ESY Berkeley Journal
Making Dinner a Family Affair
The Edible Schoolyard recently held our third Family Night Out class, giving almost two dozen families the opportunity to work together preparing a Mexican feast. Led by cooking teacher Griselda Cooney, King students demonstrated their culinary prowess as they assisted their parents and siblings in pressing tortillas, blending agua fresca, cooking cactus and preparing jicama salad. This week, two participants in the class share their reflections on what they experienced.
From Margaret Simpson, mother of three current King students:
“Luckily I worked alongside Blanca Manriquez at the Family Night Out at the Edible Schoolyard Kitchen. We were making ensalada de nopalitos, one of several dishes for the last of the family dinners series. It was a lot of fun, we learned a lot and, like the other two dinners, we had the chance to sit down and have dinner with over 20 families from the King community. I had never seen, tasted or prepared nopales, which are delicious, though a little daunting, as they are from the cactus family. We learned how to use the paring knife to remove the pesky thorns. We then chopped the nopales and boiled them in salted water with sliced onions. Mixing the nopales with cilantro, fresh tomatoes and lime juice resulted in a delicious, simple dish for dinner. Homemade tortillas, guacamole, jicama salad and cucumber-mint agua fresca all made for a fantastic dinner.”
From Blanca Manriquez, mother of an eighth grade student at King:
“Fue una experiencia fascinante el haber participado en la serie de clases de cocina con el equipo de “The Edible Schoolyard” durante los pasados 3 meses. En esta ultima, varias familias tuvimos la oportunidad de cocinar platillos no muy común entre los comensales que ese día participaron. Entre otros platillos el menú consistió en Ensalada de Jicama, Agua Fresca de Pepino, ensalada de nopalitos y Guacamole. Parte de nuestro grupo se dedico a la ensalada de “Nopalitos” y aunque fue un poco retador darnos a la tarea de quitar las espinas a los nopales, valió la pena pues la ensalada estaba riquísima. Finalmente, pudimos disfrutar una deliciosa cena preparada con nuevas verduras que en este caso son originarias de Meso América. Disfrute mucho de todo lo que preparamos pero en especial de el agua fresca.”
Translation:
“It was a fascinating experience to have participated in a series of cooking classes with the Edible Schoolyard at King Middle School during the past three months. In the last one, several families had the opportunity to cook dishes that were not very familiar to guests
who attended that day. Among other dishes, the menu consisted of jicama salad, cucumber agua fresca, nopalitos salad and guacamole. Part of our group was dedicated to the nopalitos salad and although it was a bit challenging to us to remove the cactus thorns, it was worth because the salad was scrumptious. Finally, we enjoyed a delicious dinner prepared with new vegetables, in this case: jicama and nopales, both of which originated in Mesoamerica. I really enjoyed all that preparation and cooking, especially the cucumber agua fresca.”
Thanks to our guest journalists Blanca and Margaret, first for their talented children who helped make the dinner a delicious success and second for their insightful accounts of a wonderful evening!
Blanca (left) and Margaret (right) prepare nopales together
A student blends cucumbers into a delicious agua fresca
A budding chef tends to the guacamole
Her face says it all -- a tower of jicama and guacamole makes for delicious eating!
Fun with Fungi
Often during the rainy months, students enter the Ramada in the garden and as they look down to sit on the straw bale, blurt out in a concerned tone, “Oh my gosh! What is this growing out of the straw bales?” What they are looking at are small mushrooms growing out from the densely packed straw. Despite the prevalence of fungi in the garden and throughout the Bay Area, many students do not entirely know what a mushroom is. So the garden staff has developed a mushroom lab that every sixth grader experiences during a garden class in the rainy season.
In this lab, students learn that a mushroom is actually the reproductive organ of a fungus and is analogous to a fruit in the plant world; however, mushrooms, unlike fruit, carry spores rather than seeds. As students observe the life cycle of a fungus, they are able to recognize that every time we crack the compost pile open we see the early stages of fungus, in the form of a fungal web. Sixth graders also learn that although fungi in the compost pile are doing the work of decomposing organic material, there is actually an additional category of fungi called tree companions, which are not decomposers.
