cooking
Welcoming More Cooks in the Kitchen
by Edwin Yowell, Slow Food NYC
The New York City Department of Education’s SchoolFood serves about 860,000 meals (including about 180,000 breakfasts) to over 1,000,000 students daily. To achieve this mind-boggling feat, they manage more than 6,000 employees working in about 1,400 schools.
It’s a big job. The Department of Education welcomes a little help now and then.
On Friday, October 30, 2009, the Department of Education (DOE) initiated the Culinary Partners Forum, inviting individuals from organizations committed to helping SchoolFood provide healthier and more appetizing school breakfast and lunch.
Q & A With No Impact Man
by Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally
When Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, embarked on his experiment in low impact
living, he began to reassess just about every aspect of our daily lives: how we get around; how we shop; how we stay cool and keep warm; how we entertain ourselves; and, of course, how we eat. The production and distribution of food products requires an extraordinary amount of energy and has a huge impact on our environment. So, for the purposes of the project, Colin, his wife Michelle and their little daughter Isabella had to alter their eating habits radically.
Once his family switched to eating only foods produced within a 250-mile radius of New York City, the farmer's market became a regular ritual. Such American dietary staples as pizza, take-out chinese--even peanut butter sandwiches--became off-limits, either because they contained non-local ingredients or generated trash.
State Senator Velmanette Montgomery Co-Hosts Brooklyn High School Harvest Day Celebration
by Lynn Fredericks, FamilyCook Productions
Watching a swarm of inner city teens crunch golden delicious apples like they were candy and crowd in front of trays of quesadillas loaded with Swiss chard and apples was, well – pretty darn amazing!
America's Best High School Chef
This video chronicles the America's Best High School Chef competition held in April at Monroe College. Check it out to see high schoolers excited about preparing great food.
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Slow Food NYC's Harvest Time Program Steers Aspiring Mechanic From Cars To Cooking
Posted by Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally
Cars and fast food are partners in crime when it comes to undermining America's health. Our favorite mode of transportation deprives us of exercise, while our dependence on quick, cheap convenience foods cheats us of nutrients. We reportedly eat nearly a quarter of our meals in our cars, a practice that baffles folks in countries where taking time out to share a real meal with friends and family is still the norm.
But our landscape is changing, literally, and I found evidence of a nascent rebellion against our car-centric cuisine in a 
rather ironic place: the grounds that surround Automotive High School in Brooklyn. I first noticed squash vines growing outside the auditorium at this vocational high school in Williamsburg back in June when I attended a screening there of No Impact Man hosted by Rooftop Films.
I was intrigued, but had no idea that Automotive High School's edible landscaping was inspired by the school's participation in Slow Food NYC's Harvest Time program, whose mission is to create "a meaningful relationship between young people and their food and the environment by providing hands-on experiences, community engagement, and the enjoyment of good, healthful food."
August Open Networking Meeting
Innovations in Healthy Food Prep -
Nutrition Education, Foodservice, and Teen Catering
Join FSNYC members Tues, August 11th at the offices of the NYC Dept of Health and Mental Hygiene. We'll begin the program with the introduction of new Americorps VISTA member Kristin Pederson, and farewell to member Jane Shuput! Additional announcements include FSNYC's open search for a chairperson, and the implementation phase of our completed Strategic Plan. Come catch up!
Next Cathy Nonas, Director of Physical Activity & Nutrition Programs, NYCDOHMH, will lead the discussion about nutrition education and healthy food preparation with a presentation by Stefania Patinella, Children's Aid Society. Stefania will discuss her experiences building successful and innovative nutrition education, foodservice, and teen catering programs from the ground up. Larger discussion will include best practices and recent changes to the Child & Adult Care Food Program.
