Fasting by Choice

This afternoon I scurried around at school, putting together sub plans in preparation for my absence tomorrow. I'll be spending the day tomorrow at the synagogue, observing the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In order to better focus on prayer, Jews around the world have already begun fasting, denying themselves food and drink for over twenty five hours, from sunset tonight until after nightfall tomorrow.

Tonight my family ate a lovely, local meal with friends to celebrate the beginning of Yom Kippur. If one is fasting, having a satisfying meal the night before the fast is essential. Adults who are fasting are going into the fast prepared.

But being hungry doesn't always begin with a big meal. For those who live with food insecurity, hunger may be a constant instead of the exception. This is an issue close to me, because although my school serves healthy breakfasts, fresh fruit and vegetable snacks, and amazing hot lunches, many families in the community struggle to bring enough food into their homes to round out the rest of the meals. So it seems appropriate to give a shout out to Hunger Free Vermont. This organization assists schools in establishing hot lunch and breakfast programs, teaches cooking classes to low-income adults and at-risk teens, provides grants to childcare centers and after school programs, and much, much more. This is certainly not the only organization in our small state serving hungry families, but it is one with many programs in place to meet the needs of hungry children.

Around the world and across Vermont, people won't be eating tomorrow. For Jews this is by choice, but for too many others, it is an unfortunate way of life that lasts longer than twenty five hours.

Fruit Salad, in pictures

Maybe I don't need to record our cooking adventures in words. Don't these pictures speak for themselves?

Really, this one picture says it all.

Fruit Salad

Friday's recipe inspiration came from the milk leftover from the previous weeks' ice cream lesson. I took it home and made it into yogurt, something we did in class last year. I was imagining using a fruit salad/yogurt dip recipe as a way to review previous skills. Then Tuesday I noticed how quickly kids scarfed down the apples and honey yogurt dip that was provided as morning snack from the kitchen. I tossed cinnamon into the mix and created my own version of fruit dip.

Making fruit salad and yogurt dip allowed students continued practice with knife skills, measurement, and reading a recipe. As was demonstrated last week, if you don't read and follow the recipe, you might end up with large quantities of salt in your ice cream! The stakes weren't as high this week, but they did still require some coordination and discussion in order to create the fruit salad independent of the yogurt dip. Teamwork also came into play as groups larger than last week had to plan and work together for their recipe to  come off successfully.

Doreeninthekitchen got me a beautiful bowl of fruits -- apples, pears, watermelon, kiwi, bananas and grapes. I gave kids a recipe, but told them the fruit salad directions were really more of a suggestion. Randomly divided into groups of five and six, they started off by talking through the fruits and deciding who liked which fruits and to what degree. It was charming to see them so earnest in their planning; certain fruits were chopped up and put in separate bowls so group members could opt in or out.

Kids had varied reactions to the yogurt dip, which was only mildly sweetened with honey. Unless you are in the habit of eating plain yogurt, you don't realize how (over)sweetened the commercial stuff is. Of course, that goes for many pre-packaged foods. One girl did say she preferred her yogurt "tart." Student choice came into play as each child decided how much dip they wanted on their salad. One table group opted to spoon it into cups to make sure it was divided evenly, and some kids ate it separate from the salad.

As they ate, we talked about their reactions to the dish and how their groups worked together. Overall it came off stunningly smoothly. Every group worked out their kinks on their own, no one came to me complaining, everybody ate and enjoyed their dish. There was almost no wasted food, either.

Two areas that could have worked better:
1) Leadership: We are investigating leadership as a beginning of year theme. I had randomly assigned the groups, and randomly drawn one name out of each group to be the team leader. We discussed how this didn't mean that person was the boss of everyone, but rather a person to keep an eye on the overall process and make sure everyone was appropriately involved. Although the students who were drawn liked being call "Chef," from my point of view the dynamic in each group was no different than if there hadn't been a designated Chef. On the other hand, the students who were Chef commented on how they felt a responsibility to make sure everything was going smoothly. And it did, so maybe they were somehow doing their job, unbeknownst to me. Next time, I will make the Chef job more specific if possible. Leading a group can be a huge role to take on and in this case, it might not have been immediately apparent to the Chef what s/he was supposed to do.

2) Clean up: This was where it became clear some of the leaders were happy to let their worker bees do everything. In a burst of group spirit, many groups cleared all their dishes in one fell swoop and were prepared to have one or two group members wash everything. Other groups sent up each person with their own dish and one group item to wash. Those kids got stuck behind the kids trying to wash 25 items and the line stalled. This is easy to fix. Next week we'll practice having each student wash their eating dishes first, then work out a plan for washing everything else. One of these days, it will all work smoothly and I won't be left with a pile of dishes to finish at 3PM...

