School Gardens, Taste Washington Day, Artisan Food Fest

Community happenings:

Daniel Bagley Elementary in Greenwood has been building a garden for and with the students to teach them about the earth-to-table process. Next week (9/20-9/24) is Garden Week. Among the scheduled activities are “Move the Mountain” work party on 9/22 at 6 p.m. and an Apple Social on 9/24. Eric Boutin, the new Nutrition Services Director for Seattle Public Schools, will make an appearance. For a more information and a full schedule of events — including volunteer opportunities — please visit DB’s site.

Taste Washington Day is part of WSDA’s Farm to School Program and takes place on 9/29. More than 60 schools and 50 farms throughout Washington have agreed to participate. On 9/29, these schools will serve meals that use ingredients sourced from local farms. For a full list of schools and farms, visit this link.

Pike Place Market Artisan Food Festival takes place 9/25-9/26. It’s two days of celebrating handmade foods and crafts, and local producers. Slow Food Seattle will be hosting programming at its booth on both days, including a conversation about School-Food Revolution led by Hsiao-Ching Chou (of JOFRSEA) and Eric Boutin, Nutrition Services Director for Seattle Public Schools. This discussion will take place on 9/25 at noon at the Slow Food Seattle booth.

Hyla Middle School’s Fresh Fridays

It was a simple request: Hyla Middle School students wanted to meet with a chef to talk about the best ways to cook with garden-fresh produce. As part of the school’s Fresh Fridays project, this group of about 14 students was charged with cooking lunch for 60 students and faculty. It would be their responsibility to plan the menu, shop for the ingredients and cook and serve the meal.

JOFRSEA upped the ante and offered to guide the students on a tour that included lunch at the sustainability-minded Chipotle Mexican Grill, a Q&A session with chef Craig Hetherington at TASTE Restaurant at SAM, and a meeting with blogger and cookbook author Lorna Yee at Pike Place to shop for ingredients.

Lucy Montoya, of Chipotle Mexican Grill, explains how the restaurant focuses on using all-natural meats, hormone-free dairy products, some local produce and organic items. The best part of the visit was lunch, which the kids loved!

Lorna Yee explaining how to choose produce.

Shane Wahlund, of DeLaurenti Food & Wine, offers suggestions for cheese pairings.

The report from Hyla is that the lunch was a success and the kids had a great time. We’ll post photos from the lunch as soon as we get them.