Thumbs up: The BUSD votes to provide temporary funding to threatened school gardening and cooking programs. Photo: Rivka Mason

Late last Wednesday night, the Berkeley Unified School District School Board voted to authorize funding up to $350,000 for three elementary schools — Malcolm X,  Rosa Parks, and Washington — that were in danger of losing their gardening and cooking programs for the next school year.

The move came as welcome news for all those involved in the programs and anyone who champions teaching children to eat, grow, and cook their greens.

“The Board showed a remarkable commitment to edible education by continuing to fund the garden and cooking programs at Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Washington next year,” said Leah Sokolofski, who supervises the program for the district. “The decision is dependent on the district receiving Network for a Healthy California funding. We are still waiting for more information to be released about the Network funding. The district’s current Network contract continues through September 30, 2012.”

Board member Leah Wilson made the motion and the final vote was 4-1, with the no vote cast by Josh Daniels, who wanted the Board to explore funding the programs at a scaled-down level, as a cost-saving measure, while still maintaining the core components of the program.

“I was also concerned that the decision would put the long-term health of the District’s meals program in jeopardy,” Daniels told Berkeleyside, as funds for the program will come from the Meal for the Needy surplus budget. “The $350,000 is being taken from funds that would go to our meals program, potentially forcing the meals programs to use up to almost half of its reserves in 2012-13.”

The cooking and gardening programs at the three schools, whose combined budgets are $372,000, were threatened because, under existing guidelines, they no longer qualify for federal monies as each of the schools has fewer than 50% of its students enrolled in the free and reduced-lunch program. BUSD school garden and cooking programs are funded through September 2012 through Network for a Healthy California, a state program that distributes federal monies to local school districts through a three-year grant.

The network seeks to improve the health of low-income Californians through increased fruit and vegetable consumption and daily activity. (BUSD is waiting to hear about the state’s allocations of federal funding for the next three years. It made the decision to find funds for the three at-risk schools on the assumption its guidelines regarding the free and reduced-lunch program percentage cut-offs remain unchanged.)

School children eat what they grow and learn while they garden and cook. Photo: Rivka Mason

In addition to the three schools whose funding was in jeopardy, the schools that currently receive federal funds for gardening and cooking instruction include Emerson, John Muir, Le Conte, and Thousand Oaks. Berkeley Arts Magnet, Cragmont, Jefferson, and Oxford fail to meet the criteria for these monies under current guidelines.

Earlier, the School Board had proposed offering funding of $300,000 spread over two years, with $150,000 earmarked the first year for the three schools about to lose gardening and cooking programs in the 2012-2013 school year, and a further $50,000 to four BUSD elementary schools who currently do not have such programs at all. But a vocal group calling itself the Berkeley Schools Gardening and Cooking Alliance wrote to the board in advance of last night’s meeting to make a case for why such funding would be both insufficient and ineffective.

“We ask that the Board consider allocating as much as possible to help us bridge this gap so we can keep these long-established, fully-integrated, successful programs going uninterrupted in as close to their present forms as possible for 2012-2013,” the letter reads. “We are seeking bridge funds for this one year only. We understand that any funds from the Board would be a one-time expenditure from a reserve fund rather than on-going structural support. And we are committed to using the coming year to work with the District and the larger Berkeley community to develop long-term, sustainable funding strategies for a district-wide programmatic approach for all elementary and middle schools who want to participate in these programs.”

For now, the alliance — made up of parents and community members — are celebrating this temporary reprieve. “We are of course extremely grateful to the School Board for giving us this lifeline, and the time it provides us to better execute a plan to save the gardening and cooking programs long-term,” said Malcolm X parent Joshua Room.  ”This will give us time to focus on corporate, community, individual donors and grants.” He added: “And we want to continue to work with the District over this next year, and in the years following, to protect these programs and to make similar programs available to all of the students in Berkeley.”

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside.

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Students prepare to enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor from a school garden. Photos: Rivka Mason

Three of Berkeley Unified School District‘s elementary schools – Malcolm X,  Rosa Parks, and Washington — are in jeopardy of losing their entire cooking and gardening program funds beginning in October this year.

Under existing guidelines, the schools will no longer qualify for federal funding because they have fewer than 50% of their students enrolled in the free and reduced-lunch program, according to Leah Sokolofski, who supervises the program for the district.

Berkeley has an international reputation for its edible schoolyards, where public school children of all economic means learn what it takes to grow a radish and sauté some chard. Such funding cuts to the program, whose total budget is $1.94 million a year, would represent a significant setback in the city’s pioneering efforts to date.

School gardening and cooking champion Alice Waters, whose Chez Panisse Foundation helped fund the Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, expressed dismay at the potential budget cuts to programs. “It’s inevitable cuts will come — people think these programs are dispensable and the state of California is in a financial crisis — but it’s a tragedy,” she said.

Harvesting school garden kale together at Malcolm X Elementary in Berkeley

Waters recently raised over $500,000 to launch the Edible Schoolyard Project (ESP), an online resource that shares curriculum and best practice principles for garden and cooking programs with schools around the country. ESP has affiliate programs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York. “We have to continue to make the case for why an edible education is so important to the health of every child and the health of the whole country,” she said.

BUSD school garden and cooking programs are funded through September 2012 through Network for a Healthy California, a state program that distributes federal monies to local school districts through a three-year grant. The network seeks to improve the health of low-income Californians through increased fruit and vegetable consumption and daily activity.

Changes to funding

Changes to the way school cooking and gardening programs are funded are coming down the track, however, following the passage of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which President Obama signed into law amid much fanfare in December 2010, with the goal of improving childhood nutrition.