You've read this far and may be wondering where the pictures are. Whoops! I left the camera at school. I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

Friday afternoon's mess does not justifies the $3 I saved in materials, but even still, our ice cream making adventure was a success.

The focus this week was on reading a recipe and measuring ingredients. I found a recipe titled Ice Cream for One that necessitated measuring liquid and dry ingredients using both measuring cups and measuring spoons. Best of all was the freezing method: place the ice cream ingredients in a small freezer ziploc (tightly sealed), then place that ziploc in a larger ziploc filled with salt and ice. Seal the big bag completely and then shake until frozen. Can you imagine a better activity for a Friday afternoon  -- shake the bejeezus out of a bag and behold! Ice cream!

[You may be thinking, as I did, that this is an excellent recipe for food chemistry. We could spend more than one lesson on this between the phase changes and the salt depressing the freezing point of the ice. I've made note of this for next year when I am back in the first year cycle of science curriculum.]

In an attempt to be economical, I spent the week making ice cubes at home so I wouldn't have to shell out for bags of ice. (Also, the cubes melt slower so they seemed better than crushed ice for this job.) Each ziploc needed 1/2 cup of salt which totals a whole lotta salt. Luckily, Emilyinthekitchen had containers of iodized salt she doesn't cook with, so one less item to buy. When I mentioned my worry that someone wouldn't follow the recipe correctly and might mix the salt into the ice cream ingredients, she said, "Oh, I think some of them need to eat salty ice cream." Prophetic words...

She also offered me large ziplocs, but they weren't of the freezer variety. I had already tested out the recipe with my own children using the recommended freezer ziplocs. Thursday night I took one of the non-freezer bags home and tried the recipe again. The results were the same, so I crossed freezer ziplocs off my shopping list.

Sometimes you think you're saving money, but it's really not worth it.

But let's talk about what did work, shall we?

Friday at 2PM I did a short introduction on how to measure liquid and dry ingredients. I also talked about the importance of reading a recipe carefully and making sure one understands each step. "Ask your partner, ask another student, ask me if you aren't sure," I told everyone. Then I handed out the recipes, set out the ingredients, and stood by with the camera.

As predicted, the bag shaking was a big hit.

What I didn't foresee were the variables between Liz-making-ice-cream-at-home and students-making-ice-cream-in-the-classroom. For one, it was about 60 degrees when I tested the non-freezer ziplocs. Compare this to a billion degrees in a stuffy Friday afternoon classroom. My shaking method is also a bit less...enthusiastic than the average eleven year old. The results being that everyone's ziplocs were leaking like fountains all over the tables and floors, and one duo gave such an almighty shake that the bottom of the bag split open in one fell swoop and two cups of melted ice mixed with half a cup of salt hit the floor with a ginormous SPLOOSH.

No picture of that - sorry.

After school when I told the teacher next door about the ziplocs, she shook her head and let out an, "Ohhh...." that made me realize what an idiotic thing I'd done. On the other hand, it was an opportunity for me to admit a mistake to my class (which I did) and accept responsibility for a foolish choice, something kids often have a hard time doing. But there it is. We all make mistakes, and hopefully we all learn from them.

Most kids got to enjoy ice cream like this:

But at least one pair had to beg a taste from friends as they dumped their salt into the ice cream ingredients. I didn't sweat it -- this was a logical consequence for their mistake. And one of the two even said, "Where's a copy of the recipe for me to try at home? I need to read it more carefully."

Bingo.

Clean up went really well considering the watery messes scattered across the room. Everyone washed their own cups and spoons and most even remembered to dry them. As we raced to finish cleaning up the room at five minutes to three, a group of kids clustered around the sink and counter making sure everything got taken care of, and another hung out in the corner fooling around. I bemoaned this to Su, who reminded me, "It's still only September." We have many more months to streamline the process and make sure everyone's owning the process.

They left, having tracked salty wet footprints out of that one puddle and across the entire floor. I apologized profusely to the after school janitor and wished that we could just send in a couple of deer who would undoubtedly have the salt lick cleared off my floor in no time.

What Am I Up To Now?

You know how you get a song stuck in your head? This week, I've found myself singing a little ditty by Vanilla Ice each time I open up the freezer to make a batch of...you guessed it...ice cubes! It's not the usual work a teacher brings home, but I'll take it over grading a stack of writing pieces.

Here's a quick multiple choice quiz for you to take as you ponder what I'm up to.

Why does Liz need to make 22 cups of ice before Friday?
a) There's no ice making machine at her school.
b) She is too cheap to buy it.
c) She prefers homemade to store bought.
d) I don't know, but I bet it's for a fun Friday afternoon project.
e) All of the above.

Congratulations! You've finished the quiz. Now that your work is done, enjoy this ridiculous video!