The Edible Garden Trend Spreads
Posted by Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally
Food Detective: Raw Soul
posted by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC
The last time I saw Lillian Butler was about two years ago when she was trying to start an organic, vegetarian food co-op upstairs from her small, vegan restaurant, Raw Soul, in Harlem. It was a calling. She said there was just not very much good, fresh food available in the neighborhood..a poor circumstance for health and taste.
I visited Lillian, and her partner Eddie Robinson, again this June. She is still trying to start a food co-op. “But,” she reports cheerfully, “food in the neighborhood is getting better.” And Raw Soul, the restaurant and the associated businesses, including catering, meal plans, cooking classes, mail order, and wholesaling, are aiding the change for the better.
SAMP SAGA
Posted by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC
Every year, with fellow Slow Food members of the East End (LI) Slow Food chapter, Grace and I hold a potluck dinner known as the Duck-off, the last one in February being the fifth annual. The objective is that everybody has to bring a new, original dish made with a real Long Island duck (the kind that look like Donald, not Daffy) and seasonal and local ingredients. We drink Long Island wine and locally made beer..you get the idea. (NB, In this, our fifth year, the competition was fierce: some eaters started rehearsing duck dishes months in advance and one experimented with duck confit-stuffed ravioli made with flour he ground from wild Long Island wheat.)
Anyway, for Duck-off 2009, I decided to make Duck Samp, Samp being a corn-based dish I sampled first at a Shinnecock
Nation festival held at their Cultural Center in Southampton. I asked a
Slow Food friend who has a Shinnecock friend to get me a Samp recipe. No dice. Apparently, Shinnecock grandmothers, like all others, don't part easily with treasured family recipes.
So I Googled Samp. Much to my surprise, Samp is a traditional Native American (Algonquin) and South African (Xhosa) culinary stand-by.
Samp, made primarily from hominy, is the English word derived from the Narragansett, Native American, word, Nasasump, a stew made from dried corn. (The Narragansett and Shinnecock are both Algonquin.)
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Youth Leadership: An Interview with Akeem Hyland
Posted by Lynn Fredricks, FamilyCook Productions Beginning early February 2009, NYC Brooklyn high school senior Akeem Hyland attended semi-monthly youth planning meetings of the NYC Food & Fitness Partnership [insert live link] for the first NYC Youth Forum & Expo [insert live link] on April 16th. There, Akeem helped lead a workshop and co-facilitated the special presentation: “Teen Iron Chef: The Final Battle.” The NYC Youth Forum was a very empowering day for the over 400 youth and their mentors who participated. Reflecting on his demonstrated commitment to sharing his new knowledge about food, cooking and healthy lifestyles, Akeem shares his reflections on his role as a youth leader in our greater NYC community.LF: Why do you think you have become so passionate about teaching others about food justice, cooking and making healthy food choices?AH: Well, not having good food available in my neighborhood, so that neither my family nor friends have healthy choices makes me want to help people in the same predicament is me. I recommend they reach out and go further than the local bodega, and quit fast food and start active living and eating healthier food. It tastes really good and it will improve your health.LF: What do you think it is going to take to get other young people to be as passionate and committed to their health?
NYC Food Detective: BRINGING UP FOODSTERS
Posted by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC
Incubator kitchens are affordable, time-share, professional kitchens that make it financially possible for start-up food processors to move out of home production into a licensed, professional production facility where they can start to grow their businesses.
Katherine Gregory, the founder of Mi Kitchen Es Su Kitchen, operates the Artisan Baking Center (ABC) Kitchen Innovations incubator kitchen in the Long Island City facilities of the Consortium for Worker Education, a non-profit organization that provides free career training to New Yorkers.
The ABC kitchen, primarily a baking facility, boasts three large, well-equipped working areas, each capable of accommodating several cooks, and a separate confectioner's kitchen, away from the heat of the rest of the facility. Since Katherine started it in July 2005, the ABC incubator has been used by more than 100 food micro-entrepreneurs, many of whom have “graduated” to their own successful food businesses or to more permanent, shared kitchen facilities.