“Until the new guidelines for eligibility are released we just don’t know what’s in store for our school programs,” said Sokolofski, who anticipates hearing later this month. “This is the biggest change in the funding for these programs in 11 years.”

Further complicating matters: The U.S. Farm Bill is up for reauthorization in 2012. Potential changes to funding priorities there may impact all the BUSD’s gardening and cooking programs as well. “The Farm Bill is yet another wild card because that’s the overall place where our funding comes from,” explained Sokolofski. “And any changes there could trump changes elsewhere. There are a lot of unknowns right now.”

While it’s possible that funding for these programs could remain intact, for now the immediate concern is the three schools who will likely not qualify for federal funds for the next school year, Sokolofski said.

Sharing the pleasures of an outdoor table at Berkeley's Malcolm X

Sokolofski has been sharing her concerns with school administrators, principals, parents, and teachers. A recent presentation at Malcolm X spurred dozens of parents to attend the March 7 BUSD board meeting, where they made a passionate case for protecting a program beloved of both students and adults.

Malcolm X parent and family doctor Shannon McCune, a Malcolm X alum herself, sees many young children in her practice and said she can immediately tell which of her patients have gardening at school. “They have a favorite vegetable and know why they’re good for you,” said McCune, whose daughter recently taught her mom how to make kale salad by massaging the leaves with oil, which eliminates the need for cooking the fibrous vegetable. “I would never have known how to do that if my daughter hadn’t shown me.”

Another physician-parent echoed McCune’s sentiment. Mickey Adams, a parent from Washington Elementary, talked about the challenges of working with adult patients who have obesity and other lifestyle diseases. “These people don’t know how to eat well and cook food — they’ve never been taught,” said Adams, whose children make recipes at home they’ve learned in school cooking classes. “These programs work and there will be so much damage done by cutting them and we’ll all pay on the other end.”

If kids grow and cook it they will eat their greens

As a school board member noted at the March 7 meeting, the value of such programs was measured in a recent UC Berkeley study, which found that young students routinely exposed to fruits and vegetables through cooking and gardening instruction ate 1.5 more servings of produce a day compared with kids with fewer opportunities to dig in the dirt and work the stove at school.

School gardening teacher Joy Moore doesn’t need data to know the benefits such programs can bring. This kind of instruction gives young people alternative and innovative ways to learn, along with “skills for life,” said the long-time school food advocate.

School board president John Selawsky promised parents that the board will “see what it can do,” while acknowledging the challenging fiscal constraints already impacting the school district.

Malcolm X's school under the sky teaches more than just how to grow good food

For now, Berkeley schools are researching ways to sustain these threatened programs. “We’ve been looking at the possibility of grant funding, but most of the grants available are small and aimed at schools just starting a garden plot,” said Alexander Hunt, principal of Malcolm X. “We haven’t been able to find anything comparable to the $135,000 we stand to lose.”

Despite serving a growing group of children in need, Malcolm X’s free and reduced school lunch numbers stand at 46% of its student body. “Materials can’t replace the quality of programming currently being provided by our staff,” said Hunt. “It’s wonderful how these classes engage students in learning at the same time they impart the benefits of health and nutrition. They’re key to our students’ education.”

The Malcolm X PTA is also exploring whether a large corporation, local merchants, philanthropic individuals, or some other benefactor may step in to fill the void. It is also in the early stages of discussions with other PTAs about a collaborative effort to secure contributions. “The garden and cooking program at Malcolm X is beloved by the school community and the community at large,” added Hunt. “It’s sad to see that in the place where this school food movement started, we’re now going backwards trying to sustain these valuable programs.”

Sense of urgency

Malcolm X parent Marian Mabel noted a sense of urgency to secure funding for next year, which must be identified by June 30, when the school district’s budget is finalized. In addition, Mabel pointed out that not all the city’s schools currently offer these programs  — Berkeley Arts Magnet, Cragmont, Jefferson, and Oxford don’t receive any federal funds for such instruction. These schools rely on parent volunteers, PTA funds, and other sources to fund programs at their sites, if they have them at all.

“Short term, these three schools need to fill these funding gaps,” said Mabel, “but long term we want to find ways to make these programs available and sustainable to every public school student in Berkeley.”

As for Waters, another ESP program is in the planning stages for Sacramento, a strategic move, she said, so that she would be “under the noses” of state legislators. Waters, whose foundation has gifted about $10 million to BUSD, mostly to the Edible Schoolyard at King, also hopes that the governor will convene a taskforce for edible education soon to address the healthcare crisis among school children.

A parent-led meeting open to the community to update interested parties about the problem and brainstorm ideas about potential solutions is scheduled for this coming Monday, March 26, at the Malcolm X library at 7 p.m. Malcolm X is at 1731 Prince Street. Parents will also prepare public comments for the school board meeting on Wednesday March 28, where they intend to keep this issue on the minds of school board members.

Watch “The Whole World in a Small Seed,” a Lunch Love Community video on the Malcolm X school garden program run by Rivka Mason.

Salad days at Malcolm X's school garden

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside and was republished on Civil Eats and SFGate.

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In my story today for the site Great Schools I visit that evergreen “problem” for many parents — the so-called picky eater.

Since I am/was one and am raising a son who is/was one this is a subject close to home.

Find out what nutritionist Ellyn Satter and authors Michael Pollan, Debbie Koenig, and Matthew Amster-Burton have to say on the subject of raising a choosy chowhound and the food jags they fall into — it may surprise you — in this story for Great Schools.