First Date Jitters

You'd think after all the crazy recipes we cooked last year that I would begin this year with a sense of confidence. On one hand, I know whatever I try will work out fine -- or if it doesn't work out, life will go on and I'll probably have some good material for a blog post. Even still, last Friday morning I started the day with the kind of nervous excitement that could be compared to first date jitters: I know I like doing this, but I have no idea how this upcoming event will go...

Once again I am starting the year with simple cooking activities designed to build a sense of community in the classroom. But I've upped the ante. I'm also using these first several weeks to teach some basic skills that students may or may not have. Which skills happen when are in part dependent on food availability and what inspirations I find on the internet.

For this first recipe, I wanted to keep it very simple but make something that would require the use of knives. I thought about seasonable, kid-friendly produce and quickly settled on watermelon. Using my favorite cookbook, Google, I found a recipe for watermelon salad that added lemon juice and mint to the watermelon. Perfect! A little different, but nothing too bizarre for the second week of school. Our school continues to benefit from a federal fresh fruits and veggies grant, so I am able to get my produce for free through the school kitchen, which is sourcing produce locally whenever possible. The watermelon came from Lewis Creek Farm, which is literally a five minute walk from the school.

Like someone anxious about their impending date, I planned the conversation that would kick things off. I've never written down notes before a date, but I did this time! In five minutes we covered why we cook in the classroom and the basics of knife safety. Then everyone got chopping! My favorite food assistant, Su, was on hand to get materials out to kids, collect compost scraps, and do whatever else came up. How lucky are we?

Watermelon was quickly chopped and most kids got to help with juicing a lemon, chopping up some mint, or mixing the whole mess together. (One more "How lucky am I?": Our kitchen manager, Emily, was not sure she'd be able to get mint, so another kitchen chef, Doreen, brought in a lovely bunch from her garden.)

We ate our lovely salad, then talked about the process. Some kids wanted more mint, some preferred less lemon juice. Part of cooking is following a recipe, but part of it is seasoning a dish to taste. This was a great opportunity to bring up this idea. Out of 22 kids, all but 2 finished their serving and most asked for seconds. And everyone tried this new dish -- something to celebrate!

The final part of the lesson centered around clean up. I did a quick mini lesson on how to wash and dry your own dishes and then kids started that process and did end of week clean up routines around the room. I am hoping being more intentionally about training for these routines will make every cooking experience run more smoothly, while also teaching important life skills.

It warms my heart to see kids lined up waiting to do the dishes!

Hooray! We finished in time for a short recess, and of course Su snuck back into the room and did the last few community dishes we hadn't gotten to. What are we going to do about her??

End Of Year Reflections

I survived the end-of-the-year marathon – phew!!

I have been collected ideas I wanted to delve into in a blog post, but by the time I sit down every night, I have been too wiped out to tackle them. The beauty of the lack of snow this winter is that we didn't have any snow days, and I am officially on summer vacation as of yesterday afternoon, which is ridiculously early. Not that I'm complaining.

So here are some of my end of the year thoughts on cooking and other food-related topics. I apologize in advance; this is a long post!

*Food is used to reward and to celebrate. There's lots more to say about that, but I just wanted to get it out there. Why? Is it a good idea? What are the benefits and harms of this practice? I hope to involve my colleagues in dialogue about this next year.

*For the past several years, I have created an end of the year slide show for my students and have shown it on the last day of school. It's one of those one-more-thing projects that are much more fun to work on than correcting the last set of writing pieces or digging into report cards. This year it was no surprise to discover that 60%-70% of the pictures were related to cooking projects. When we watched the slide show the other day, there were several times where I heard things like, “Oh yeah, gumbo. That was good!” 

We had memorable experiences through cooking, and hopefully those experiences impacted both kids' willingness to try new things and a connection with whatever we were studying. I can't know for sure what each child will take away from their year of cooking, but as a teacher, you never do know for sure what parts of the curriculum kids absorb and keep. One idea I am kicking around is some sort of entrance and exit interview about cooking and foods so that I can track changes in kids' thinking.

*You can't talk about food without talking about food-related waste. In the wake of the plate waste project, many ideas have come up for leadership projects our class could take on next year including building a compost pile on school grounds and finding simple ways to track food waste, report on it, and challenge our school community to waste less. But based on an experience that happened at our school's end of year picnic, our leadership may start on the first day of school.

We were off school grounds having field days and a picnic, and I went through the line for barbeque after most of the kids had already been through. By the time I finished eating, most had cleaned up and frolicked off in one direction or another. Another staff member and I hit the trash can at the same time and saw the piles of recyclable milk bottles mixed in with the trash. Another adult said she'd just seen a recycling bin and went to get it so we could pull some of the cartons out. A third adult said she could have used the watermelon rinds for her chickens. Long story short, I soon found myself up to my elbows digging through the trash, sorting out the compostables and recyclables.

One person perfectly articulated what I've always thought about picnics. “It's like we say, 'We're having a celebration! Let's trash the planet.'”

