Kids Make Deviled Eggs

We couldn't very well have a food appreciation class without something to snack on. So while our Salvadoran curtido is curing, the kids made these deviled eggs.

Actually, I hardboiled the eggs ahead of time in the manner described in our earlier post. Then the kids peeled the eggs and we whipped 1 dozen yolks with 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

To finish the eggs, we spooned our finshed yolk mix into a plastic storage bag, cut off the tip of one corner and squeezed the mix into the whites. The plastic bag makes a very efficient pastry sack. Simply dust with a little paprika.

Can I just say, kids love deviled eggs.

Why Do We Feed Children Like Pigs?

It used to be common practice on family farms to collect the kitchen scraps and leavings from the dinner table to feed the hogs. It was called slop. Quick, cheap, effective. No need to throw perfectly edible garbage away. Today most hogs are fed a prescribed diet in an industrial setting. But we saved the concept of slop and re-located it--to the nation's schools.

Through our national school lunch program, children who don't bring a meal from home are offered the leavings from our commodity agriculture system--low-grade meats, processed cheese, factory pizza--plus whatever the local school board cobbles together with some additional small change from the federal government. It amounts to $2.57 for students who qualify for a free lunch. But that has to pay for more than food. Subtract the cost of heating the cafeteria, delivering the meals, paying the cafeteria workers. As a caterer, I can tell you that $2.57 for a meal and all the infrastructure behind it is almost laughable.

Recently, Alice Waters proposed in the New York Times that we scrap the current system and start over, adding things like fresh, local produce to the school menu, perhaps kitchens in the schools to turn these ingredients into meals and a more generous budget--maybe $5 per meal. From the reaction of some food bloggers, you would have thought Waters had suggested serving school meals on gold-plated trays. Kids don't need to eat local produce! It doesn't need to be prepared on site! We can do it for lots less!

The subtext being, Let's not go overboard feeding good food to children. Like Olive Twist, they can get by with less. And we certainly don't want them turning into little aesthetes, do we? (The argument must roll off the lips more easily if you've never had children.)

The overheated blather culminated in a treacly mea culpa from the Times' Mark Bittman, who, writing under the headline "Elitism and School Lunch," propounded that there is "a tendency among all of us who work with food regularly to become more than a little precious about it." Speak for yourself, Mark. The only thing all of this proves is that Alice Waters may be the birth mother of fresh and local food here in the U.S., but she's not the person to lead the charge on healthy school lunches. Anything she touches will be tainted as "pretentious" and "elitist"--even when she is right.

But as my grandmother would say, Waters' critics have it ass-backwards. And fortunately there are any number of concerned parents, nutrition activists, and school agitators who have formulated the question correctly: It's not how much we can afford to spend on school lunches. It's what kind of lunches we should be providing, and how much does that cost? For starters, we can look at what actually comes out of the school lunch program and why any objective observer should be appalled by what our kids are eating in a so-called learning environment.

More than 30 million kids in this country receive a lunch at school on an average day. A study recently published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that this is the kind of mediocre stuff being dished up in the nation's lunch rooms, as summarized on the Lunch Lessons blog:

• Milk: Milk is offered in practically all schools. One percent fat milk was the most common milk served, and the majority of milk offered is flavored.

• Fruit: Ninety-four percent of schools offered fruit or fruit juices. Only 50 percent of schools offered fresh fruit. The rest offered canned fruit or fruit juice.

• Vegetables: This study considers starchy vegetables such as white potatoes a vegetable. By that classification, 96 percent of kids had a vegetable offering at lunch. But note that while 45 percent of high schools offered French fries, only 39 percent of schools offered lettuce salad, 29 percent offered orange or dark green vegetables, and 10 percent offered legumes.

• Grains/bread: The vast majority of grain products (bread, rolls, bagels, crackers etc.) were made of refined white flour. Only 5 percent of grain offering was whole wheat.

• Combination entrée: The most commonly offered combination entrée depended on age; in elementary school, 28 percent of combination entrees were peanut butter sandwiches, followed by meat sandwiches; in middle school the most commonly offered combination entree was pizza with meat, followed by cheeseburgers and sandwiches with breaded meat or poultry.

• Dessert: Those were offered in 47 percent of high schools, 41 percent of middle schools and 37 percent of elementary school. The leading deserts were cookies, cakes and brownies.

From that, the kids choose the worst of the worst. This, according to the study, is what they are actually eating:

• Milk: Seventy-five percent of kids drank milk, mostly 1 percent fat, and mostly flavored.

• Fruit: Forty-five percent of kids ate some fruit; most of the fruit eaten was canned. Only 16 percent of kids overall had fresh fruit, and among high school kids it was only 8 percent.

• Vegetables: Fifty-one percent of kids overall had some kind of vegetable, but that includes French fries. Lettuce salads were eaten by 6 percent of kids, orange or dark green vegetables were eaten by 6 percent, and legumes by 2 percent. French fries were eaten by 34 percent of high school kids.

• Grains/bread: Thirty-four percent of kids had grain products. Only 1 percent of grain products eaten were whole wheat.

• Combination entrée: 75 percent of kids selected these entrees, the most popular of which were pizza, sandwiches with breaded meat, fish or poultry, hamburgers or hot dogs.

• Dessert: Thirty-eight percent of kids had dessert, mostly consisting of cookies cake and brownies or candy.

The problem with this picture, of course, is that the food kids consume on the school lunch plan doesn't even rise to the minimum level set forth in the federal government's own dietary standards. And that's because this "food" is conveniently cheap, cheap, cheap--the very dregs of what our system has to offer.

By comparison, those vile French spend three times as much on their shcool lunches. And listen to this account account of what the French kids eat:

"At one school, students were served a choice of salads — mâche with smoked duck and fava beans, or mâche with smoked salmon and asparagus — followed by guinea fowl with roasted potatoes and carrots and steamed broccoli. For dessert, there was a choice of ripe, red-throughout strawberries or clafoutis. A pungent washed-rind cheese was offered, along with French bread and water. Yes, the kids took and ate the cheese.

"French schoolchildren eat in brightly colored lunchrooms. Lunch hour includes exercise and lasts for two hours. Our second meal was a little simpler, but then, the kids were younger, too. Children served themselves a butter lettuce salad from a bowl set on the table. The main dish was mashed potatoes with a sauce of ground beef (delicious!). Bread and water again were offered as well as the pungent cheese, and a choice of fresh strawberries or a little pastry."