For most students, even those that already carry a wealth of information about mushrooms, this second category of mushrooms – the ones that are symbiotic with trees – is new information. Tree companion mushrooms have a mutual relationship with specific species of trees in which they benefit the tree by expanding the tree’s root network in exchange for sugars obtained from the tree’s cells. Students learn that unlike plants, fungi cannot produce their own food and are thus more similar to humans in that they are consumers - shocking!
As students learn more about how mushrooms are beneficial to the health and integrity of ecosystems and occupy their own kingdom in the tree of life, the “eww” factor subsides. By the end of the lab, students are able to touch and examine different examples of edible mushrooms. This year we were able to collaborate with the innovative organization Back to the Roots, who provided several oyster mushroom kits, in which the mushrooms grow on recycled coffee grounds. The kits were a great way for students to see up close examples of oyster mushrooms emerging from decomposing material, and the lab itself was a great way for students to learn more about the important role fungi play in the garden ecosystem.
Curious students take a close-up look at oyster mushrooms growing from recycled coffee grounds
Back To the Roots mushroom kit (foreground) and spore prints (background) draw students
into the mysterious world of fungi
Polly in the midst of teaching the mushroom lab
Creating an Outdoor Kitchen
Last fall, a handful of sixth grade students were joined by their parents in the Edible Schoolyard garden for a family work party. The students and their families were divided into groups that each worked on a specific garden improvement project. On this particular Saturday, one of these projects was to clear out a space in the garden where a future outdoor kitchen would be built. The families worked together for hours clearing one corner of the garden to prepare for a future concrete foundation. The family work parties are a great opportunity for students to not only show their families what they know about gardening, but it is also an opportunity for them to teach their families a little bit of their own expertise.
Since then, the garden staff has been working to coordinate the building of this outdoor kitchen, and now we are finally starting to see the beginning stages!
The outdoor kitchen has been laid with a concrete foundation and a harvest table has been put into place. It will eventually have a covering over it and two sinks. We couldn't be more excited about this new space for our garden classroom! Students in the garden will now be able to have their own outdoor space to wash and chop crops that have been harvested for the kitchen classroom, for tastings during the closing circle of garden class, or to package up and take home.
This is just one of the many improvements that has come out of the grade level garden work parties and you can see the many hands that have helped to make it a reality for the students at the Edible Schoolyard.
In the autumn, sixth grade students and their families dug out the area where the future outdoor kitchen would go
Students and adults worked together to sift and remove the soil for use in other places in the garden
Just two weeks ago the concrete foundation of the outdoor kitchen was poured -- with a roof and running water, the kitchen will be complete!
The Garden Undergoes a Plant Sale Makeover
With our annual Plant Sale just two weeks away, the Edible Schoolyard staff, friends and students are busy transforming the garden, little by little, into a festival space. Though there’s still a lot to do to get ready, we can’t wait for the upcoming celebration!
First, of course, was the propagation. Since February, there have been greenhouse work groups in almost every garden class. Students participated in tasks more delicate than many of our other garden jobs such as cultivating or building compost piles—they sowed seeds, grafted baby apple trees, and potted up tiny plants into bigger containers. So much upsizing was done that one student, while helping us upsize kale seedlings after school, remarked, “So, can we basically assume that upsizing will be a job every time we come to the garden? That’d be okay, because it’s actually pretty fun.” By now, the plants have all been upsized into the containers they will be sold in; now they just need to keep growing! They fill the greenhouse, cover tables throughout the garden and even rest in a makeshift nursery set up on a patch of grass.
So now we are getting the physical space ready for the event. Students have been painting beautiful new garden signs, which will help visitors to the Edible Schoolyard know what grows where. Our wonderful Wednesday Weeders, a group of adult volunteers, labeled hundreds of tomato plants so that buyers will be sure to take home the specific varieties they desire. Edible Schoolyard staff members are recruiting volunteers, soliciting raffle prizes, asking students to give tours on the day of the sale, contacting food carts to join the event, mowing the tall grass, and lining up musicians. By May 12th, we expect the garden to be even more joyous and beautiful than it already is!
