school lunches and gubmint cheeze

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I don’t know about where you live, but in Pittsburgh (and Pennsylvania in general), the school districts and the local governments are completely separate animals. Which, when you think about it, sometimes makes sense, and sometimes doesn’t. Since I’ve been working in and around government for over a decade, this is second nature to me, but I recently had a convo with my friend Leah about local governments vs. school districts and realized that’s not always the case.

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In that instance, we were debating the sway that the city’s next mayor could have over school lunches. Leah’s op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (scroll to the bottom, she’s there, I swear!) last week called for the new mayor to advocate for better school food in Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS). She’d initially called for the new mayor to change the school food system, until I reminded her that the city and the school district are two entirely different entities.

Thankfully, Tuesday’s mayoral primary makes it pretty darn clear that Bill Peduto will be the city’s next mayor (don’t get me started on the current one). Peduto’s been running for mayor since 2005, and has a huge, well-thought-out list of 100 different things he’ll work on once he’s mayor. Two of his points directly impact the schools/school lunch conversation: #36, Working Together to Improve Public Education, and #26, Get Fresh Pittsburgh: Providing Neighborhood Access to Fresh, Healthy Food. Peduto specifically advocates starting #26 in our schools.

While separate entities, the district needs to recognize the value in working with the city on improving the schools, both overall and with respect to the food in the schools.

Technically, the mayor has no sway. But he can certainly advocate for change because the district’s decisions impact the economic development opportunities for the city as a whole. Imagine if the city could tout truly healthy school lunches as part of a broader healthy child curriculum and an economic development opportunity. Wouldn’t that position Pittsburgh as a more well-rounded green, sustainable, healthy place to attract new investment and jobs? It seems that it would position the city to be even more attractive to workers with families. And don’t forget workforce training – it’s well-documented that the quality of food directly impacts the ability of children to learn. If we’re going to have a good future workforce, we need to raise them well. Crap food makes unhealthy kids.

So congratulations to Peduto – and help him make these two, and all 100 bullet points, happen for the city. It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Not quite as bad as I thought

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My fourth grader had a field trip yesterday, and snagged a packed school lunch to bring home and show me (not sure how he did it, but I’m not asking too many questions). While we won’t stop packing lunch anytime soon, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of crap. Yes, the sandwich looks kind of nasty, but water, carrots, celery, and applesauce?  You can tell they’re trying.

do your kids cook?

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It’s never occurred to me not to encourage my kids to help in the kitchen. It’s fun, we get to spend time together, they learn how to cook and what goes into our food, it’s a no brainer. Yes, sometimes they eat more raw cookie dough than I’d like, but that’s not the end of the world.

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My most reliable helper. She also makes a mean PB&J. 

Which is why I was so flummoxed recently when asked about what healthy foods elementary-age kids could manage on their own. Turns out the questioner is trying to help their favorite seven year old friend make smart choices when sent to the kitchen by a parent who has no interest in cooking. None. Like yogurt is a viable dinner. Every once in a while, I get a reminder that not everyone lives in my foodie bubble….

Here’s what we came up with so far (mostly on the fly). We would love suggestions from others whose kids have shown interest in kitchen independence!

I would think anything that doesn’t involve the stove or a sharp knife would be fine. So yes to cereal and breakfast bars (cereal as long as the milk is low enough in the fridge and not too heavy). A bowl of fresh fruit, bag of baby carrots with some hummus or other dip, chips and salsa, pretzels, string cheese, yogurt, that kind of thing. If there is access to a microwave and is comfortable with using it independently, microwave mac and cheese or lean cuisine-type prefab meals could work. Basic things on the stove could work in a year or so, maybe rice or noodles, spaghetti with a jar of sauce or some pre-chopped stir fried veggies with a simmer sauce and boneless chicken? 

these are the people in my neighborhood

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I bought my husband a book recently, and didn’t think much about it at the time. An old college friend of his had written it, and I was excited to support Matt’s endeavors and surprise my husband at the same time. And, of course, it didn’t hurt that the old friend is a chef, and the book he’d written was a cookbook (and a good-looking one at that). After Super Bowl Sunday (and making Matt’s great wings and blue cheese sauce), a thought clicked in my head.

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Trying to get back to sourcing my food locally – away from processed food, away from GMOs and frankenfoods, closer to a more local system – automatically linked me in to a local foods community. Part of this has always been obvious to me, I know the ‘know your farmer!’ mantra well. But it didn’t really occur to me how plugged in we have become. Not only do we buy from farmers at local markets (both seasonal and year-round ones), we frequent locally-owned restaurants, we buy locally made bread, etc. etc. etc. Now we also plug into cookbooks and recipes written by people we know. So my kids think it’s normal to talk to the person who owns the restaurant, to get a hug from the coffee shop owner, to know the guy on the tv teaching the host how to cook, to have met the chickens who laid the eggs we’re eating. They’re learning to expect a certain standard of food, both in quality and preparation, at home and when we go out.

The European horse meat scandal drove this home to me – especially since so many responses to it have been ‘what’s the big deal?’ Either people are so used to not knowing what’s in their food, not used to reading labels, or not caring what they ingest, that they don’t seem to think it’s a problem that what is labeled at beef may not actually be beef. Even if you don’t care about whether or not you eat horse meat (in many places it’s culturally acceptable to do so), why don’t you care when you’re being lied to? Doesn’t it bother you that the companies that feed you are banking on your apathy for their profits?

Have you considered where all your food comes from? Not just the local farmers, but the boxes of mac and cheese on your shelf, the flash frozen reconstituted whatever it is on your plate from the chain restaurant you took your family to tonight? We’re far from perfect with our food management, but good food is a priority of ours. I don’t miss the crap, and I cherish the real connections we’ve made. The wings aren’t bad, either.

confessions of a crappy lunch packer

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Eating my homemade street food lunch out on the street. Just because I can.

Yes, you read that correctly. I have a blog where I wax poetic about food and policy and growing edible things in my yard, and I can’t pack a decent lunch to save my life. My kids get pretty much the same lunch every day. I am amazed they haven’t mutinied against the ubiquitous PB&J monster. And I have the same problem with my own lunches – I have largely given up on packing lunches on office days because I just can’t get excited about nuking what’s in my fridge in the break room. Not when biryani is right down the street.

While I have friends who do bento boxes for their kids every day, I am intimidated by the entire process. It doesn’t occur to me to craft the sandwich into a monkey, or the cheese into a fish. It runs up against my mother telling me in my head not to play with my food.

I’ve started to consider this seemingly mundane topic more seriously, as my son is more interested in packing his own lunch, and I recognize that we need to expand our horizons a bit. Surprisingly, following 100 Days of Real Food has not intimidated me, it’s made me think ‘hey, I could do that!’ a few times. I haven’t yet done “that,” but the gears are at least turning.

So some Cornish pasties (thanks, Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain and Santa Claus) made an appearance in my son’s lunch last week (his idea, my brain is still mush on this topic). It may have been the only time he willingly ingested zucchini, but I’m going with it. Wish us luck!