In France, the schools have their own kitchens, their own pantries, their own fresh ingredients. (But of course, the French also think people are entitled to free health care and we wouldn't want to be caught doing anything the sissy French way--would we?)

So what would it cost to change the dismal U.S. menu to meet even minimal standards--cut back on the sugars, the refined starches, the salt and canned goods and introduce more healthful protein, unprocessed fruits and vegetables, whole grains? That, of course, is the million dollar question. But does it really matter? Could we swallow $5 a meal if that's what it took? Or $6? Or $8?

No, the ingredients for wholesome meals don't have to arrive fresh off the farm. But agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack has said that introducing more fresh, local food into school meals is a goal of the Obama administration and he is supported by a broad segment of farmers and food activists. There are many good reasons to support local agriculture. Using it to feed school children is just one of them. Could the meals be cooked off-site? Certainly. Schools could go on as they are, serving mainly as heat-and-serve stations. But obviously the French manage to do it and the British think in-house cooking is important enough that they have mandated cooking classes for all secondary school children by 2011. There are even programs right here in the U.S. that take food and children seriously. As someone who regularly teaches kids about food--where it comes from, why we eat what we eat, how to cook it--I can tell you that children are keenly interested in the subject. You might be surprised how many routinely watch Food Network and Iron Chef.

Do we care enough about our kids to feed them good food? The old axiom applies: garbage in, garbage out. If we feed our kids slop, we should expect them to continue eating slop when they grow older. No, what we feed children does matter, and we should stop training them to be our future diabetics and cardiac patients. (Many of them are already showing the symptoms: 40 percent of the children in the study cited above were overweight.) It's not only time we fed them to be healthy, but taught them about food as a life lesson they will carry with them into adulthood. If President Obama is serious about children and school lunches, he should make revamping the school lunch program a priority. Appoint a White House commission to draw us a blueprint for doing exactly what Alice Water suggested: scrap the school lunch program and replace it with something our kids deserve.

Then tell us how much it will cost.

Kids Make Chicken Tacos

Here's an excellent use for the leftover chicken in your refrigerator: Roll it up in a taco with fresh salsa, cheese and lettuce for a snack or an easy, healthful meal.

After many months of practice, it is astounding to see the cutting skills the kids in our "food appreciation" classes have learned as they prepped the vegetables for this lesson. They made quick work of the tomatoes and onions in the salsa and were soon on to the chicken.

Originally I had proposed this dish a "Guatemalan burrito" as we continue our way south on our virtual world food tour. But when someone asked "What makes it Guatemalan?" I didn't have a very good explanation. In fact, for the life of me I couldn't find a standout Gautemalan food. Perhaps a reader will point me to one.

More than anything, this taco is typical of what you might see in any fonda or food stall in Mexico, or throughout Central America, for that matter. We used corn tortillas, not flour. The tortillas labeled as "Salvadoran" in our markets here in the District of Columbia seem to be much thicker and would probably hold together better in the eating.

Yet simple and convenient it is. If you don't have leftover chicken, simply bake two chicken breasts or thighs in the oven and set them aside to cool. Meanwhile, make a fresh salsa by cutting two or three ripe plum tomatoes into small dice. Toss in a bowl with 1/4 cup diced onion and a small fistful of cilantro leaves. Stir in a squeeze of lime and season with salt.

Tear the chicken into small pieces or cut it into small strips. Next, shred about 1 cup lettuce. Crumble about 2 ounces queso fresco, or fresh cheese. Present the chicken the fresh vegetables and the cheese at the table along with a plate of warm tortillas. Let everyone build their own taco. You might also have some crema, or sour cream, on the side as a further garnish.

I'll bet you can't eat just one.

Kids Make Guacamole in the Molcajete

Where did the people of Mexico learn to speak Spanish?

The answer is simple enough: the Spanish conquistadors who invaded and subdued Mexico hundreds of years ago. But the question points up the fact that there were people living in what we now call Mexico long before the Europeans arrived. Whether Olmec or Aztec or Mayan, they all had their own cultures, languages and foods.

Thus the kids in our "food appreciation classes" learned that "guacamole"--the stuff you typically order as an appetizer at your local Tex-Mex restaurant--derives from the ancient Nahuatl word for avocado: ahuacatl, meaning "testicle" (because of the shape of the avocado or the pit inside?). The Nahuatl word molli means a sauce or a mix. Put them together you get ahuacamolli, or "guacamole."

Guacamole usually is prepared by simply chopping onion and tomato and tossing it with avocado. We prefer to make ours in a traditional Mexican mortar and pestle--or molcajete e tejolote--carved out of volcanic basalt stone. Grinding the ingredients brings out all the flavorful oils, making our guacamole especially vibrant. Kids will spend the whole day grinding things in the molcajete if you give them the chance.

1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeds and veins removed and chopped fine
1/4 white onion, diced small
2 ripe Haas avocados
1 small ripe tomato, diced small
a small fistful of cilantro leaves

In the molcajete, grind the cumin seeds and salt together into a fine powder. Add the jalapeno and grind almost into a paste. Add white onion and grind until you have what looks like a slushy green relish at the bottom of the molcajete.

Cut the avocados in half with a sharp chef's knife, first piercing an avocado all the way to the pit inside, then rotating the avocado lengthwise against the knife blade 360 degrees. Set the knife down and twist the two halves of the avocado, separating them. To remove the pit, hold the avocado half in the palm of one hand and with the other hand strike the pit with the blade of your knife. The pit should hold to the knife. Just twist it out of the avocado meat and toss the pit away. Now use a paring knife to score the meat in both halves of the avocado in a cross-hatch pattern all the way to the inside of the peel (don't cut the peel.) Use a spoon to scoop the meat into the molcajete--if you scored it properly, the meat should fall apart into large dice.

Add the tomatoes and most of the cilantro to the mix and toss thoroughly with your spoon to combine. Mash the avocado a little as you go, but not too much. You want some texture to your finished guacamole, not a paste. Adjust seasoning as desired. Garnish with the remaining cilantro and present the guacamole in the molcajete with your favorite corn chips.

Note: we don't normally add lime or lemon juice to our guacamole but you may certainly do so if you like.

Kids Make Catfish Veracruz

Fish in the style of Veracruz Mexico is a classic treatment that at first blush looks like a strange cocktail of ingredients. Tomatoes with cinnamon and cloves? Olives and capers? Pickled jalapeno juice?

There is definitely a Spanish influence here and an almost Renaissance approach to flavors. Yet somehow it all works, producing in the end a dish that many of the kids in our "food appreciation" classes went absolutely wild over.