Opal basil, a favorite in kitchen gardens, will be a popular choice at the Plant Sale
Students have learned to propagate perrennials like rosemary and sage (above) that gardeners can enjoy for many years to come
The seedling trays seem to go on for acres!
Family Nights Out at the Edible Schoolyard
Many King parents can tell you a lot about the Edible Schoolyard, but until recently, they had not experienced firsthand the educational power of the garden and the kitchen. Last week we hosted the first of our Family Nights Out, and King parents had the opportunity to roll up their sleeves, grab a chef’s knife, and see for themselves what their child’s excitement for the program is all about. Family Nights Out, the latest iteration of Edible Schoolyard parent classes, are open to the families of King students at all grade levels. At Family Nights Out, families cook and eat together, share recipes, learn new skills and cooking techniques, and discuss some of the bigger kitchen issues such as how to shop on a budget, how to build a pantry, and when and why to buy organic.
This spring, the Edible Schoolyard is hosting a series of three evening cooking classes as part of our Family Nights Out series. Families can sign up for one class, two classes, or all three, and each class builds on the skills and knowledge acquired in the previous classes. Family Class Coordinator Griselda Cooney has designed a curriculum based on a typical kitchen class that King students experience in the regular school day. However, since the family class also serves as a full dinner, Griselda has combined recipes from different grade levels to create cohesive and delicious menus for the classes. Last week, family class participants rolled and cut hand-made pasta, pounded kale pesto in mortar and pestles, and balanced flavors while making vinaigrette from scratch.
One of the most gratifying elements of our family classes has been to watch students become teachers. Since it is many parents’ first time using the kitchen, the students took charge. Students were proud to have their families here, and their confidence in the kitchen was apparent as they showed their parents where to find tools and how to use them. For parents, it was an opportunity to see just how good their children are at cooking and that yes, the rumors are true, their child is good at washing dishes when they want to be! For the ESY staff, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to connect with students and their families outside of school. We heard about the triumphs of students’ home cooking and reports on favorite ESY recipes recreated.
Parent classes also help strengthen the kitchen skills and knowledge of ingredients that students are learning in their kitchen classes. To us at the Edible Schoolyard, cooking is a vital skill for children to develop. We want parents to know what their child is learning in the kitchen so that when their child comes home, they are supported in their kitchen endeavors. The parent classes familiarize the whole family with different ingredients and methods to cook those ingredients while reinforcing the power of cooking and eating together.
Griselda (in green) demonstrates to students and their families the process of making fresh pasta from scratch
It is not uncommon to see students take the lead, teaching their family members techniques
learned previously in Edible Schoolyard classes
Even when made by hand using a mortar and pestle (foreground), kale pesto comes together
quickly when done by a team
There are jobs suited for cooks of all ages -- Family Nights Out are truly a multi-generational event!
Harvesting for Spring Salad
This past week, sixth grade students were busy working in the Edible Schoolyard garden propagating seedlings, planting apple trees and cultivating beds for future vegetable crops. One other special job that students were busy doing was harvesting. Students harvested an array of spring crops that were the basis for a kitchen lesson on salad that they would experience later in the week. “How amazing is this? You all get to harvest all these salad ingredients for yourselves and others to use this week in kitchen class!” garden teachers were telling students as they harvested spring crops together.
The students were experiencing one of the many connections between the garden and kitchen programs. Due to the way the class schedule works at the Edible Schoolyard, it’s relatively uncommon that a student will have garden and kitchen class in the same week; this week, however, the same sixth grade students that harvested crops in the garden prepared and ate those same crops in the kitchen later in the week. “These could very well be the same Tokyo turnips that you will be chopping and eating in kitchen class,” was another comment from garden teachers, and the students were excited at the prospect. The seed-to-table concept comes up a lot in our work. Students are involved in every step of our seed-to-table program, from planting and composting to harvesting and eating. This week, the last few steps were a delicious focus of our lessons in the garden and kitchen.
As students harvested crops like lettuce, turnips, fennel, beets, carrots, parsley, cilantro, green garlic, and other fresh herbs, they learned how to dig up crops like green garlic without ripping them, how to judge if a head of lettuce is ready for harvest before cutting it with clippers, and how to take off sprigs of cilantro without damaging the plant, so that we can continue to harvest from it regularly. They also washed, sorted, bunched and weighed their harvested crops before bringing the crops into the kitchen for the next class of sixth graders to use in their salad.