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Phyllis Grant chronicles cooking with children, pictured with son Dash. Photo: Matt Ross

So-called mommy bloggers, who pontificate on all manner of parenting matters, have proliferated like randy rabbits on the internet. Ditto food bloggers who fetishize everything edible. And mommy food bloggers: they permeate the worldwide web by the thousands.

So to stand out from the pack, a food blog with a parenting focus has to look gorgeous, offer recipes that seduce a home cook, and showcase a unique voice.

Dash and Bella fits that brief. And Berkeley’s Phyllis Grant, a former New York City pastry chef “who tired quickly of sugar and burning her forearms and never sleeping,” is behind the blog, recently named one of the top 100 food mom blogs by Babble.

Grant slow cooks with her kids and blog namesakes Dash, 4, and Bella, 9, and isn’t afraid to throw in an f-bomb or two in posts on everything from whole beast cooking to making popcorn ice cream. Her witty and insightful musings about cooking while mothering — no chicken nuggets or plain pasta in sight  — have caught the attention of The New York Times, food52, and Real Simple.

Grant, 41, lives in the Elmwood with her husband, filmmaker Matt Ross. Just back from the Sundance Film Festival where Ross’s “Twenty-Eight Hotel Rooms” was screened, she answered questions between tending to a sick daughter, a teary son, and a senile dog.

What prompted you to start your food blog?

Two and a half years ago, I was hanging full time with my kids, taking a lot of photographs, and cooking like crazy. I was also writing a lot about parenting (just to friends). It was the summer the “Julie & Julia” movie came out, and my mother forwarded me an email about a “Be like Julie/Cook like Julia” blogging contest. I spent a crazy day cooking with my kids out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (leg of lamb and crème caramel) and then I wrote about it. I won the contest (and every Julia Child cookbook and an enormous Le Creuset Dutch oven). I also “won” an instant readership. So I kept posting.

What’s your philosophy on feeding children?

I’m brave and relaxed when it comes to kids and food. I really despise food deemed kid-friendly. I think the dumbing down of anything for kids is a mistake. I’m very passionate about cooking, but I’m also very practical and I never stress about what my kids are eating (or not eating). I cook almost every day with my kids. I’m a big fan of putting food in front of my kids, even if they hated it the week before, even if it brings on tears.

My son eats everything. I’ll give him unusual foods just to see if he’ll eat them (snail, sardines, anchovies, and frogs, to name a few). Lately, my daughter is subsisting on pizza, pasta, and bagels.

I gleefully put a chef’s knife in my four-year old’s hand, I let my nine-year old daughter use the oven when I’m out of the house (don’t tell my husband). I’ve gotten a lot of grateful emails from (mostly) women saying that, thanks to my blog, they now believe they can cook with their kids, whereas before it just felt impossible. That’s so gratifying.

Kids in the kitchen: Dash and Bella, accomplished home cooks and recipe testers. Photos: Phyllis Grant

What do you think you bring to blogging that is different?

Many food blogs have a similar structure post after post, and sometimes I really crave that consistency. But the truth is, I never know what kind of story I’m going to tell until I sit down and sift through my photos and notes. I like the element of surprise. With the cow butchery post, for example, I assumed I would just talk about the class, introduce the other students, and teach my readers a thing or two. Instead it became an emotional post about a dream, the death of the cow, and the beautiful balance of strength and subtlety required in butchery.

Savory galette featured on Dash and Bella. Photo: Phyllis Grant

How does being a former pastry chef impact how you cook with your kids?

I know how to be meticulous. But usually I’m not: my daughter cleans up after me. I’m very confident with the techniques of baking; my kids now know how to fold egg whites into a chocolate batter, make caramel, and measure like scientists.

How does Berkeley inform your cooking?

The way my parents raised me impacts my cooking choices more than Berkeley does, though I grew up here. We sat down to dinner together every night. My parents made some kick-ass beautiful food. They just kept the food coming. And that’s what I’m doing with my kids. Over and over again. Consistency seems like the best parenting tool in the world. It really works.

What’s good (and bad) about the Berkeley food scene?

You can’t get a good bagel here and that frustrates me daily. But you really can get everything else.

You’re a “mommy” blogger who swears like a trooper. Discuss.

I do anguish about the f-bombs on my blog. But for anyone who knows me (or is friends with me on Facebook), it’s how I talk, it’s how I write, and I think part of my blog’s appeal is the fact that my writing is very conversational. And parenting is so bleeping hard. I have a lot to swear about.

Is your blog a hobby, a passion, a way to make money, a chance to create community, a place to document life, all of the above or something else entirely?

All of the above. And it helps me stay sane. Writing about parenting gives me some perspective. There’s drama, stress, anxiety, and intensity. Writing about it brings about some much needed lightness — and a sense of purpose.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I don’t even know what I’m doing next week. Hopefully washing my hair and shaving my legs (those tasks never make it to the top of my list). In five years, I hope I’m still cooking, photographing, and writing every single day.

The cooking, like the prose, is sometimes spicy, sometimes sweet. Photo: Phyllis Grant

Do you have a couple of favorite blog posts that you care to share?

I usually write about something that has just happened in my kitchen, but in September I wrote a post about concord grapes, living in New York City on 9/11, watching the World Trade Centers fall, and working with pastry chef Heather Ho, who was killed in the attack. I have never written a blog post so quickly. I was so grateful to have a built-in audience for that.

And just a few weeks ago, I posted about parenting in a new way. I needed a break so badly; I was completely overwhelmed by my children and my life. It was scary to post it. I didn’t want to come off as too crazy and hormonal and impatient (all of which I can be). But it really resonated with so many people, many of them men.