Others just don't like fish. Well, there's no accounting for taste.

We happen to be in Veracruz on our virtual world food tour after three weeks hopping around the Caribbean. Veracruz is the steamy Mexican port on the Carribean side of the country, perhaps best known for its sugar cane refineries. But Veracruz also has a style of food all its own and we definitely wanted to sample what may be its signature dish.

Typically, fish Veracruz would be made with red snapper but snapper has been overfished and is rated "avoid" by seafood sustainability groups such as "Seafood Watch" at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Consequently we chose a farmed U.S. catfish, which holds up very well to being cooked in a tomato sauce, almost like a seafood stew.

The list of ingredients for this preparation is lengthy. But the actual assembly is rather quick and easy. The reward is all in the unique flavor--a bit sweet and sour, a little spicy--definitely exotic and perhaps unlike anything you've tried before.

For the fish:

1 1/2 pounds thick farmed catfish fillet, cut into 2-inch chunks

For the sauce:

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 onion, peeled, halved lengthwise and sliced thin

1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes with juices

12 pitted green olives, preferably Manzanillo, roughly chopped

1 tablespoon Spanish capers

1 large pickled jalapeno pepper, stemmed, seeded and cut into thin strips

1 tablespoon pickled jalapeno juice

3 /4 teaspoon dried oregano

3/4 teaspoon dried thyme

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 spice sachet consisting of 3 bay leaves, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 cloves and six crushed black peppercorns tied in cheesecloth

1 cup fish stock

Salt to taste

In a heavy pot, heat the olive oil over moderately low heat. Sweat the onions and garlic until soft, about 8 minutes. Add the tomatoes, olives, capers, jalapenos, pickling juice, oregano, thyme, parsley, spice sachet and fish stock. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for about 30 minutes. Season with salt as needed. Add catfish and cook another 10 minutes, or until the fish is just cooked through.

Ladle the stew over brown rice and garnish with additional parsley. Serve immediately with warm corn tortillas.

KIds Make Salt Cod Fritters

It's a little known fact that people all over the Caribbean love salt cod. And why would that be?

In the not too distant past, the waters of the North Atlantic were swarming with cod. Going back centuries, when the fish were first discovered off Canada, fisherman from Europe and especially the Portuguese would make the long trek in their sailing boats to harvest the cod. Of course they didn't have refrigerators--refrigerators hadn't been invented yet--so they needed a way to preserve the fish for the sail home. They salted and dried the cod, making it almost impervious to spoiling.

Salt cod traveled all over Europe as a valuable source of protein, especially in Portugal, Spain, Southern France and Italy, where eating salt cod is still a cherished tradition. But in the trade of that era, salt cod also went south--to the sugar plantations of the Caribbean--in exchange for sugar, molasses, rum. This week our "food appreciation" classes are in Jamaica as we continue our virtual world food tour. Here a popular finger food is a salt cod fritter popularly known as "Stamp and Go."

Sadly, the great salt cod fisheries of the Atlantic have largely vanished--fished out. And outside ethnic communities, salt cod is not very well known. You can often find it in Latin groceries where it is sold in large, flat fillets that are tough as wood. Have the clerk cut it into pieces. Salt cod is also sold in neat little wooden boxes. And you can buy it with or without bones. I purchased ours at A&H Seafood in Bethesda, Md, which specializes in Portuguese and Spanish products. (They get fresh shipments each Thursday off a plane from Portugal.)

Once the salt cod is cut into manageable pieces, soak it in plenty of water for at least 24 hours, changing the water at least twice. You might be surprised how much the fish looks like an everyday fillet after this soaking. It is even edible as is--just cut off a small piece and try it.

To make the fritters, you will need a heavy pot or tall skillet with at least 1 inch of canola oil at the bottom. (Note: never fill the vessel more than half way for deep frying or it could boil over. If you have a deep-fat fryer, use that). Over moderate heat, bring the oil up to approximately 365 degrees, or a point where a bit of batter dropped into it will bubble vigorously but not burn.

Prepare the fish by bringing it to a boil in a pot of water. Remove the fillets from the pot and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl mix two scallions, finely chopped, 1/3 red bell pepper, finely chopped, and 1/2 habanero pepper, finely chopped. (Habanero or Scotch bonnet peppers are very popular in the Caribbean for their fruity heat. But they are very hot. Consider this optional, or use a less fiery pepper such as jalapeno.) To the vegetables add 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix everything well.

When the fish is cool enough to handle, flake it with two forks or with your fingers into small pieces, removing any bones, and stir it into the flour mix. Add a scant cup of water (or as much as needed) and mix to a thick batter. By this time the oil should be ready. Carefully drop spoonfuls of batter into the oil to form fritters about the size of golf balls. Turn as necessary until the fritters are golden brown and cooked all the way through. Remove to paper towels to drain.

Serve these warm with your favorite spicy dipping sauce or simply dress them with malt vinegar. Follow with heaping plates of jerk chicken.

Note: Hot oil is extremely dangerous. Be sure to keep it well out of the reach of children, and never leave it unattended. In our classes, we explain to the children why they cannot be near the hot oil. They make everything else up to the point where the batter goes into the oil. And of course they get to eat the finished fritters.

Kids Make Cheese Grits

The movie "My Cousin Vinny" gave us a classic laugh line when actor Joe Pesci, playing a New Jersey lawyer confronting breakfast in the Deep South, asks: "What's a grit?"

There's still some confusion over whether "grits" should be treated in the singular or the plural. But there's no mistaking where grits come from. They are ground corn, familiar as the indigenous grain to early Native Americans who passed them along to the first white settlers. Grits remain a staple of Southern cuisine.

The Indians soaked dried corn in lye, removing the tough shell or pericarp to produce large, soft kernels called "hominy." The large pieces could be ground into tiny grains we now call "grits." But it gets very confusing, because now grits are widely made from untreated corn but still called "hominy grits."

You can still find grits made the old fashioned way--dried corn ground between huge granite wheels. The process results in a fine powder, sold as corn meal, as well as the larger grains, sold as grits. These grits usually take an hour at least to fully cook and are considered by some the only proper kind of grits to serve. Otherwise, the grits sold in supermarkets under the Quaker Oats and other brands have been further processed to cook in as little as 20 or even 5 minutes, in the case of "instant grits." But be warned. Instant grits may taste more like library paste if you are used to the real deal.