Students admired their work, seeing the abundance they all helped produce, nurture and finally harvest. They were proud that they had harvested food that they would soon prepare and eat in the kitchen, and they sometimes joked with each other, claiming the rights to a particular crop. And while most of the time we emphasize the fact that all students at King had a hand in growing the crops we had just harvested, there was one student who asked me, “Can I put my name on this carrot for later, so that no one else eats it?” My response: “Why wait? Take it with you and eat it later for a snack!”
Students carefully pull green garlic from a bed for inclusion in their spring salad
Picking lettuces has never been so fun!
Students wash their harvested crops before bringing them to the kitchen
Jasmine Thorpe Gives New Meaning to the Term Student Teacher
Eighth grader Jasmine Thorpe set a high goal for herself: to educate her peers about making healthy food choices while setting an atmosphere of fun and camaraderie. In January of this year she created the aptly named club Food 4 Thought. Every week she plans an activity designed to generate conversation, debate or enlightenment about eating habits and choices. Each Friday at lunchtime a dozen or so regulars convene in the Edible Schoolyard kitchen classroom where Ms. Thorpe encourages her dedicated, if at times rowdy, club members to examine their own relationship to food, learn to read the labels on packaged foods, and share their own experiences as they gain ever increasing independence over their diets. Over the weeks, club members have answered a survey, engaged in a spice tasting, played a rousing game of Heart Attack Bingo and gone on a scavenger hunt.
Eighth grader Randie had this to say about Jasmine and her teachings, "she really explains the difference between something we like to eat as opposed to something we should eat. I'm not spending my money on junk food, I'm saving up for a pair of roller skates." Sometimes the message works its way into students' home life too. Michelle, a Food 4 Thought regular states, "playing Heart Attack Bingo helped me to try and eat healthier. I like learning about food and being more aware of what you should and shouldn't eat. My family has been drinking more juice and milk and less soda."
Although Martin Luther King Junior Middle School is home to the Edible Schoolyard program and all sixth grade students study nutrition and food choices in their "What's on Your Plate" class, it seems there is still a place for more edible education at King. Jasmine Thorpe saw an opportunity and took it. As fellow club member Eli put it, "A student leader is easy to listen to." We take inspiration from Jasmine’s initiative and have been pleased to see her blossom into a talented peer educator.
Jasmine's Food 4 Thought planning notes
Jasmine draws on many sources of knowledge for her weekly classes
Heart Attack Bingo was a popular activity during one Food 4 Thought meeting
With the assistance of her father, Jasmine taught a class on juicing fruits and vegetables
Sunshine and Downpour
The weather has been far from predictable this winter. What was a seemingly endless drought, with both low temperatures and high, has quickly transformed into a needed forecast of rain, rain, rain. However, the weeks of prevailing sunshine were enough to veil much of the winter season and awaken the garden from it’s short winter slumber. Day after day in the past two months, the unfurling of spring appeared to be upon us in all realms of the garden.
Signs of spring are abundant in the perennial garden beds as daffodils begin to emerge from their encapsulated bulbs underground, plum trees adorn their bare branches with fragrant blossoms, and fig and apple trees bear the first bursts of foliage on their buds. Our perennial beds have also become a favorite hang-out spot for students, as they enjoy sipping the sweet nectar from the various Salvias discovering which carry the best flavor.
Seventh grade science students have been coming to the garden for the last few weeks, and they have been lucky enough to witness and take advantage of the gardens’ prodigious production during this pleasant winter. In preparation for the needs of spring, seventh graders have quickly become acquainted and comfortable with the ins and outs of propagating. With the sixth grade Salad Lesson in the ESY kitchen just around the corner, our seventh grade students were able to sow, upsize and transplant close to 500 lettuce plants and create what is now an impressive lettuce patch! Also honing their propagation skills, seventh graders sowed 32 flats of 30 delicious varieties of tomatoes with over 90 percent germination! As germination relies so heavily on perfect moisture and temperature, winter sowing can sometimes be an exercise in frustration, yet students this year were able to witness joyful propagation with impressive germination!