Are you part of a food blogging community?

I’m not. I guess I feel more and more like a parenting blogger. And maybe someday someone will say: “Phyllis Grant is a writer. She tells stories about cooking, kids, and parenting.” I like the sound of that.

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside. You might also like:

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Images: Courtesy of Great Schools

What parent who packs school lunch for his child couldn’t use a little help?

Indeed, for many a mom and dad, making school lunch is the bane of their back-to-school existence. The thought of getting the offspring out the door on time with a healthy and affordable lunch in tow — that doesn’t just come back home — is enough to send even the most together adult into a tizzy.

It need not be so. In two posts for the site Great Schools this week, I offer up some solutions to the lunch box blues.

The first piece provides seven strategies for school lunch success. J.M. Hirsch, food editor for The Associated Press, who blogs about making lunch for his son at Lunch Box Blues, walks parents through simple steps that can take the stress out of making school lunch.

In the second story, School Lunches From Around the World, find global inspiration and recipe links to help spice up what winds up in your child’s lunch.

Happy Packing.

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Oyster farmer and educator Luc Chamberland in Tomales Bay. Photo: Gwendolyn Meyer

Luc Chamberland thinks oyster farming is often misunderstood. That’s why the aquaculturist wants to educate the public about the benefits of cultivating bivalves in Tomales Bay, a pristine estuary in West Marin, Calif.

A recent, high-profile controversy surrounding a commercial oyster farm in the area has focused on the potentially negative environmental impacts of cultivating oysters (namely disruption to native species).

But Chamberland sees oyster farming as a sustainable practice that does more good than harm.

That’s why, a few years ago, he conceived of Pickleweed Point Community Oyster Farm– a kind of CSA for the briny bivalve — so that the public can, quite literally, grow their own oysters, and in the process better understand the critical role oysters play in maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

Chamberland has about 25 participants — some as young as 6 and some as old as 80 — who pay $100 for the privilege of hands-on oyster farming lessons. Each spends an average of 8-12 hours a year maintaining their oyster plot. “If the water is healthy then our oysters are healthy,” he says. “The health department requires frequent water quality testing with oysters, so they’re a great water quality indicator.”

Members are shown how to load Pacific oyster “seeds” (young oysters about the size of a penny) into wire-like mesh bags, which are then numbered, tied to a line, and released into the intertidal region of the bay, where waves, wind, and filter feeding are routine.

This oyster farmer was inspired to launch Pickleweed after learning about a similar community farm in Washington. It is a labor of love Chamberland tends to on nights and weekends; he has a day job as a project manager for an oceanographic and wetland restoration company.

Chamberland talks oyster culture with a school group. Photo: Christopher Lim

Chamberland also hosts school field trips to the farm for local middle and high school students, organized through the community farm’s fiscal sponsor, The Watershed Project. Chamberland began working with The Watershed Project as a volunteer and was impressed by their native oyster restoration work in the Bay Area. He approached the project for support, as he thought they’d make a good fit for his idea.

The feeling was mutual. “Other farms may give a tour of their facility, but Luc actually wants students to be an oyster farmer for the day,” says Christopher Lim, the Living Shoreline program manager for The Watershed Project. “So he has students take on the tasks an oyster farmer would perform,” Lim says. “He also emphasizes the connection between good water quality and healthy, delicious oysters. And he explains the different methods of oyster farming in the area.”

Chamberland named his latest underwater endeavor for its proximity to vast beds of pickleweed, an intertidal vegetation whose color can change from a deep olive to a radiant purple, depending on the time of day and the season.

The 50-year-old French Canadian has been in the oyster business for some time; he was one of the first abalone farmers in the area, and he helped launch Hog Island Oyster Company’s Bar in the San Francisco Ferry Building.

As you might expect from an oyster farmer with a restaurant background, Chamberland is as concerned about the taste of his product as he is about water quality. “Just as the grapes that make wine reflect the soil they’re grown in, the same is true for oysters and water,” he says. “Different waters have different flavors. I call this aqua-terroir.”

Typically, Tomales Bay oysters have a mild cucumber flavor, firm texture, and a briny finish, says Chamberland, who notes that the bay — surrounded as it is by the Point Reyes National Seashore, a state park, and protected land — makes it an ideal location for oyster cultivation.

Oysters act as a natural, aquatic filtration system: They remove suspended materials in the water, allowing more light to reach submerged aquatic plants such as sea grasses. In turn, these sea grasses provide nursery habitat for a diverse population of fish and invertebrates, Lim explains. Oysters are what’s known as a keystone species; bringing up oyster populations can increase eelgrass and critters that live in eelgrass, such as crabs, worms, and amphipods, which in turn become food for salmon, herring, and birds.

"Pickleweed Point is a natural fit for an area known for its emphasis on community, organic food, and collaborative efforts." - Oyster Culture by Gwendolyn Meyer and Doreen Schmid. Photo: Gwendolyn Meyer

In her book Oyster Culture, Gwendolyn Meyer explores the history of bivalve farming in West Marin and its impact on the social and physical landscape of this timeless, pastoral setting. From her perspective, Pickleweed Point fits in well in an area dotted with mid-sized ranches, dairies, and farms that are popular with local eaters. “This is another opportunity for people who want to get more familiar with their food source,” she says.

Individual members can eat the oysters they grow, but Chamberland doesn’t expect the first substantial community Pickleweed Point harvest until the spring of next year. (He’s in the process of getting certified to handle and sell oysters to the public.) At that point, he estimates around 5-10,000 oysters will be ready, for those who enjoy an icy, sweet-salty hit on the half-shell.

