Chef Inspires School Cooks

Food service staff from area schools bustle about the kitchen at North Winneshiek Community School.  They grab knives and cutting boards, eggplant and squash.  Their goal?  Turn mounds of fresh, local produce into ratatouille, a roasted vegetable dish that will be frozen and served as an entrée or incorporated into pizzas, calzones or burritos for school lunches this fall.

Chef Monique Hooker directs in a thick French accent, "clutch the leaves of basil and chhop, chhop, chhop."  The school cooks process the herbs, still fragrant from that mornings' harvest.  

Hooker has led similar 5th Season Workshops in Viroqua, Wisconsin where efforts are being made to revitalize home-cooked school meals.

The Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative invited Hooker to replicate the workshop as part of the region's Farm to School chapter. By encouraging the use of local, healthy foods and educating about the benefits of consuming such, the Food and Fitness Initiative is working to improve the health of children.  Northeast Iowa is one of nine projects in the country supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food & Community program.

Fourteen school cooks from Decorah, North Winneshiek, Turkey Valley, Oelwein and St. Mary's School of Guttenberg participated in the workshop.

The produce was purchased from local farms.  Supporting direct farm-to-school purchasing is one of the goals of the Farm to School program.

Chris Blanchard, owner of Rock Spring Farm, attended the workshop along with Ann Bushman from Annie's Gardens and Green.  Their vegetables and those from Patchwork Green Farm, and the North Winneshiek school garden were used.

"Farming is a physical manifestation of my values, and it provides me with a connection to the seasons, and the cycles of life.  Good food matters… food matters because you are what you eat," said Blanchard.

He expressed interest in selling produce to more schools, assuming he could find the right crop mix and receive fair prices.   The Food and Fitness Initiative is working to create the infrastructure to connect area farmers and schools.

"It doesn't surprise me that real food tastes better, but it does surprise me that people don't know how to prepare it," said Bushman.

In addition to the 5th Season Workshop, the Food and Fitness Initiative has offered several food safety trainings, educating kitchen staff how to properly handle local foods.  They have also provided mini-grants for schools to purchase kitchen equipment that will aid in the processing of local produce.  

As the vegetables roast in conventional ovens, equipment many school kitchens across the country no longer have, Hooker holds up a yellow vegetable. "Who knows what this is?"

A pattypan squash.  They are tasty roasted, according to the chef.

Chef Hooker's standards are high.  Trained professionally in Europe, and having operated a cooking school, catering company and restaurant in Chicago, she has written Cooking with the Seasons, an award-winning cookbook.

"I love Monique.  She is funny, educated, and the way she presents herself is awesome.  I would come to her seminar everyday," said Pat Rechkemmer who has been preparing meals at Oelwein School District since 1992.

The techniques and recipes used at the 5th Season Workshop can be reproduced in school kitchens, especially those that have food processors.  Although many kitchens are short on help, a group effort minimizes the work.  In just three hours, food service had prepared enough ratatouille to feed the entire school for two meals and enough for lunch that day.  

"I would love to make the ratatouille [again]. The high school kids would like it," said Rechkemmer.

At the end of the day, Hooker, the participants and the two farmers sit down for lunch in school cafeteria.

"You don't have to like it, you just have to try it," chuckles Hooker, a sentiment that kitchen staff may have to use when the ratatouille is defrosted for school lunch this year.   

The fate of the frozen ratatouille looks promising, as the group devours several piping hot ratatouille pizzas. 

By Flannery Cerbin, NE IA Food & Fitness Initiative, 8/10/10