Cooking and Gardening

The following photos are from two days of harvesting and cooking with a few small groups of students. We harvested mustard greens, kale, bok choy, collards, lettuce and cilantro. We then served the food to all 300 students at lunch. We made a salad with butter lettuce, a cilantro spread on crackers and cooked greens with lemon and garlic. We got great feedback from many students who tried our tasty fresh offerings. The chef students were amazing, focused, hard working, with very positive attitudes. They also worked really well together. I can't wait to do more cooking with them. I'm working on getting a cooking cart so we can have a little more space and more kids can be involved. This week we will cook greens following a recipe from one of the students who loves cooked greens and wants to try cooking them her way!

Biking to San Francisco

During Thanksgiving break we took BART over to San Francisco and rode along the Embarcadero to Crissy Fields. The photo on the left is taken in downtown SF, right outside BART.

These photos are taken right above Fort Mason, we had a perfect clear windless day. Special thanks to Courtney and Grey for riding with us!

The last few weeks...

We've had a busy few weeks at the community garden and wellness program!
In Bike Club, we took BART up to El Cerrito Del Norte and had a lovely ride all the way home.




Brisa, Tenzin and Ahng Sann and I made a salad from our garden and served it at lunch!



We had a special garden day with all the Biology classes. With the help of Grey Kolevzon and Zack Reidman we split the classes into three groups and did various garden projects, setting up a compost bin, planting seeds in Shady Grove, and cleaning up the Courtyard garden, adding new soil and planting fava beans. Seems like all the students got something out of it and it was great to be able to have all six classes in the gardens!


We also got our "Green Team" started! It is a dedicated group of about 20 students who are meeting with me every Thursday at lunch to discuss issues of waste, garbage and energy use at OIHS! We are planning some exciting projects that will hopefully reduce the amount of waste produced at OIHS. Some of the Green Team members volunteered at the Greenfest in San Francisco this past weekend.

We have joined SLWRP, Service Learning Waste Reduction Program. So far it's a great resource and support for our budding Green Team!
I was also fortunate enough to get to participate in the Food Justice Conference hosted by the Community Food Security Coalition. I went to workshops that discussed changing school food and bringing more local farm produce to schools. Good food for thought, no pun intended!

Food for our families

Last Wednesday the Garden Club harvested a bunch of food from our garden to pass it out to families that were coming for parent/teacher conferences. We harvested kale, chard, cilantro, mint, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes.