale from Gardens of Eagan?

 

Farm-to-school is booming at Minneapolis Public Schools, thanks to an innovative new partnership with the University of Minnesota. The university's On-Farm Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) Education Program and the Minneapolis Public School Culinary & Nutrition Services are teaming up to provide training and technical assistance to farmers selling to MPS for the school meal program in an effort to boost the amount of fresh, local produce MPS can procure.

 

Last week, I was granted three more reasons to be glad I moved to Minneapolis seven years ago.

 

(Full disclosure: I don’t live in Minneapolis proper, but in a suburb 15 minutes west of the city. But when I travel and people ask me where I’m from, I always proudly proclaim “Minneapolis.” )

 

A long time ago, I had a friend who seriously thought carrot cake was good for you because it had, as one of its ingredients, carrots.

 

And by “a long time ago,” I mean 2002. And by “a friend,” I mean myself.

 

It's hard to believe it's been just two years since my first post, a "golly gee whiz" piece about joining a CSA for the first time. There's a fine line between being excited and being naive, and I'm proud to run a site that continues to walk that line -- as we have since day one.

I don’t know about you, but until recently, the words “lunch lady” conjured less than pleasant memories of crabby women in hairnets glopping mystery meat and mashed potatoes onto plastic trays with ice cream scoops. Had I taken a moment to consider their point of view, I suppose I might have realized how annoying it would be to dish out food, day after day, to disrespectful kids yelling “ewwww, gross!” I’m ashamed to admit that this level of empathy was beyond me in my elementary school years. I was too busy yelling “ewwww, gross!”

Imagine, for a moment, that you're five years old. After a busy morning in Kindergarten, you notice that your stomach is growling. It's time for lunch. Unless you brought food from home, you'll be eating what's served in your school's cafeteria. You get in line and grab a tray. You're barely tall enough to see the food behind the counter, and your teacher isn't there to help because she's having her lunch elsewhere. So when the lady wearing the plastic gloves asks you what you want to eat, you're not sure what to say. Then you might notice something familiar -- maybe a hot dog, spaghetti, or some chicken nuggets -- so you point to it and watch as it's placed on your tray.

 

One of the most striking things about the people who work at the Minneapolis Public Schools Food Service Department is how upbeat they seem. Just look at their picture above. From left to right, they are:

Larry Jones (Operations Manager - School Sites)Ricardo Abbott (Operations Manager - Nutrition Center)Joe Hollenback (Culinary Supervisor)Nicole Barron (Accounting & Business Systems Manager)Irfan Chaudhry (Assistant Director)

Do you notice something strange? They're all smiling.

"There are a lot of people in every business who are happy with the status quo," Nicole tells me, "you're not going to find it here."

"Summers used to be so easy," Irfan says, "but we don't take any vacation anymore. We want to make sure we give our kids the best food we possibly can."

In preparation for this New Year's blog post, I went back and read what I wrote last year at this time. (If you haven't read it yet, Shari's terrific, extensive 2010 good food recap from last week is well worth your time.) I'm the kind of guy who holds himself accountable, and I'm not about to make a bunch of new resolutions without seeing how I did on the old ones. Here are last year's New Year's resolutions, along my my own view on how we did: 

Poached cod and potatoes with lemon butter, sautéed haricot verts, and fresh avocado -- sound like a meal from Heartland or Spoonriver? Well, that’s what I had for lunch recently at College Simin de Palay, a junior high school in the town of Lescar, France. And as good as the meal sounds, the story behind it is equally appealing.

There isn’t much more I would rather do on a crisp, fall day in Madison than visit the Downtown Farmer’s Market. With a sea of proud Madisonites dressed in badger gear foraging for the week’s local food offerings, chocolate-faced kids enjoying their morning treats, and the sun shining strong, I couldn’t help but spend hours meandering the market last week. However, I had more on my “to-do” list than shop for my fill of seasonal veg on that Saturday. It was REAP’s annual Food for Thought Festival on the Square, one of the best fall food events for passionate locavores, if you ask me.