Being from Chicago, grits were utterly foreign to me until I moved to the District of Columbia. In my student days, about a century ago, I worked at a federal job that started each morning before the crack of dawn. Our first break was breakfast. I recall musing over the strange mush I saw next to the scrambled eggs on the steam table in the cafeteria. I remember thinking it looked vaguely like cream of wheat. That, I was told, were grits.

Sadly, I never really developed a lasting taste for grits. A pity, because they can be truly delicious if made carefully and slowly in the traditional manner. In the South, grits are a virtual staple, served with ham and smothered in gravy. But grits are not just breakfast food. Shrimp and grits have risen to a fine art, suitable for the finest restaurants, in Charleston. Add eggs and they can become a sublime souffle.

While we are roaming around the South on our virtual world food tour, our "food appreciation" classes sampled old-fashioned grits seasoned with cheese. We used the yellow corn grits sold in bulk at the Whole Foods. Some cultures disdain yellow corn as unfit for humans. They insist on white corn. But I must say I don't detect any difference in taste.

First, soak 1 cup of fresh grits in a large bowl of water. Stir the grits at the bottom of the bowl. This will bring the tough bran from the milling process to the surface of the water where it can be swept away with a strainer. Meanwhile, heat 2 cups of water with 2 cups of milk in a heavy saucepan over moderately low heat. Strain the grits and add these to the pot. Cook very gently for about 1 hour, stirring frequently so that the grits do not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. Slowly the grits will absorb the liquid, swell and become thicker. Add more milk if desired.

When the grits have reached your desired thickness (not thin and runny, but not thick enough to mound either), remove from the heat and add about 1 cup grated cheddar cheese. We used a yellow Vermont cheddar. Stir until the cheese is fully incorporated, then season with salt as needed. You can also add butter and/or cream if you like. But we thought our grits were perfectly delicious as is.

With our grits, I showed the kids how to cook bacon in the oven. I almost prefer bacon out of the oven to that fried in a skillet. It always comes out flat and pleasing to the eye--not all curly and wild--and it's so much easier to cook a large quantity on a baking sheet than on the stove top. We covered the baking sheet with parchment paper to prevent the bacon sticking. Cleanup is a breeze.

Do you keep a jar of bacon grease? There was a time when I stopped, thinking the pork fat would kill me. But I'm back to saving it, especially from the good Niman Ranch pork we get at Whole Foods.

Kids Make Gingerbread Cake

The aroma of old-fashioned gingerbread baking in the oven automatically signals the arrival of Christmas. With its strange mix of molasses, cloves, nutmeg and other spices, gingerbread is an anachronism. Yet somehow it has maintained its grip on the holiday tradition.

Personally, I don't care much for gingerbread cookies or the stuff that gingerbread houses are made of. But this cake has a wonderful moistness to go with its heft and spiciness. There's nothing difficult about it once you have all the ingredients assembled. And that's part of the fun making it with children--all those ingredients arrayed on the counter top and the extra time and care it takes to mix them all together.

The original recipe calls for mixing first the wet ingredients, then the final batter with an electric mixer. But we found that mixing with a hand whisk worked just as well and was more fun. The original recipe also calls for baking the cake in an 11 by 7-inch baking pan. But our pan was a little smaller and square: 8 1/2 by 8/12 inches. This increased our baking time from the suggested 40 minutes to 52 minutes. The key to doneness is that the cake should be fully risen in the center and should bounce back when pressed with a finger. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean. In a smaller pan, this may mean that the finished cake is a little crispier around the edges, which cook first.

Try serving this cake with plain yogurt or even a dollop of sour cream to cut the sweetness.

2 1/4 cups sifted (9 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon Dutch-processed cocoa
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
3/8 cup molasses
3/8 cup dark Karo syrup
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg

Place oven rack in middle of oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom and sides of an 11 by 7-inch baking dish and dust with flour, tapping out the excess. Or spray with Baker's Joy.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice and cocoa in a medium bowl.

Beat butter, molasses, sugar, buttermilk, milk and egg in a large bowl. Add dry ingredients and beat until batter is smooth and thick, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. (This should take about a minute with an electric mixer, longer if done by hand.) Scrape the batter into the prepared baking dish and smooth the surface as needed.

Place baking dish in oven and bake until the top springs back when lightly touched and edges have pulled away from the pan sides, about 40 minutes. Set on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Kids Make Apple Butter

Apple butter is just a hop, skip and jump from applesauce. So if you already know how to make applesauce, you are just a couple of steps from having apple butter.

There's no dairy in apple "butter." But it is thicker and darker than apple sauce--another of the thousand or so uses for apples our forebears came up with when apples were such an important part of the diet.

If you are looking for ways to store from the fall harvest, apple butter is a genius stroke as it can easily be canned and stashed in the pantry.

Use a flavorful, cooking-type apple such as Winesap or Jonathan. We chose Mountaineers from nearby West Virginia and Macintosh. For this recipe, you do not remove the skin of the apple (lending some pectin to help thicken the final product) but you do remove the stems and cores. A couple of helpful pieces of equipment are a food mill, as shown in the picture above, and a splatter screen for covering your cook pot.

To make four pints apple butter:

5 pounds apples, cored and cut into eight wedges each (skin on)

1 cup apple cider

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Place apples and cider in a heavy pot, cover and bring to a boil over moderately high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until apples are soft, about 10 minutes.

Process the cooked apples finely through a food mill. Pour the apple puree back into the cook pot and mix with sugars and spices. (Note: use 1/4 cup sugar for each cup of puree). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and continue cooking uncovered, stirring frequently and scraping the bottom of the pot so that the puree does not scorch. Keep in mind that the thick puree, rather than quietly bubbling, tends to burp and burst and send hot material flying into the air. This is where a splatter screen over your pot comes in handy. You don't want a big mess, but you do want the moisture to evaporate so the puree can thicken.

Continue cooking for an hour or more, until the apple puree has thickened and caramelized to a nutty brown. It should mound up in a spoon.

Now you can ladle the hot apple butter into sterile pint jars. Seal the jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

The kids in our "food appreciation" classes had great fun cutting the apples and grinding away at the food mill. Our treat was spreading the finished apple butter on slices sweet potato bread, freshly baked from some of the sweet potatoes recently harvested from our garden. Talk about a tasty snack for fall....

Kids Make Pumpkin Muffins

In my experience, the more ingredients, the better the muffin. That must be what makes these pumpkin muffins so good: two different kinds of flour, two different kinds of sugar, three different spices, buttermilk, ricotta cheese, vanilla.

What's not to like?