He’s also working with The Watershed Project to bring youth from the nearby, under-resourced city of Richmond out to the wilds of West Marin to learn about oysters. “I find youth are fascinated by this kind of water-based farming,” says Chamberland. “I want to give students the opportunity to learn how to be stewards of the environment; the fact that you get to eat the fruits of your labor is a bonus.”

To learn more about Pickleweed Point Community Oyster Farm, including a fundraising event for the farm this Sunday in Sebastapol, visit their Facebook page.

This post originally appeared on Grist and was republished by Civil Eats.

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One of CANFIT's programs is the MO Project which uses media and technology to encourage youth to advocate for nutrition and physical activity issues in their schools and community. Photo: CANFIT

Arnell Hinkle, the founding executive director of CANFIT (which stands for Communities, Adolescents, Nutrition, and Fitness) may be based in downtown Berkeley, but her work to improve the lives of low-income youth of color takes her across the country and around the globe.

She has been involved in development projects in India, Ecuador and Scotland, and spent last year on a Fullbright public policy fellowship in Wellington, New Zealand working with Maori and Pacific Island groups.

A kind of community food coach for young folk, the registered dietician who holds a masters in public health has worked as a restaurant chef, organic farmer, and as a project coordinator of the Hunger and Chronic Disease Prevention Program at the Contra Costa County Health Services Department.

CANFIT was founded in 1993 as the result of a class-action suit that charged the company General Foods with fraudulent, misleading, and deceptive advertising in marketing sugary cereals to children. Initially the small nonprofit addressed concerns of teens only in California, working on policy matters such as after-school physical activity and snack guidelines for the Department of Education. Berkeley Youth Alternatives was one of the first local groups assisted by the health promotion program.

Now, CANFIT offers training and technical assistance to help communities across the nation. Its goal: preventing obesity and other chronic lifestyle diseases by improving access to safe, affordable, culturally appropriate, and healthy food. It also focuses on physical activity after school for low-income adolescent youth in urban or rural settings, and ethnic-specific organizations.

Hinkle, who jokingly describes herself as ageless, lives in South Berkeley with her husband. She has received numerous awards for her work, including from the Rockefeller and Robert Wood Johnson foundations and the American Public Health Association. In 2009-2010 she was an IATP Food and Community Fellow.

How do you relate to youth?

I come from a similar background, so I can talk from my experience, growing up poor in St. Louis, eating overcooked vegetables and meat at every meal — a very Midwestern diet.  And then I talk about learning about health and how I came to be doing what I’m doing and why I do it.

I also talk about how your food is a part of who you are but it doesn’t have to define you. Sometimes people will say I won’t eat that because that’s “white people” food — say, something like the sprouts in this sandwich — and you have to kind of tear that apart: why is it that you have that perception?

We work on getting youth to understand that if they eat a more nutrient-rich diet they’ll feel more satisfied. At the same time we recognize real concerns, like that fast food places may be the safest place in a community for youth to hang out.

How did you get into this line of work?

As a teen, I was part of an after-school program, where I met other kids from around the city, and one of my friends was a vegetarian. I must have been about 14, and I remember thinking: okay, there are other ways of eating.

My mom worked so I often had to start the family meal. I did a lot of experimenting with cooking, baking, trying different foods. I liked to cook. I ended up getting a scholarship to Princeton and so I went away to school and as  a way to earn money I started catering events. And when I got out of school I realized I needed a skill. I had a great education but no skill.

So I applied to a culinary school in Boston but, in the meantime, a friend took me to Martha’s Vineyard and I fell in love with the place and ended up getting a summer job at this old hotel that had a European-trained chef and he took me on as an apprentice. I figured I’d learn more from this chef than I would at culinary school so I stayed through the winter and then for another three years after that working at different places.

I worked cheffing for about seven years, catering, restaurants, and at a retreat center. It was when I started growing things — and working with the soil — that I realized a lot of what I was serving people, cream, butter, and meat, wasn’t very good for them. That’s when my interest in nutrition began.

A CANFIT after-school wellness learning community program in Oakland in May this year. Photo: CANFIT

What’s the most rewarding aspect of your work and the biggest challenge?

That’s easy: the best part is going into communities, making relationships, and seeing the light bulb go on around change and how it can improve individual and community health. The toughest part: funding. Now, we get smaller amounts of money for shorter amounts of times with a lot more guidelines attached to it.

Does being in Berkeley help or hinder what you do?

Well personally, it’s great because I live a mile from my job, so I get to walk to work. And it’s a great place to live. But we haven’t worked on a project here in years. Sometimes coming from here is a detriment because so often when people hear Berkeley they think: you have it all made and you have no issues as far as food is concerned.

Any projects of note you’d like to mention?

We work with an American Indian reservation community in Arizona who are trying to return to their traditional foods, both growing them and having them served in their schools and senior centers, foods like corn, beans, desert plants. They even opened their own cafe.

Our Mo Project, a contest for youth who shoot their own 90 second PSAs on bringing about healthy change in their communities, is pretty inspiring.

Now that we have adolescents’ attention and have made progress getting them plugged into food and community health, we’re working on how we can get youth to become the next generation of leaders on these issues. We’re developing a guide on food-system careers for low-income youth of color.

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside and republished on Civil Eats.

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Ten Teens Rocking the Food Revolution Scene
Berkeley Bites: Tanya Henderson

The panoramic alpine views draw outdoor lovers to the Berkeley-run Echo Lake Camp

As we head into the final long weekend of the season, the proverbial last hurrah of summer, it’s time for reflection on summer vacation (mis)adventures before fall sets in and school gets going in earnest.

