The Community Dinner: Prepared and Shared with Student Inspiration

The Community Dinner–always the highlight of Food Week–was quite a treat this year.

Students opted to shift from what had been our “traditional” menu of veggie chili, salad with homemade dressing, and cornbread to a pasta dinner. They rocked it, and the menu went like this:

• Spaghetti with Homemade Veggie Red Sauce (including produce from the MHS school garden!)

• A gluten free version of the above (extra thanks for that one guys!) ——————–>

 

• Mixed green salad with shredded beets and carrots dressed with scratch vinaigrette

• Fresh shredded Parmesan (Oh, Alberta Co-op how cheesy you made us!)

 

• Homemade kale chips
• A dark chocolate candy heart for dessert

As ever, it was a delight to share the kitchen with students. I was, yet again, impressed with their organization and ability to get dinner “on the table” for nearly 100 people on time and without a hitch.

A huge shout out of appreciation to the many wonderful businesses that made donations

Also, a big thanks to Susan  MHS for letting me co-coordinate again this year. Keepin’ wind in my sails that food education belongs in high schools.

MM

MHS 3rd Annual Community Dinner TONIGHT!

Susan and I are forecasting that this will be the largest Community Dinner to date! Please join us for a meal prepared and served by MHS students!

2/20/2014=One month from MHS’ 2014 Community Dinner!

This theme  of this year’s Madison High School’s Food Week is “Home Grown: Oregon Food and Agriculture”. Head’s up, the annual Community Dinner–a by donation meal prepared and served by students– is Thursday, March 20th at the MHS cafeteria. Mark your calendars and spread the word!

It is, for the third year in a row, my pleasure to work with Susan Wiencke (MHS’ Sustainable Agriculture Pioneer) as co-coordinator for Madison High School’s Food Week –March 17th-21st. 

Food Week 2014

March comes quickly MHS Senators & Community,  so Susan and I met last week to begin the “official” talking, planning, scheming.

Do you want to see (er, taste) something in particular during this year’s Food Week? These are the weeks to speak up. 

Also, if you have any donations, contacts, or funding you’d like to contribute, our hands our open. 

Of course, our hearts are already yours…

MM & SW

It happened in May. Now it’s October, and I’m still flattered about this one!

Back in May, Jamie Oliver (yes, that Jamie with the hair, the accent, the  delightfully delvislish grin, and uhh, that inspiring level of commitment to educating and inspiring youth to eat well) caught word of The Curriculum of Cuisine, and Seeds of Cuisine pilot program. It’s safe to say I’ve been wholly flattered, and partially flabbergasted about this recognition since then, and perhaps that’s why it’s taken me so long to share. 

Inhale, exhale, swoon–here is the story, Jamie featured TCC and The Seeds of Cuisine on his amazing site, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, check it out:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/news-content/planting-the-seeds-of-cuisine-with-food-

My plan is to keep pestering his “people” so that maybe he’d be a guest chef with TCC next year?

Sounds like a good idea to me!

MM

An Overdue Announcement

Ms. Wiencke in action!

Here we are already a couple of  weeks into the school year and I have failed to get the great news up about Susan’s, I mean Ms. Wiencke’s  new, well-earned roll at Madison High School.

Ms. Susan is now officially the teacher of record for Sustainable Agriculture and Urban Farming. These classes are linked with Clackams Community College, and provide incredible opportunities for participating students relative to earning college credit, experiential learning, and career possibilities.

Big props to Ms. Susan and the many at MHS who helped germinate this CTE-driven model from a seedling to a viable and vivacious learning opportunity for MHS students!

Such good work.

MM

Edible Schoolyard Props!

Imagine my surprise last week (8/14) when I awoke to an email from a wonderful lady-friend-colleague at Ecotrust saying “Congrats!” followed by the link you will find below. 

I clicked on the link to discover that Edible Schoolyard had made The Curriculum of Cuisine (and Seeds of Cuisine) part of their news of the week, and programs to follow-WOW!

Now, if only they had mentioned something about needing to secure stakeholders and schools that are willing to commit to their interest….

Thank you, Edible Schoolyard–and the community of folks that continue encouraging this work!

Check it out:

http://edibleschoolyard.org/project-blog/2013/08/14/planting-seeds-cuisine-food-education-maggie-michaels

MM