Pumpkin muffins proved to be the perfect antidote to all the pickling we've been doing in our food appreciation classes. Assembling these muffins required everyone's attention. Eating them was great fun. This recipe calls for making the muffins in a standard sized muffin tin. But I could easily see using a mini-muffin tin and having these ready as treats for Halloween.


My one reservation about the recipe is the use of granulated and brown sugars. I would love to know how to covert this into another kind of sweeterner, say apple sauce and apple juice, or perhaps even some orange juice. Any tips on conversions would be appreciated.

For a more adult muffin with a little kick, you might add a pinch of cayenne.

To make 12 standard muffins:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon each: ground nutmeg, ground cinnamon, ground ginger

1/3 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons canola oil

1/3 cup ricotta cheese

1 large egg plus 1 egg white

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons pumpkin puree

Pumpkin seeds



Preheat oven to 375 degrees.



In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugars, salt, baking powder, baking soda, spices. Whisk together well.

In a second bowl, whisk together buttermilk, milk, canola oil, ricotta cheese, egg and egg white, vanilla, pumpkin puree. Beat until smooth.

Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and gently stir until wet and dry are fully combined. Do not overmix.

Spoon batter in greased muffin tin. Scatter some pumpkin seeds over each muffin and pat lightly into dough. Place in oven and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Allow muffins to cool in tin about 10 minutes before removing.

Kids Put Up Simple Dills

High on my list of priorities is finding a simple, satisfying recipe for vinegar-brined dill pickles that will store in the pantry for a long time. For purposes of my "food appreciation" classes, it would also help if the whole process--from cucumber to finished pickle jar--could be accomplished in less than an hour.

Well, this might be it. I've adapted somewhat the formula right off the back of a container of Mrs. Wages Canning & Pickling Salt. For you teachers out there, this is a great exercise in standard measures (how many cups in a quart, tablespoons in a cup?) as well as addition, multiplication and division. In fact, there were a couple of conversions that even had this teacher stumped.

Brining with vinegar is a bit simpler that fermenting pickles in a salt brine. (The kids have been eating the pickles we fermented earlier in the month and loving them.) Both processes have the same aim of creating an acidic environment that prevents the growth of harmful bacteria. It's an age-old method of preserving food for the winter. And don't we all like a good pickle with our corned beef sandwich?

This method does go fast and the kids get a good introduction to canning tools and the canning process, as well as practice on their vegetable cutting skills. With kids, it's important to show them how to slice a whole cucumber lengthwise in half, then lay the halves flat on the cutting surface to slice them into quarters or spears. Chasing vegetables around a cutting board only invites accidents.

To make 4 pints:

4 clean, hot pint-sized canning jars with new lids
2 pounds small pickling cucumbers (such as Kirby)
several sprigs dill weed
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
1/3 cup pickling salt (or additive-free sea salt)
3 Tablespoons granulated sugar

Cut the cucumbers lengthwise into quarters (spears). Place a small handful of dill leaves and a garlic clove at the bottom of each jar. Pack the jars (not too tightly) with cucumber spears.

Meanwhile, bring the water, vinegar, salt and sugar to a boil in a saucepan. Ladle the brine into the jars, leaving about 1/2 inch headroom. Screw on lids and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove jars. When cool, store in a cool, dark place at least three weeks before opening.

Note: It really helps to have some basic canning equipment, such as a jar lifter and wide canning funnel. Water kettles with a wire rack are standard equipment. I improvise, using my pasta pot with a drop-in strainer. That's to keep the bottom of the jars from making direct contact with the heat. The water should cover the jars to a depth of at least one inch.

KIds Can Tomatoes

We are overwhelmed with Roma tomatoes from our garden. Perhaps this is a good time to teach the kids in my "food appreciation" classes a thing or two about canning.

First job is to blanch the tomatoes in a big pot of boiling water for about 20 seconds (15 seconds is about the minimum). Chill them quickly in a bowl of cold water. As soon as they are cool enough to handle, you can start peeling away the skins.


Blanching loosens the skins. I teach the kids to make a small cut at the pointy end of the tomato, then pull the skin away in strips with the aid of their trusty plastic knives.

Once the skins are completely removed, we cut the tomatoes into quarters lengthwise, then cut the quarters into small small pieces or dice. The dice then go into a pot to be boiled for a few minutes. Ten or 12 will fill a one-pint jar. I show the kids how to ladle the tomatoes into a sterilized canning jar, add 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon salt before screwing on the lid and processing the jar in a boiling water bath for 35 minutes.

But we also want something to snack on as a reward for all that tomato prep. So we peeled some more tomatoes and turned them into an easy pasta sauce with some sauteed onions and finely grated Parmesan cheese. A sauce of tomatoes fresh from the garden delivers uncommon flavor. The kids quickly wolfed it down.

Great Big Vegetable Challenge: The Book

A package arrived from Great Britain yesterday and look what was inside: the cooking adventures of our friends Charlotte and Freddie at The Great Big Vegetable Challenge blog, in three-dimensional book form.

It's been great fun watching the blog unfold with A to Z recipes aimed at getting children to partake of the vegetable kingdom. Charlotte must be ecstatic to see this brilliant concept materialize in book form, complete with recipes and photographs.

As Charlotte explains in the introduction, dinner with Freddie frequently had been the nightly battle that so many parents experience. But instead of allowing the food fight to degenerate into a complete meltdown, Charlotte decided to turn mealtime into an adventure, with Freddie helping to devise clever dishes and then grading the results. As many adults discover, bringing kids into the process often succeeds where all the arguing and haranguing fail.

I would also like to point out that the recipe for slow-cooked green beans was borrowed from yours truly, and that Freddie rated it 8 points out of 10. The book's other recipes are all worthy of consideration. We are not talking Jello molds with smiley faces or other dumbed-down kiddy stuff. Charlotte and Freddie did their homework to come up with real food made with serious ingredients. But you might want to start with "Veggie Lipsmackers," which translates as vegetable and fruit juice popsickles.

Meanwhile, as if to underscore the point, here's a picture of daughter last night preparing to run away from home after rejecting a dinner offering quickly assembled from the contents of the refrigerator: hamburger, broccoli and sweet potato salad. Daughter normally likes broccoli, but last night it was, "I never liked broccoli!" Her plan was to seek asylum at a friend's house, but she turned back when she realized she would have to cross the street--something she does not yet do on her own.

Apparently "The Great Big Veg Challenge" is still looking for a U.S. publisher. Meanwhile, you can find it at Amazon UK, along with a more complete description. And you can visit the original blog.