Which brings to mind bad camp food. Specifically, the truly awful eats served at the Berkeley-run Echo Lake Camp. It’s shocking, really, that a city known for fine food and charming cheap chow can’t seem to dish up anything vaguely edible not-so-far from home.

The dining hall at Echo Lake Camp

The really woeful food on offer was a source of bonding among the 50 or so campers on the weekend we attended Echo Lake Camp in early August. We’re talking mystery meat, industrial, processed glop, and pathetic produce. Meals as misery.

Here’s the back story: on a whim, this reporter opted for a getaway with a friend and our kids to the lovely Echo Lake, gateway to the vast Desolation Wilderness, in the southern end of the Tahoe Basin region. A cursory check drew rave reviews for the location and family-friendly fun. No one mentioned the food.

During the week, local kids head to this camp for adventures in the wild without parents. On the weekends, the camp is open to families and others drawn to the area’s outdoor activities, including access to stellar Sierra mountain range hiking along the Pacific Crest Trail and Tahoe Rim Trail.

Working up an appetite canoeing at Echo Lake Camp

It’s the low-key alternative to the better-known family camps, Berkeley’s Tuolumne Family Camp and San Francisco’s Camp Mather – both closed to campers at times this year due to outbreaks of gastroenteritis, known as the “Tuolumne trots.”

(More on this, alas, later. Oh, hell, let’s get it over with now: I got sick, acutely ill, in fact, on Day Two at Echo Lake, despite bringing enough hand sanitizer to serve the Armed Forces.)

Back to the matter at hand: Five of us — including a birthday boy — piled into a car on a Friday afternoon in August (hello traffic jam) for a weekend of swimming, canoeing, and hiking.

With work obligations and day camp schedules, an earlier departure wasn’t possible, so we knew we’d encounter some congestion on the road.

No worries. As savvy Berkeley parents we’d packed accordingly: Summer Kitchen marinara pizza, Kirala vegetarian sushi and Love at First Bite mini cupcakes, in honor of said birthday boy. Unfortunately, both moms hadn’t had time for lunch, the kids were ravenous from running around all day, and the freeway looked like a parking lot for long stretches of the trip. Needless to say, hunger and boredom got the better of us all and pretty much everything was scarfed up before we’d seen a pine tree.

We made it to camp before dark. Dumped our bags in the as-advertised but perfectly acceptable rustic accommodations, and headed to the dining hall in search of food. In fairness, we’d missed the dinner hour, so we were forced to make do with stale garlic bread and chunks of unknown animal matter in a scary-looking sauce. We divided up what we had left over from the car ride — seaweed salad and a couple of cupcakes — got the kids some milk, and called it a night.

On the way to breakfast the next morning this one-time investigative reporter noted the presence of bear boxes (we were under the erroneous impression none existed and there’s no mention of them on the camp website). Bear boxes meant that a bag of groceries and a small cooler of home-cooked food could have come on our travels and saved us some grief. Note to self: don’t make that mistake again.

Nothing this appealing was dished up when we attended Echo Lake Camp

Breakfast consisted of commercial cereal, sugar-laden yogurt, serviceable eggs, and French toast. The kids consumed the toast, but its odd texture and color put this eater off. We were invited to make our own sandwiches for lunch, and the ingredients included processed meats and cheese, condiments loaded with additives, and ordinary sliced bread — along with bruised apples and out-of-season oranges that were disappointingly dry when peeled by thirsty hikers along the trail.

Everyone tried to make the best of the slim pickings, but hunger really set in by dinner time. Maybe at this meal things would look up? Not likely. The vegetarian enchiladas were simply inedible. This camper was actually forced to discreetly deposit the only mouthful she tried into a napkin bound for the compost bin. The nine-year-old who picked the same dish just wrinkled her nose and didn’t touch a bite. I opted for the frozen vegetable medley, which seemed the safest bet at the time.

Oh dear. By now there was plenty of grumbling among the unhappy campers, not just our crew — and not just my stomach. One dad confessed his vegetarian family of four was having a hard time finding enough to eat. He said earnestly: “My kids are pretty committed to never coming back.” Somehow this wording struck me as funny at the time.

A seasoned hiker, part of a group of seniors taking wildflower walks that weekend, lamented the lousy food while mentioning that Camp Tuolumne, where she’d been earlier in the summer, served tastier meals. It’s been a few years, but if memory serves me correctly, I’d have to agree.

Regardless, since I caught a bug, I spent the last day subsisting on Cheerios.

Photos courtesy of (unofficial) Echo Lake Camp site: If only the food looked this good

Here’s what we all decided: it wouldn’t take a lot of tweaking to make the camp food more palatable: homemade granola with plain yogurt for breakfast, served with in-season, local fruit. Hummus and pesto instead of processed cold cuts and industrial relish for lunch. Rice and beans or pasta with made-from-scratch tomato sauce, in a nod to summer’s bounty, for dinner. Fresh corn. Salad greens instead of iceberg lettuce. Nothing fancy, minimal cooking, filling and nourishing nonetheless.

Presumably it’s challenging to find trained kitchen staff for such seasonal work and managing a program from afar, as the city does, may impact campers’ on-site dining experiences. And, of course, cost may be a factor. The camp is as cheap as chips: $50 a night for adults and $30-$42 for kids. But this writer would be willing to wager that Berkeley folks would pay a little extra to get some decent grub. After all, there’s nothing like the great outdoors to work up a hearty appetite.