Students have observed a happy response to the warm weather from the chickens as well, while collecting eggs before school, after school, and – if they can – during classes. It seems the chickens and ducks have almost tripled their laying numbers in the last week! The influx in eggs has serendipitously aligned itself with the preparations in the kitchen for the sixth grade pasta lesson, in which students visit Rome in their series of Silk Road lessons. If the chickens and ducks keep their laying up, the garden’s eggs will supply all sixth grade pasta classes.
As we move closer to the plant sale and with the help of some rain, spring production will undoubtedly continue to flourish!
High germination rates have filled the greenhouse with promising garden sprouts
The lettuce patch has fared well under the care of seventh grade students
A profusion of salad greens will make for a delicious kitchen lesson later this spring
The chickens and ducks have significantly increased their egg production lately
More Academy Reflections
This week, Kristin Lack of Beijing's Daystar Academy shares some reflections on her participation in the Edible Schoolyard Academy during the summer of 2011.
"Daystar Academy is a Kindergarten-Grade 6, private, local, non-profit school in Beijing, China. The school offers a balance of Montessori-based English education and the Chinese National Curriculum - students spend half of their day in each language environment. As part of their curriculum they have an integrated, capabilities-based character education program that unites all areas of the school and community. This innovative approach connects two cultures and implements the strongest attributes of both Western and Eastern teaching methodologies.
In August of 2010 we launched a program to source safe food and making as many connections with our local organic and natural farmers. Our goal was to prepare fresh, wholesome and seasonal food for our students with the intention to provide them an opportunity to learn exactly what that means. Through this initiative we also purged the school of toxic cleaning chemicals and incorporated practices of using vinegar and baking soda and other natural cleaners where possible.
The step to take our program from sourcing and preparing the food to a full-blown curriculum-based program would not be possible without attending the Edible Schoolyard Academy last year in June. The ESY program was a completely comprehensive and transparent model on how to build and grow an edible education program. The team that was built by Alice Waters and the Edible Schoolyard Project is first class. I left the Academy with a clear sense of how to develop a program from fundraising all the way to the details of how to run an actual garden class. They are successful because of their very clear rituals and routines and the passion that every person possesses in their program."
To read more about the upcoming 2013 Academy and apply, please click here!
Young students at Daystar Academy gather for the midday meal
Healthy, local, sustainable foods make up the lunch at Daystar Academy
Fresh vegetables come from nearby farms and are served in abundance
And how do the students feel about school lunch? All smiles!
To see a recent menu from Daystar Academy, click here.
Academy Reflections
This week, Julia Cotts of the Garden School Foundation shares some reflections on her participation in the Edible Schoolyard Academy during the summer of 2012.
"As the Executive Director of the Garden School Foundation, a non-profit that teaches daily garden-based classes to children in underserved schools in Los Angeles, I was thrilled at the opportunity to attend the ESY Academy last year. Our organization has been running our Seed to Table program for 3 years and, being very similar to the Edible Schoolyard but much younger, I hoped we could learn a lot from their years of experience. In particular, I was keen to learn how their overall organization was run, what systems they used to manage volunteers and donors, outreach, fundraising, etc. I left thinking that our money was extremely well spent on this, and many other fronts.
The three days spent at the Academy were really impressive, not only from a content standpoint but how it was run. I was blown away by the professionalism of the ESY staff and not a second of my time was wasted, each day filled to the brim with fun, fascinating, illuminating information about the Edible Schoolyard program. I would recommend the Academy not only to those interested in garden-based programs but to anyone interested in experiential education or youth-centered non profits more generally. Plus, the food is delicious! I came back home armed with a host of new tools to run our organization more effectively, wonderful ideas to enrich our program, and a great new network of like-minded garden-based education pioneers!"
To read more about the upcoming 2013 Academy and apply, please click here!
Children from under-served schools in the Los Angeles area are welcomed to the Garden School Foundation
A bike blender makes delicious snacks!
Students immersed in a garden lesson
A view of the garden at the Garden School Foundation