Certainly using paper products is easier than bringing dishes with you to a picnic and then taking them home to wash, but it's something I've started doing with my family. We weren't able to eliminate all the paper waste last Wednesday, but I'm glad I was part of the trash sorting that took place. And today I did exactly the same thing, on a smaller scale, at my daughter's Little League potluck. Melon rinds and hot dog buns in the trash? No problem, I'm going in to get them and popping them in this bag to take home to my compost pile.

Next fall, at the first day of school picnic, my class will be the ones to make sure that before lunch starts, there are bins put out for compost and recycling, so that when kids start their clean up, they'll have the same sorting set up as on every other day of the school year. I hope we can make it our class mission to make sure this happens regardless of where our school community is or what we're doing.

*I am only one player in my students' continuing exposure to new foods. The food program at our school this year was spectacular in its first year – I can only imagine what great things Emily, Doreen and Joyce will do in coming years. They certainly keep me on my toes; last Monday imagine my surprise when the student responsible for bringing snack to the room showed up with a bowl of apple slices and a bag with two coconuts in it.

“Emily said we should make friends with them,” he told me.

“???” I responded.

Then I picked up the phone and called down to the kitchen.

“A little clarification on the coconuts, please?”

Emily laughed and told me she'd ordered some for one of the other teachers (I assume for some sort of a project) and had received more than they needed. So every classroom got a coconut or two to do what they wished with. My students were all over me to crack it then and there, but having never done so before, I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing first.

Coconuts and slideshow production trump report cards, so after school found me watching this six minute videoon how to open a coconut. First you drain the coconut water. I went home and asked my husband which screwdriver and hammer I could take off his workbench and bring to school to chip a hole in the coconut. When he realized I was talking about pounding a hammer on the top of one of his screwdrivers, his eyes got wide and he offered me the power drill instead. When my students saw the power drill, they were more excited than ever to open that coconut!

It was definitely the tool for the job. We drained off the water and several kids tried a bit to see what it tastes like. Then we popped the hollow coconut in a large ziploc, went out on the fire escape outside my room, and took turns chucking it at the ground until it broke into little pieces and came apart from the shell. Most of us (me included) had never had fresh coconut and enjoyed trying it almost as much as we enjoyed breaking it open.

Emily has been instrumental in work writing a farm to school grant to bring more food, equipment and training into schools in our district and just found out we will have part of the $20,000 awarded to our district to work with next year. Who knows what will be coming next?

*Cooking is fun. Two pieces of evidence to support this statement.

1) Graduation is the night before the last day of school. My sixth graders graduated and I was at school all evening to help make this happen. The next day was a half day, with only my fifth graders there for the morning. What would we do all morning? Room cleaning, snack, and recess only take so long. I had the genius idea earlier in the week to have them help make my potluck dish (thank you once again, Catherine Newman) for our staff lunch that afternoon, thereby saving me from having to make it the night before after an evening at graduation.

Kids came in at 8:00 and didn't even blink when I handed them sweet potatoes to peel and limes to zest and juice. As the smells started drifting down the hallway, adults started popping in.

“What are you cooking today?” they all asked.

“My dish for the potluck, of course.”

At snack time I offered all my helpers a taste of our dish and several had some. But for many kids, the cooking was enough fun, without the reward of the eating. Also, many kids enjoyed individual ingredients (roasted sweet potatoes, squeeze lime halves, crumbles of homemade feta cheese) but didn't want the finished dish. Note to self: next year provide more opportunities for eating single ingredients by way of introduction, and remember that lots of kids don't like their foods mixed together.

2) This was the best moment of the last day of school. Wonderful Colleen, who has been so helpful with every cooking project and so much more, will not be in my class next year. The student she works with has graduated and she's decided to spend time at home with her granddaughter next year. She asked me what I was planning for cooking/curriculum themes next year and when I told her, she asked what time we'd be cooking. I thought she was joking, but later in the day she clarified: she wants to come into my class as a volunteer each week because she enjoyed herself so much and doesn't want to miss out next year.

My cup runneth over.

Colleen and Su making biscuits to share at Open House

So the year is over. How fortunate I am to have the autonomy to make the curricular decisions I made this year; not every school allows their teachers these freedoms. I had no idea what was going to happen when I made that first batch of kale chips with my class this fall. I had no idea I would connect cooking to so many units and develop a support network of adults who would be ready to pitch in as needed. I had no idea that I would be the first person to introduce a student to something as simple as soy sauce or as eclectic as nori. I had no idea I'd start a blog.

Now I have incoming sixth graders who are already plotting homemade bread and cheese fundraisers to pay for the 2013 end of year field trip. I have the promise of two steady volunteers. Our school has a farm to school grant whose implementation will involve my class.

Food and food issues are a growing part of the national dialogue and my students are part of the action. How cool is that?