Come Sunday afternoon we loaded the ravenous brood into the automobile and set out in search of food. Everyone ate an astounding amount at the River Grill in Tahoe City; you could sense the shift in mood as each person got stuck into some satisfying real food.

We devoured vine-ripened tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella with micro-greens and green chard raviolis stuffed with goat cheese and portabello mushrooms. And, as we ate, we adults debated whether or not we were just, you know, Berkeley food snobs raising kids who will have a tough time finding chow to rival what’s on offer in this town, flush as it is with farmers’ markets, global groceries, and organic, unprocessed foods.

What say you readers?

Hat tip: Margaret P, who endured two days of unappetizing eats with this writer and a trio of hungry children. 

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside.

Images here come from the unofficial Echo Lake Camp site by Bayard Geis.

Happy campers at Sprouts Cooking Club. Photo: Anna Dmitruk

The long foggy days of summer in Berkeley mean summer camp for many kids. In such a food-focused town it’s not surprising to learn that camps designed to encourage edible adventures are popular among the next generation of home cooks and potential professional chefs.

What may surprise you is the skills the young students master, like making pasta from scratch, using a culinary blowtorch, and preparing a four-course family meal. And the lessons the children learn: following a recipe is mostly a good thing, sometimes a dish missing many of its ingredients doesn’t taste so great, and working as a team means sitting down sooner to eat the culinary creations.

For young ones in town there are several cooking camps to choose from; we spotlight three here where children learn kitchen techniques such as knife skills, measuring and mixing, and reading a recipe, along with cleaning up and the pleasure of enjoying a meal together.

Spun Sugar: Sweetie Camp

In the kitchen with this week's campers at Spun Sugar. Photo: Sarah Henry

Location: 1611 University Avenue at California Street

Logistics: 9:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m., ages 7 to 12, max. group size 12. Cost: $300. CITS: typically 14 and older. Teens 13-17 can sign up for “Teen Daze,” where they can take regular adult baking and cake-decorating classes.

Instructors: Owner Linda Moreno and executive pastry chef Mitchell Hughes

Spun Sugar campers make pizza dough as instructor Mitchell Hughes looks on. Photo: Sarah Henry

Point of Difference: Despite the name, and the retail store’s rep as a cake decorator-baker-candy maker-sweet artist’s frosting fantasy, the campers make a multi-course meal which they eat together before class ends. Recipe book comes home. Family members invited to eat on one day.

On the menu: Split pea soup, roast chicken, mac & cheese, sauteed vegetable medley and apple tart.

What the instructor says: “I’ve taught kids who are now in their 20s that still use the recipes they learned here,” said Moreno. “Children in Berkeley are not afraid to try different foods and they’re open to exploring layering ingredients to create different flavors.”

Sam Siegel with the hamburger cupcakes he made. Photo: Traci Siegel

What the campers say: “As a camper, you learn lots of cool techniques and you get to make everything from scratch from start to finish,” said Sam Siegel, 12, who has attended the camp four times and worked as a C.I.T. (counselor-in-training), the past two weeks. “As a CIT you move around more and help different kids, making sure they’re not messing up the recipe or using knives unsafely.” Siegel, an accomplished home cook, is making intricately decorated cup cakes for his own birthday celebration today, based on skills he picked up at classes he’s taken at Spun Sugar. He also caters bar mitzvahs with his cake pops, cookies and brownies.

“It was fun, but we couldn’t taste what we made along the way, so I was hungry by the time we sat down to eat,” said former camper Mayumi Rubin-Saika, 12. “But we got really great goodie bags.”

“I like that we get to work in teams and make everything from appetizers to deserts,” said Eva Collins, 12, who wants to be a baker. “As a vegetarian, I’m glad that we mostly cook things I can eat,” added her twin, Jane.

Monkey Business Camp: Outdoor Cooking

Making tofu-veggie skewers for Outdoor Cooking at Monkey Business Camp.

Location: Tilden Park

Logistics: 8:30-3:30, ages 5-6.5, 6.5-7, and 8-10. Group size: 30-40 for 5-7s, 20 for 8-10s. CITs 11-15, JCs 14+. Cost: $325

Point of difference: Cooking and eating mostly organic, vegetarian offerings, surrounded by trees.

On the menu: Pad Thai, barbecued vegetable skewers, wontons, solar oven berry crisp.

Instructors: Camp counselors including Ari Stachel, Gabe Damast, Gabe Vergez, and Laura Barry. Cheese tasting by founder-director Heather Mitchell.

Monkey Business campers cut fruit for salsa.

What the instructor says: “We encourage campers to consider what we can create outdoors without electricity and just our own inventiveness,” said Monkey Business summer program director Amber Potter. “Berkeley kids are adventurous eaters who have experienced a wide range of international cuisine.”

What the campers say: “There’s nothing like eating in nature; food just tastes better,” said Gabe Henry Woody, 12, a CIT this week and, full disclosure, the offspring of this writer. “It was a bummer when the pedal-powered bike blender malfunctioned but the strawberry salsa still tasted good.”

“I knew we’d get to make ice cream, because I’ve been here before, which is one reason I came back,” said Miles DeRosa, 10. “The pad Thai was missing some of the liquid ingredients, so it was really just peanut noodles but it’s good to experiment when you cook.”

“I learned that when cheese ages it doesn’t mean it’s old and that the mold on blue cheese is good for you and doesn’t mean it’s gone bad,” said Laila Diaz, 8. “I still didn’t like it — it tasted too strong.”

Sprouts Cooking Club

In the kitchen with Sprouts Cooking Club campers. Photo: Anna Dmitruk

Location: Moveable feast: Drop off at either Whole Foods Berkeley or Downtown Berkeley BART for transit to San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market.

