Category Archives: Tasting Week

Palo Alto Hot Lunch Improvement Project

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Gunn High School, October 20, Chef Gerald Hirigoyen

Following the success of our first Palo Alto Tasting Week event in October 2011, a few volunteers are embarking on a project to improve the Hot Lunch program in Palo Alto.

After several meetings with PTA presidents, consultants specialized in school lunches, restaurant chefs, the California Farm to School program, the slow Food movement, the District Food Services and several friends who share the same passion for the topic, I am happy to share some positive news. Alva Spence from Sodexo and Cathy Mak from Palo Alto Food Services are willing to partner with us on this initiative but we will need significant parent, student and staff support to make it successful.

Terman, October 18, Chef Bruno Ponsot

Here are some ideas we are considering for the Palo Alto district:

  • Introducing new healthy and tasty entrees twice a week starting January 2012
  • Moving to seasonal fruits and vegetables through the Buy Fresh Buy Local program
  • Launching a sandwich deli bar in high school
  • Launching a pilot project to cook from scratch in high school
  • Changing the design of the lunch queue to increase adoption of healthy and tasty items

We are looking for a group of volunteers to help us with the initiative, which I would like to call the “Palo Alto Tasty Lunch Initiative”.

Lavanda, October 22, Wine Event

If you are interested in helping with consulting on menu selection, communication within your school, student involvement, fundraising, lunch room organization, farm to school relationships, and more, please send me a quick note indicating your interest. rebecca@tastingweek.com

The Path Towards Better Lunches in Palo Alto

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Georgeanne Brennan at Terman Middle School

Today, on October 25, 2011, several Palo Alto parents met at Terman Middle School to eat the school hot lunch and listen to Georgeanne Brennan, award-winning cookbook writer, reporter and specialist in school lunches.

Georgeanne shared her experience in helping the districts of Oakland and Los Angeles to improve their hot lunch programs. She also gave an account of her trip to France, to explore the French school lunches. Georgeanne picked France because of the low obesity rate among children in this country. Highlights of her trip are included in her report attached to the resource page of this website. Georgeanne explained that the success of the hot lunch program in France is not only due to the variety of the menu. Their success is also linked to other factors, namely that lunch follows recess, children must stay at a table during a minimum of 30 minutes, and the food is served in real plates with real knives and forks.

Salad Bar at Terman Middle School

As parents from the Palo Alto district, we then had a healthy discussion about our vision for school lunches and the challenges we need to overcome. In a single hour of discussion, we came up with a flurry of suggestions. They included involving the kids as panelists in the selection of new school lunch items, replacing “sporks” with real
forks and spoons, trying out recess before lunch, inviting parents and grandparents to sit down at the table with the children to encourage mealtime discussions, requesting transperence on the origin of foods served in our district, banning certain items from the menu altogether, putting microwave ovens in the schools for children bringing their own lunches to school, setting up a “foodboosters” program for parents to contribute financially to the hot lunch program, expanding the seating options for children to eat lunch, involving local gardens in the food program, and many more ideas.

If we can come up with these many ideas in 60 minutes, imagine what we can do with perseverance, patience and determination throughout this school year. Palo Alto Tasting Week gave us a glimpse into the wonderful possibilities of discovery through food and cooking. This celebration has started a meaningful dialogue on the improvement of food in our schools and the impact of food on our community. This is where it all starts.

Wine Event at Lavanda, in Downtown Palo Alto

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Lavanda, October 22, Wine Event

On Saturday 22nd, 2011, in downtown Palo Alto, Lavanda Restaurant opened its doors to a special wine tasting event hosted by “Tasting week”. There, a group of wine aficionados tasted and compared French and Californian wines paired with unique bites. The tasting was blind (wine is revealed at the end) and the organizers, Aurelia Setton, volunteer expert in wine, Rapahel Knapp, Wine importer from returntoterroir and Bruce Schmidt, Lavanda restaurant owner had set up this tasting to be tricky! First, they surprised us with a Picpoul (yes, this is a grape type), which was from France Languedoc region but tasted like a California Sauvignon Blanc! Then, we went on to tasting a Gewurztraminer from Anderson Valley, California. It was sweet and elegant, the majority of the group thought it was a French wine….The 2 reds where just as much of a surprise: the first one was a very nice 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon matched with a delicate chicken liver crostini. I don’t like chicken liver, but this tasted sweet and mild. Loved the pairing! The last wine was a Tannat (a French grape) from the South West of France. The truffled mushroom talagio cheese crostini was marvelous with it!