Congratulations, Charlotte and Freddie! What's next?

Ready! Set! Peel!

My idea for our final "food appreciation" classes of the year was to treat the kids to angel food cake. But if you read my earlier post, you know how that turned out. I needed a replacement concept, fast.

It occurred to me that we'd spent so much time peeling vegetables in recent months that it had become a sort of theme for the semester. Why not a peeling contest?

Before it was over, I would purchase 10 pounds of carrots and 15 pounds of potatoes. This is how it works: first, the carrots. Each kid gets a carrot and one chance to peel it while the rest of the class looks on and keeps time. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. And so forth. We work our way around the table.

There are skill as well as safety issues involved. Our first rule, above all else is, Don't get blood in the food! Surprisingly, after four classes completed the carrot peeling, we only had one nick. The kids have learned. Peel one half of the carrot first, peeling away from your fingers. Then turn the carrot and peel the other end in the same direction.

I think our fastest time peeling a whole carrot was seven seconds. Peeling potatoes is a different story. Only one contestant out of all four classes was able to peel a potato in less than 20 seconds.

Each winner received his own personal peeler. Then we served pound cake from Whole Foods with strawberries and vanilla ice cream. That's one way to end one heck of a year in "food appreciation."

Kids Make New Potato Salad with Onion Scapes

The inspiration for this potato salad came from our recent garden cleanup. Where I wanted to plant okra, potatoes were growing, apparently from spuds I had missed during last year's harvest.

I dug up the new plants (hated to do it) and in the process gathered a bucket-full of potatoes. Could they possibly be edible? I put them on the stove in a pot of water. The result was not too bad at all, but I thought they looked a little long in the tooth. That was easily solved with a mayonnaise dressing. And for a bit of green, I tossed in a handful of chopped onion scapes, those being the long flower stems I had recently snipped from our onion bed.

My wife doesn't care for mayonnaise dressing or hard-boiled eggs in her potato salad, so this was not to her taste at all. And when I decided to bring the recipe to school for our "food appreciation" classes, I got the baby red potatoes at Whole Foods, making this more of a seasonal dish. If you don't happen to have onion or garlic scapes handy, use chives.

Kids are always eager to cut things like potatoes and celery. It's not easy with their plastic knives, but they were not deterred.

2 pounds small boiling potatoes

3 hard-boiled eggs

2 celery stalks, cleaned, trimmed and diced small

1/4 yellow onion, diced small

2 tablespoons chopped onion or garlic scapes (or substitute chopped chives)

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cut the potatoes into bit-size pieces and cook until just tender in a large pot of salted water. Drain potatoes and chill in cold water. Drain potatoes again, then transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Peel the eggs and chop into bite-size pieces. Add eggs to potatoes, along with celery, onion and scapes (or chives). In a separate bowl, mix mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar and salt. Pour dressing over the salad and toss well. Serve at room temp.

The finished salad is a classic side dish for a barbecue or picnic. Many of the younger kids in our classes were put off by the idea of eggs and potatoes together, but the older kids wolfed it down and begged for seconds.

Kids Make Carrot Salad with Toasted Soy Nuts and Asian Flavors

Here's a lesson in how guacamole turns into carrot salad.

I had every intention of showing the kids in my "food appreciation" classes how to make a classic guacamole. The plan was to use some of the ripe avocados that have been on prominent display at the local Whole Foods lo these past few weeks. But of course when I arrived at the Whole Foods to purchase the ripe avocados--oh, maybe an hour before class was scheduled to begin--that big display of avocados had completely disappeared, replaced by a new display of utterly green and rock-hard avocados usable maybe next week.

Quick! Think of something seasonal, something we can make in less than an hour! I scanned the produce department and my eyes landed on carrots. Carrots have many virtues, one of them being they don't have to be cooked to be good. They also get the kids involved in peeling and grating. So a carrot salad seemed the logical choice.

As the idea of a carrot salad began to take shape, I decided this would also be a good opportunity to find some sort of substitute for the walnuts I normally put in my carrot salad. We don't use nuts at school because of allergies, and I've been talking with the kids lately about things we might use to add a healthful crunch to our dishes that won't send anyone to the hospital. A visit to the bulk section turned up toasted soy nuts. To be honest, I have never used toasted soy nuts before. This was good a time as any.

I had already planned to use lemon in the salad, then started to lean Asian because I like the way lemon and rice vinegar go together. I picked up a bottle of mirin, to add sweetness. And when I arrived at school and scanned the contents of our pantry, I found a wee bit of toasted sesame oil in the cupboard. From there we tentatively improvised our carrot salad dressing, measuring some of this and some of that, and finally tossed it all together.

1 pound carrots, peeled and grated
1/2 cup toasted and salted soy nuts
1/2 cup black raisins
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 teaspoons mirin
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Toss carrots, soy nuts and raisins in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, lemon juice, rice vinegar, mirin, sesame oil and salt. Pour dressing into carrot mix and toss thoroughly. Serve room temperature or slightly chilled.

Note: Mirin is a classic condiment and seasoning in Japanese cuisine, typically sold in the Asian section of most supermarkets. It is very sweet, and usually contains alcohol. The version we used contains 8 percent alcohol.

Kids Make Strawberry Shortcake

We are working our way through spring's seasonal fruits and vegetables in our "food appreciation" classes. Kids love engaging the food with their hands and strawberry shortcake gives them plenty to do, such as cutting the butter into the flour for our biscuits. You can do this with knives or forks, but we like doing it with our fingers, squeezing butter and flour together and squeezing, squeezing, squeezing with very quick movements until the finished product looks almost like sand.

The recipe we use for our biscuits is 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, 3 teaspoons baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt. Whisk all that together in a large bowl, then cut in 6 tablepoons of cold butter, cut into little pieces. Add 3/4 cups milk and stir until everything is just incorporated. This makes 16 smaller-than-usual biscuits

A secret to great biscuits is to work the dough as little as possible, so they come out light and flaky. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and push it together with your hands a couple of times until it holds its shape. Then roll it out to a thickness of 1 inch or 3/4 inch, depending on how many biscuits you want to make and how thick.

I forgot to bring my metal biscuit cutter. A sharp edge helps when cutting out biscuits. The edges are not so prone to stick together, helping the biscuit to rise more easily. We improvised, using a sturdy, paper hot drink cup with the bottom cut out.

While the biscuits were baking in a 450-degree oven, we trimmed about 1 pound strawberries and cut them into small pieces, then mashed them with 1 tablespoon sugar. The sugar draws out the juices.

