Thanksgiving 2009

A school-wide Thanksgiving feast has been a tradition at Ida B. Wells for years.  The kitchen becomes a kitchen again in a different sense and we serve up a classic fare for the student body.   Teachers brought in cooked turkeys, hams, mashed potatoes and salad.

This year, my students contributed a few pies, and did much of the prep work.  While many of them were suspicious of the pumpkin pie we made, there is a magic pride that happens when you see your efforts put on a plate and served to others - and then see them enjoy it.  I had a few students come up to me and say how good it was too.

And this apple pie?  I had to fight people off so those who made it could at least see the results!

Thank you to Mrs. E. & Mrs. J. for carrying the responsibility for this feast for so many years and for sharing those valuable pearls of wisdom into this year. We hope you will be back in full force next year.

Pasta by Hand (and without a stove)

What we learned:

a) Hand making pasta takes a lot of elbow grease.

b) The mortar & pestle is one of the most satisfying pieces of equipment to use. Again.

c) We can do this without a stove, thanks to our rice steamer. Rice steamers can take a little bit of time to boil the water, but ours, which normally burns the rice, was completely up to the task (thank you Martin Aquino for your step by step enthusiasm in your 2007 blog entry about trying this out).

Also, we ended up getting more official and used our Friday cooking, eating and cleaning together combination to really focus on three work ethics:

Positive Response, Pride of Work & Staying within the Team.

It was delicious and satisfying, and reinforcing these practices is valuable for anyone at any age, including me.  Here is a link to the pasta lesson plan since it summarizes many of our efforts and the reasoning behind them.

logo work by student A.G.

pencil sketch...

...pen fill in....

...and neon glow added.

Trust

Tuesday, one of our students had her wallet taken in class. It is not the first time there has been a theft, but it is the first time in awhile. The wallet was found later, without the money, which helped her a little, since there were IDs and pictures more important to her in that wallet. The trust, however, has been broken again.

We are in our 12th week of class, and I've gotten to know and like the students, even (or especially) the ones who sometimes get defiant and tell me directly why they are acting that way. They are usually right on in their reasoning and just need guidance on a better way to express it. But trust is so important in any workplace. A restaurant, probably most enterprises, can't survive without a measure of trust - it is what allows a team to work together and create more than they could individually. It allows the love to come out. You are trusting me to supply you with a good meal, and I am trusting you to enjoy it, see the value in it and to pay for it so I can keep supplying good meals and a good place to be.

We all want more. But the way to more is not in the taking, it is in the giving. I might be getting all lofty-sounding, but experience tells us this and we feel this when we are actively working in a group and contributing - we can feel the fun. Trust is where it starts.

So our first fundraiser is for our class to recoup the loss. I've put the piggy bank out and we will see what happens.

Squash Time: Week 11

"I didn't know squash could taste this good!" - 2nd period student

It is hard to admit that for years, the only autumn squash I handled was the canned pumpkin for pumpkin pie. But, desperate for my own kids to start eating vegetables, I snuck spaghetti squash into the tomato sauce one night - they took it like an April fool's day joke, but ate in anyway, glaring at me and the injustice of it all. With a sigh, I still wish I had warned them, although the looks on their faces were a priceless payment for the experiment.

Then my sister roasted up butternut squash along with potatoes, olive oil, salt & rosemary one night. That was it, I was hooked for good. Now I watchfully wait for those butternut squashes to appear again every year. My kids do too, I'm happy to say.

For class, we made a classic butternut squash soup, baked it up with onions, garlic, a few apples and herbs. Pureed it and added water where needed and a touch of cream. Drizzled a little sage oil on top for accent (made by the students with the mortar & pestle) and then a little sour cream thinned with cream. And yes, we tried the spaghetti squash too (in full disclosure this time!) - and some liked it, others were politely quiet about tasting it. Group respect in tasting takes practice like everything else and warning ahead of time to curb negative responses helps keep the respect.

Prep-wise, it is important to halve the squashes with the students closely, and break down the squash to "hand size pieces" for peeling more easily. Butternut squash is a little more tender than some of the heritage squashes that are re-appearing, but it is still a hard-skinned item to maneuver. I wouldn't start doing this until you are comfortable with your student's awareness with knife handling and that they have developed a willingness to wait and observe while you finish the tougher task for the class, knowing that their turn is ahead.

Starter Wish List

Now that we have gotten through 10 weeks with a lightly filled piggy bank (thank you to those who have donated!) here is an initial list that has bubbled to the surface:

• Washer & Dryer (possibly with rough in)
• Hood    installed December 2009!
• small commercial dish machine set up with sink (possibly with rough in)
• Small dipper freezer thank you CTE!
• plumbed in Water filtration system
• Lexans and Cambros with lids (various sizes)
• simple pos system
• clock in punch system
• eventually, service ware for 50 people for events
• small table gift certificates to restaurants (many students have not eaten at a sit down restaurant and could review it as a reward assignment)
• a scholarship to CCSF's culinary program for Ida B. Wells
• 8-12 passenger mini or micro van, with option to remove back seating
• $100 per week for our food budget