What a discovery for all of us! Even the Mayor of Palo Alto was there, ready to be surprised.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Carrots

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chef Craig Von Foerster and Principal Matt Nagle at Juana Briones Elementary school

On Friday Juana Briones Elementary school hosted chef Craig Von Foerster, Executive Chef at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, voted one the top 5 best restaurants in the San Francisco Bay in the Zagat. Chef Craig came all the way from Big Sur with a full carload of…carrots. The kids were a little intrigued at first, but ended up completely enthralled. He showed them the difference between supermarket bagged mini-carrots and fresh carrots from his garden. He showed them white, yellow, and purple carrots.

chef Craig Von Foerster

He made carrot soup and pickled carrots. And finished with a giant carrot cake. And while he was preparing his carrots, he answered dozens of questions from the children about his favorite and least favorite foods, his origin, what it is like working in a restaurant, and much more. At the end of the presentation, the children all lined up to get Chef Craig’s authograph on their plate!

A few moms snuck in to grab a taste of carrot soup and to talk with Chef Craig. Next year we need to plan a workshop for parents too!

October 17 – 21: A Whole Tasting Week at Petits Confettis

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Tasting week at Petits Confettis

Even the youngest child can learn a lot about taste & food! At Petits Confettis, our preschoolers (3 to 6 years old) were challenged during the whole of Tasting Week.

They started with salt, tasted it and used it during an experimental `painting with salt` workshop. The second day, a sweet workshop brought them into a blind tasting. Such an amazing taste! Almost all the kids recognized the organic jams made by `Nuchi` (located in Los Altos), producing a lot of other organic jams for a non-profit association. The kids were comparing strawberry, apricot, prune and honey to discuss color and share their favorite one!

For the bitter workshop, they got the ability to differentiate chocolate texture and prepared `chocolate roses`. And last but not least, for the acid workshop, they identified lemon during a taste test and used it to make their own `secret` letter.

At the end of our tasting week, every child went home with a sample of their `taste workshop` and their own `chef`s hat`… homemade. Such a great week… such a great time… we all had fun and all the chidren came home very proud of their achievement.

Merci! and we definitively sign up for next year!:-)

The Petits Confettis

Tasting Week “en Francais”

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Chef Gerald Hirigoyen at Gunn HS

Today Chef Gerald Hirigoyen from the basque restaurant Piperade visited the advanced French class of Ms Anne Jensen. He gave his entire workshop in French! The students were a bit reserved at first, but when he started cooking the piperade (a basque dish composed of onions, red peppers and olive oil) they asked him many questions. It was hard to resist him, since he prepared sample plates with marinated roasted peppers, smoked ham, marinated anchovies and peppers. Every student finished their anchovies, which just goes to show you that our kids are much more adventurous than we think. For dessert he had prepared a Gateau basque and figs. Delicieux!

Chef Gerald Hirigoyen at GunnHS

At lunch break, PAUSD Food Services presented the A to Z salad bar to Hot Lunch students and offered the salad bar to all 150 staff at Gunn. The Salad bar will take a break until next week before reappearing on Tuesday at Terman Middle School.

Just two more days before the Wine Tasting at Lavanda. It is time to get your ticket before the event is sold out! You can reserve by sending an email to rebecca@tastingweek.com

October 20, Tasting Week is in full swing in Palo Alto

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For the third day of the week, we received the visit of four fabulous chefs at Terman Middle School, Barron Park Elementary and the International School of the Peninsula.

Chef Art Smith and Principal Katherine Baker at Terman HS

Terman received the visit of chef, restaurateur, and television personality Art Smith, winner of Top Chef Masters and former personal chef for Oprah Winfrey for 10 years. The children were very impressed by his personal background, how he grew up in a small town and taught himself how to cook. His lesson on taste was also a lesson about life: be strong, be brave, and share your passion with those around you. His business partner Sari organized a blind tasting for the kids, who were able to recognize almost all the foods she presented. Art challenged the kids to discover their “broccoli”, or their contribution to the world – a reference to his non-profit organization Common Threads that teaches underprivileged children how to cook. The children could not believe their luck to have met such a famous chef and one of them posted on Facebook tonight “best guest speaker ever in home economics today”.

Chef Olivia Wu at Barron Park

The children in Barron Park were equally lucky to meet with Liv Wu, executive chef at Google. First, she explained to them that cooking could be compared to drawing. Adding a color is the same as adding an ingredient. She pursued the similarity by making them think about a color for each different taste that an ingredient can have: green for salty, orange for sweet, purple for sour, red for spicy. Nose blocked, they tried to feel the different taste of a strawberry, a peanut, and some mint. Then, in front of the children’s eyes opened wide, she prepared a mixed salad with a “vinaigrette”, French word like “chef” ! Chef Liv Wu chose the ingredients as an artist. She added the last pinch of salt, and it was time to eat. How amazing it was to see the children leaking their plates and ask for more salad!

Chef Suzanne Vandyck at Barron Park

Chef Suzanne VanDyck made crostini out of fresh garden tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and grilled baguette. Children traveled in Europe with the tomatoes, learned the olive oil secrets, and the art of cutting in small pieces. Then, they put their hands on in chopping basil in the tomatoes preparation. Made from organic tomatoes, with organic olive oil from 1st cold pressure, garlics and fresh basil, the crostinis looked gorgeous and were very appreciated by the kids.