We also made whipped cream, 1 cup cream sweetened with 1 tablespoon sugar. You can also flavor it with a little vanilla extract if you like. We try to avoid refined sugar when we can. You can cut back on the sugar in the biscuits, the strawberries and the whipped cream for this dessert. Otherwise, this is a rare treat, not something to serve every night.

Once the biscuits were cooled, we cut them in half. You can also pry them apart with a fork. Spoon some strawberries over the bottom, then top with whipped cream and cover with the other half of the biscuit at a jaunty angle.

And did I mention, kids love to eat strawberry shortcake as well?

Kids Make Cream of Asparagus Soup

The idea of seasonality is not an easy one for young children to grasp. I'm hoping repetition will leave an impression. So this week we returned to the subject of asparagus in my "food appreciation classes." And who could possibly object to eating fresh asparagus again and again and again?

Children are fascinated by asparagus spears. In this week's lesson we read a picture book--"How Groundhog's Garden Grew"--that contained a surprising amount of good information about cultivating vegetables, including my favorite aparagus attribute: it is a perennial plant whose gnarly roots continue to produce spears for 15 years or more with very little maintenance.

Previously the kids learned how to poach asparagus and incorporate it into a frittata. This week we aimed to turn our asparagus into a creamy yet healthy soup. The recipe is extremely simple.

First the kids snapped off the tough ends off 1 1/2 pounds of asparagus. Then, using their platsic knives, they cut the spears into 1/2-inch pieces that we cooked until very tender in 4 cups (1 quart) of chicken broth. (You could also use vegetable broth for this to make a vegetarian soup.)

Meanwhile, we trimmed and cleaned a large leek. The kids were not familiar with leeks, so I cut off a piece and passed it around for them to smell. They noticed immediately a resemblance to onion. Leeks, onions, garlic, chives--they are all in the allium family. This time of year, we would be on the lookout for wild leeks--or ramps--to be foraged in area forests. They are delicious sauteed, and unlike cultivated leeks, you can eat the green parts.

To prepare the leek, I show the kids how to trim away the dark green parts. They are tough and inedible. Then I split the leek down the middle lengthwise from a point about 1/2 inch from the root end. The leek flops open, allowing us to rinse it thoroughly under cold running water and wash away any of the dirt that might be hiding between the layers.

We slice the leek fairly finely, season it with 1/2 teaspoon salt and saute it in a skillet over low heat with two or three tablespoons of extra-virgin olive until very soft. This takes about 12 minutes.

After we read our story, we return to the kitchen and scrape the leeks into the sauce pan with the asparagus and broth. In three separate batches, we process the broth and vegetables in a blender with 1/2 cup plain, non-fat Greek yogurt (or substitute conventional yogurt). Since the liquid is still hot, I show the kids how to avoid a burn by placing a kitchen towel over the lid of the blender. I hold the lid firmly in place with the towel. We don't want our soup to end up on the ceiling!

We pour the finished soup into a bowl after each batch, stir in a squeeze of lemond juice and finally ladle it into hot drink cups. The soup has cooled somewhat by now and could even be served room temperature.

Our asparagus soup is full of flavor but low in fat and calories. Funny how some of the kids who swore they would not like this soup are practically inhaling it. Some are even begging for seconds. Good thing we made enough.

Weekend Update

I got a phone call from an exasperated spouse yesterday afternoon. "We're waiting in line to recycle. It's a total mess!" she complained.

Turns out she wasn't the only one. About three times the expected crowd turned out with their electronics devices and other hazardous wastes for the annual municipal pickup at Carter Baron Amphitheater here in the District of Columbia.

City officials were totally unprepared for the crowds. There were long waits, with car engines idling--rather counterproductive, don't you think? Main roads around the area became parking lots. People ditched their cars and came back wheeling television sets in shopping carts.

The District of Columbia, your nation's capitol, just isn't quite ready for the green revolution. Some surrounding jurisdictions allow hazardous waste disposal on a daily basis. But here in D.C. it's a once-a-year event, widely touted in the local media and on neighborhood listservs.

Another sign of just how far we have to go: It's dandelion season, and while many garden experts in the area are suggesting people learn to love these edible weeds, the extension service for the District of Columbia, operating out of our own land grant university, was advocating a scorched earth toxic dousing of lawns, courtesy of one of the local weathermen.

Sometimes living in the most powerful city in the world requires more than the usual amount of patience....

*****

Hands-down winner as Washington's longest running horror show is not Hillary and Obama but the congressional antics surrounding the farm bill. You're sick of hearing about it, right? Well, there was great hope that this multi-billion-dollar piece of legislation might actually tackle food issues, but the longer it gets haggled over, the more money goes right back into those crop subsidy programs.

Now we learn that while kids are wanting for fresh foods in their school lunches, and while the pantries at the nation's food banks are going bare, nearly $500 million in tax breaks is being set aside for thoroughbred horse breeders. This particular boondoggle is being called the "Equine Equity Act" and is being pushed by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and Senate Minority Leader Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

While you have a picture of this big, wet kiss to rich horse breeders firmly in your mind, I'd like you to consider another priority of our federal government: slashing funds to the U.S. National Arboretum.

The arboretum, all 446 acres, is a place where hundreds of thousands of visitors each year find a rare bit of peace and tranquility amid the hustle and bustle of the city. Because I work as a volunteer in a food plot in the Washington Youth Garden, located inside the arboretum, I have a soft spot for this urban jewel of a refuge.

But apparently the bosses at the U.S. Department of Agriculture--lords of the farm bill as well--have found it necessary to cut a measly $2 million out of the arboretum's budget. Doesn't seem like much. Heck, that's chump change for horse breeders. But it would mean a 60 percent blowout to the arboretum's programs, cutting staff, closing to visitors--perhaps ruin for some of the facility's famous gardens and tree displays.

How's that for government priorities?

*****

It's hard to count the number of ways that turning food crops into fuel for automobiles is a bad idea. Taking food out of the mouths of people to run our easy motoring lifestyle has become a major factor in food riots and destabilizing third-world governments. But there are recent studies as well showing that the supposed environmental benefits from this scheme are largely a hoax. The growing of the crops releases so much carbon into the atmosphere that any savings from the fuel are quickly wiped out. (And did we mention how waterways are fouled from all the fertilizers used to grow the fuel crops?)