Logistics: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., ages 7-13, CITs ages 14-17. Group size: 10-14, $450.

Point of difference: A non-profit that works with professional chefs from local restaurants, including in Berkeley: Revival, La Mediterranee, Phoenix Pastificio, Oakland: Pizzaiolo, Bakesale Betty and Camino, and San Francisco: Locanda, Flour + Water, and Tartine Bakery.

Instructors: Leah Brooks for Sprouts, in addition to professional guest chefs.

On the menu: Tortellini and gnocchi from scratch, hummus and baklava, freshly-pulled mozzarella, gluten-free beet cupcakes with cashew frosting, salted caramel mousse.

What the instructor says: “Kids are excited by food and their take on food and nutrition is without bias or prior expectation,” said Sprouts Cooking Club founder Karen Rogers. “They are motivated to touch, try and taste on their own. They ask honest questions and their reactions are raw and real.”

What the campers say: “I really liked that we got to make different stuff every day,” said recent camper Anna Goodman, 12. “This camp is for kids who like to experiment with food.” Fellow camper Mayumi Rubin-Saika agreed. The only downside in Rubin-Saika’s mind: “It sometimes took a lot of time for the counselors to set up for the cooking activities.”

“I wanted to learn how to flambe and they taught us how to use a culinary blowtorch, which was way cool,” said Julia Sweeney, 13, a CIT who has taken Sprouts classes and camps for three years and who went with the club on a culinary trip to France this spring. “I make the chicken masala I learned at Sprouts all the time. I like the camp because it’s real chefs working in their own real kitchens.”

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside.

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FLOTUS, also known as First Lady Michelle Obama, is scheduled to have breakfast at a political fundraiser tomorrow in Berkeley, where slow food legend Alice Waters and friends will whip up something seasonal, sustainable, local, organic, and, let’s hope, delicious — since supporters are forking out $1,000-$25,000 a piece to break bread (an Acme garlic loaf, the first from the Edible Schoolyard no less) with the Commander-in-Chief’s wife.

Waters is a fan of Obama’s efforts to get folks to eat well and move more. “Her dedication to children’s healthy eating has been an inspiration to all of us here at Chez Panisse,” said an email from Alice herself. “The menu will be a celebration of these ideals, featuring organic ingredients from local farmers and purveyors around the Bay Area.” Obama, of course, values Waters’ impressive work to improve school lunch around the country and champion school cooking and gardening programs through her Chez Panisse Foundation.

The woman who recently unveiled the fed’s new food icon My Plate and strives to combat childhood obesity through her Let’s Move campaign is in the Bay Area to raise money for hubbie’s 2012 re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The event will be held at the toney Claremont Hotel, Club, and Spa on the Berkeley-Oakland border, a local landmark, known for its regal white facade, killer views, and expensive club membership.

The hotel has been spiffing itself up in anticipation of Obama’s visit, wrote Berkeleyside, which noted the recent appearance of two raised planting beds near one Claremont entrance. The post prompted one resident to write: “Will the Claremont also be hiring cute, chubby children to conspicuously exercise in areas Michelle Obama might pass through?”

The Claremont Hotel's modest attempt at growing greens./Photo: Sarah Henry

Lettuce Eat Kale swung by the hotel yesterday and can report that one bed boasts new tomato plants, another starters, including radish, carrot, and parsley. But who among us hasn’t tidied up a bit before important guests come over? And when I interviewed executive chef Josh Thomsen a few months ago he mentioned plans for a veggie patch in close proximity to the hotel’s fine-dining Meritage restaurant. Fair enough.

No doubt the hotel is a flurry of activity today, as an army of folks clean and polish in anticipation of the event. There’s something else they might want to pay attention to. The wording on the sign outside the hotel, which doesn’t, ah, seem in keeping with the First Lady’s or Water’s message of (mostly) eating home-cooked meals made from scratch:

And, while we’re on the subject of staying on message: What happened to plans for another fundraising breakfast event the same morning at the Golden State Warriors’ practice center in downtown Oakland? Both breakfast events, keep in mind, are being hosted by Oakland politicians Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Mayor Jean Quan.

The basketball facility is in the heart of a city where food deserts and hunger are a significant problem, and children struggle with alarming rates of early-onset diabetes and other dietary health problems. And Oakland doesn’t have an Alice Waters in the schools or Berkeley’s enviable cooking and garden program. School food advocates there face an uphill battle to bring quality fresh food to children.

Maybe the event got cancelled due to logistical or security reasons. Regardless, local residents, like James Berk, the young owner-member of the Mandela Foods Cooperative, might have welcomed knowing that Michelle was in town, fighting the good food fight on their behalf, let alone being offered a place at the table.

Over in Berkeley most folks will likely grumble about traffic delays due to her security detail. And club members at the Claremont? They’ll probably just want to make sure they get their early morning swim, tennis game, or gym workout in before the First Lady swoops in for, perhaps, free-range eggs with artisan goat cheese and freshly foraged greens.

You might also enjoy:

The First Lady of Food
Fed Up With School Lunch: The Fed’s Join the Fray
White House Farmers’ Market: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
What’s Cooking in the First Family’s Kitchen?
Alice Waters’ 40 Year Campaign for Good Food
New School Food Study: Victory for Alice Waters
Cultivating Controversy: In Defense of an Edible Education
Surgeon General Swings by Edible Schoolyard
Josh Thomsen Gathers Local Talent for Berkeley Wine Festival
Oakland’s Farm Fresh Approach to School Food
James Berk of Mandela Foods Brings Produce to His People