At the ISTP, chef taught the kids the proper way to cut an onion, and how to make a salad with flavor by using many sorts of herbs- parsley, chives, basil and tarragon. They made a salad dressing and dipped bread into it to taste the flavors. Every child went home with a sample of their salad dressing. A recommendation from Chef Moutal as you prepare your pumpkin soup for Halloween: add some nutmeg and some sugar!

Tasting Week Continued on Tuesday, October 18

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Pastry Chef Cynthia Falatic at Terman

Tasting Week continued on Tuesday, October 18 with four excellent workshops at Terman Middle School and Gunn High School. Cynthia Falatic, Executive Pastry Chef at the Ritz Carlton, showed the middle school students of Ms Judy Salmon at Terman how to make apple crisp and chocolate mousse. She explained how to select the right apples for cooking and how to cook them so that they will be juicy but still crunchy. The chocolate mousse recipe Cynthia selected was very easy to make, with just whipping cream and chocolate, but so delicious. It helped that she made it out of Valhrona chocolate 64% – it really makes a difference when you use good chocolate…. The children were very engaged in the process and asked Chef Cynthia many questions, such as “do you sleep at the Ritz Carlton at night?” and “what was the strangest experience you ever had?”. Chef Cynthia answered every question in a poised manned and with a smile. After Terman, Cynthia went over to Gunn High School to conduct a great session with Ms Cindy Peters’ high school students, who were equally engaged.

Chef Bruno Ponsot at Terman

In the afternoon, Terman Middle school received the visit of Chef Bruno Ponsot, from the French Culinary Institute in Campbell. Chef Bruno focused his workshop on seasonal vegetables of the fall. He introduced the students to fennel, celeriac, turnips, butternut squash, which he presented to them both raw and cooked. They first smelled, then tasted the vegetables. Most of the vegetables received an overwhelming number of thumbs up. He then proceeded to introduce them to fresh herbs, from the most fine and rare chervil to the powerful tarragon. He even turned sorrel and watercress into delicate purees for all to enjoy. This session was a real discovery for the students who gave Chef Bruno a big round of applause.

October 17, Chef Emmanuel Robert, Sofitel, at ISTP

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Tasting Week had a strong start today with the visit of Emmanuel Robert, Executive Chef at the Sofitel, to the International School of the Peninsula.

Chef Robert gave two workshops for the classrooms of Ms Katia Belghadid (2nd grade) and Ms Hayat Saba (1st grade). Among the many samples he shared with the kids you could find olives, endives, pickles, grilled meat, asparagus, grapefruit, strawberries, marshmallows, apricots, dried bananas, ham, mint, chives, sugar and pepper. What a display!

He showed the kids the different ways to cook meat (seared vs well done) and taught them where chocolate comes from (cocoa beans, white chocolate and cocoa butter).The highlight of each workshop was when Chef Robert melted chocolate chips over a small burner and then let each child dip a fruit into the chocolate mix. This was so popular they went for seconds…and thirds. Chef Robert says he was quite impressed by the fact that all the children were able to name the vegetables he presented to them. When asked what he would put in a lunchbox, he said cold potato or pasta salads are quite popular and they lend themselves to introducing new foods to kids in small quantities.

Overall the kids were thrilled with their tasting experience today, as you can see from the photos. Thanks to Nazee Domiray-Sage from the Sofitel for providing the kids with the lovely chef hats!

It Takes a Village

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The famous saying “it takes a village” is taking on a new meaning as I prepare for the launch of our first Palo Alto Tasting Week. It is obvious that raising children requires a tight collaboration between parents and educators. I didn’t realize that we also depend on the people who feed us and our children. My hope is that Tasting Week will help initiate a dialogue between chefs, children, educators and parents about how our relationship to food participates in raising strong, curious and independent children.

A-Z Salad Bar

A-Z Salad Bar

Palo Alto Mayor Espinosa also reminded me that the community at large cares about the relationship between food and education. “We need to teach kids that food can be healthy and taste good. We need to inspire in kids a love for what is both delicious and nutritious. Thank you Palo Alto Tasting Week. This volunteer-driven initiative is bringing world renowned chefs into Palo Alto classrooms and into the community, helping us find the nexus between fine dining and healthy lifestyles. Kudos Palo Alto Tasting Week!“

Greg Betts, Director of Community Services at the City of Palo Alto, agrees. “Palo Alto Community Services supports the Palo Alto Tasting Week in that the program inspires students to cultivate their creative interest in the culinary arts, and also in their development of understanding and comfort with foods and customs of different ethnic backgrounds. These are both import developmental assets for youth!”

Thank you Sid and Greg! And thanks to all the wonderful volunteers who are helping pull together this initiative.