Now comes a certain Texan who's devoted his life to promoting sustainable ranching in the Amazon basin. But when he flies his little Cessna over that vast carbon storehouse, what John Carter sees is the forests and jungles rapidly disappearing as men use bulldozers and chains to convert rain forest into cattle pastures and soybean fields. He sees fires wiping out such gigantic swaths of jungle that scientists now debate the "savannization" of the Amazon.

"You can't protect it. There's too much money to be made tearing it down," says Carter. "Out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work....It's like witnessing a rape."

Just a continent a way, the Norwegians also are getting in on the act. But their methods hark back to the colonial days of the 19th century. They've found ways of hoodwinking African chiefs into selling huge tracts of land for a mere pittance.

The project was unearthed when officials found a huge swatch of forest in Ghana being torn down. After making inquiries, they learned that a subsidiary of the Norwegian biofuels company--Bio Fuels Norway--had laid claim to the land and was already busy creating "the largest jatropha plantation in the world." (Jatropha is a small tree with seeds that produce an oil that can be converted into biodiesel.)

According to the African Biodiversity Network, African land grabs are widespread, and usually involve invalid contracts with local leaders executed under the table with all kinds of promises of lucre and influence but without government scrutiny.

Meanwhile, you probably never expected biofuels to raise gender issues. But a United Nation's report warns that women could be the big losers in areas where croplands are given over to biofuel production.

"Unless policies are adopted in developing countries to strengthen the participation of small farmers, especially women in biofuel production by increasing their access to land, capital and technology - gender inequalities are likely to become more marked and women's vulnerability to hunger and poverty further exacerbated," according to the report. "Biofuel production certainly offers opportunities for farmers , but they will only trickle down to the farm level, especially to women, if pro-poor policies are put in place that also empower women."

Ladies, does that burn your wick at all?

*****

On a brighter note, we were happy to see the Wall Street Journal report recently on suburbanites turning their small plots into farms. Or rather, there's a business to be made bundling suburban yards into food-producing conglomerates. (Sorry, the WSJ does not let us link for free.)

The suburban food movement may come just in time to start providing fresh produce to local schools. In Maryland, lawmakers have embraced the idea and Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) is ready to sign legislation that would at least expose kids to local farms and even mount posters of local farmers in the lunchroom.

Turns out actually getting the produce onto kids' plates is a bit tougher. Schools are bound by USDA guidelines that sometimes leave them with only 90 cents per meal to spend on food. Bidding laws mean schools often aren't allowed to spend more on produce grown locally.

In addition, many schools no longer have facilities for preparing foods. "The food services in most schools aren't usually prepared to deal with whole foods. They want something that's at least partially prepared and ready to pop in the oven," said Janet Bachmann of the Arkansas-based National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, a USDA-funded agency that promotes local foods in schools.

*****

Finally, adults take note: problems getting decent food in schools has really ticked some kids off.

In Westby, Wisconsin, middle schoolers are boycotting the school lunchroom over the quality of food service. Complaints range from running out of food, undercooked and overcooked food, soft or bruised fruit, portion sizes, overcharging of food items, "foreign items" found in the food, general appearance of some foods and the temperature at which food is served. Students also would rather not use plastic silverware, thank you very much.

“We normally have 245-260 students eating at noon, now we’re in the 40s. This is a major issue,” Westby Middle School Principal Clarice Nestingen told school board members recently.

Schools officials have met with the students and with parents, but the kids aren't budging. In fact, the boycott has spread to 5th- and 6th-graders.

Officials complain that they are already locked into contracts for the food the students have rejected and there's no money to switch to something more appetizing.

We say, Right on kids! And if all else fails, we'll teach you how to make your own!

Bon appetit....

Teaching Teachers to Make Salad

Since building a large container garden at my daughter's charter school two years ago I've been involved in teaching kids how to prepare fresh produce as well as working with an organization that helps other teachers start gardens at their own schools.

School gardens expose children to healthy, locally grown food and can be used to teach all sorts of skills, including science, reading, math and art. But getting school gardens off the ground and maintaining them present a number of challenges. Not least of these is the fact that most schools are on vacation during the summer, the peak growing season in most areas of the country.

That's why I emphasize salad and other greens in the school gardening scheme. Cool weather crops such as leaf lettuce, arugula, mizuna, cress and mache can be planted in March or April and harvested before the school year is over. To those you can add radishes and carrots. The carrots might not be ready till fall. Or, in our case, you can plant carrots in the fall and be harvesting them in spring. Fall is a good time to plant a second round of salad.

Yesterday was our annual teacher workshop with D.C. Schoolyard Greening, the organization I work with. I presided over the salad clinic, where I gave my best pitch for growing salads and also passed along some of the lessons I've learned working with groups of children.

* Avoid taking large groups of children into the garden by yourself. Focus and control become issues when kids are released to the outdoors. I try to have at least one other adult with me, and work with two or three kids at a time planting seeds or harvesting. There need to be specific rules of behavior in the garden.

* Kids love harvesting and preparing vegetables. Planting seeds takes no more than a few minutes. But you can occupy children for hours turning lettuce into salad. They will fight for a chance to wash the lettuce and crank it dry in the salad spinner. I prefer to plant leaf lettuces rather than heading lettuces. Leaf lettuces grow fast, and they produce more leaves when you cut them.

* Teach kids basic kitchen safety. An important lesson is placing a kitchen towel under the cutting board to keep it from moving. An unstable cutting surface leads to injuries.

* Young children in my classes use plastic knives, which are good enough to cut things like carrots and radishes. But vegetables should lie flat for cutting. Chasing a radish around the cutting board is dangerous. Instead, cut it in half lengthwise to create a flat surface. It can then be sliced without moving. I usually slice carrots into sticks before giving them to children to cut into dice.

* Kids love working with simple tools. They will occupy themselves for hours with a vegetable peeler or a box grater. To peel a carrot, I teach them to work on one half of the carrot first, then flip the carrot around to peel the other half. This makes the work go faster and reduces the risk of fingertips getting cut.

* Making vinaigrette is a good way to teach fractions as well as the concept of an emulsion. A classic vinaigrette consists of three parts oil to one part vinegar. Here's a simple recipe for a honey-mustard vinaigrette:

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
generous pinch coarse salt
pinch ground pepper
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

In a bowl, whisk together mustard, honey, salt, pepper and vinegar. Add a drop or two of olive oil and whisk vigorously until the olive oil is completely incorporated. Add remaining olive oil and whisk until vinaigrette is smooth and homogeneous. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. If it seems too sharp, whisk in more olive oil.

Pass the bowl around so the kids can take turns using the whisk. They will not tire of it. Pretty soon you will have kids loving the salad they made themselves.