In Other News….

Even though I had no classes this week, I stayed busy making plans for the upcoming gingerbread-making classes (see the Registration Site for more details on that) and began the week with a Health and Wellness fair at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Every year the Human Resources Department at WHOI sponsors an employee benefits fair, and this year's theme focused on healthy eating. I was invited to set up a table

and answer questions parents might have about making healthier meals for their kids and to do a demo of some kind. After giving it some thought I decided I would set up a station where the event attendees could make their own Fresh Thai Spring Rolls.

Linda Snow was very accommodating of my crazy huge set up and ran around moving furniture so I could have a place to put everything. I really enjoyed people's reactions when they realized it was their job to make the spring rolls. Some were tentative, others jumped right in, and still others opted to stand and watch their friends. There was a lot of activity around that table and I was so busy instructing people about how to work their way through the spring rolls that I didn't have time to get any pictures of anyone actually assembling one! There was a WHOI photographer there, though, and I think was able to capture some of the fun.

The other exciting thing that happened this week was a meeting (this morning, in fact) with Mary DeBartolo, the leader of the Cape Cod chapter of Slow Food. We're planning to work together to host an Iron Chef Kids event that will take place sometime this coming summer. Additionally, I'm hoping to be able to host some cooking classes for members of Slow Food Cape Cod this winter and spring.

For those of you who don't know about Slow Food, I encourage you to head over to their website (and to the Cape Cod chapter's website), and do some reading, but I think one of the best descriptions of Slow Food comes from USA Today: "Slow Food aims to be everything fast food is not." In a nutshell, it's all about people eating food that is as good for them as it is for the planet. It encourages eating locally and sustainably, and seeks to make the connections between us and our food sources. It is a daunting task in the face of the dizzying numbers of fast food restaurants and processed foods lining the grocery store shelves.

For me, Slow Food gives me hope in the face of some of crazy things I hear about food during a typical day. Thing like this:

As I was preparing dinner for my family, my son brought me his empty lunch box from school (okay, you're right, it wasn't exactly empty, because they never are, are they?), and said, "Hey mom, all the kids at my table at lunch said they don't like green peas." He'd taken in some pasta with peas for lunch that day. He paused and then said, "Most of them said they only like yellow ones."

I thought about that for a moment, at first impressed that people were feeding their children yellow peas. And then realized that they really weren't talking about peas, they were talking about corn.

It's not so outlandish, really, to confuse the two if you've never seen what they look like in their pods or on their cobs.

Slow Food.

Make it for dinner.

 

Comments

[the Mater]

This is absolutely fantastic! And those CHOCOLATE MICE are to die for!! Congrats!

[Anne @ Pink Galoshes]

Those chocolates looks so amazingly delicious! Thanks for posting the photos.