Bon Appetit!

Are these pictures from an end of summer garden party?

No. It's a typical school lunch for preschoolers.

Today marked the first day of the Bloom! Montessori School hot lunch program.

For the 2011-2012 school year, we are fortunate to be partnering with Revolution Foods to provide the children with approachable, nutritious, hot lunch options. Revolution Foods was founded in Oakland, CA in 2006 by Kirsten Saenz Tobey and Kirsten Groos, two mothers who wanted to reverse the growing tide of childhood obesity and the poor eating habits that proclaim America's youth. To date, Revolution Foods has served more than 23 million meals to school children and serves more than 70,000 meals daily to school children in more than 600 programs across the country. Revolution Foods serves meals that are appealing, delicious, and nutritious. Their meals consist of lean proteins, whole grains, a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats. They utilize whole, not heavily processed convenience foods, in age-appropriate portion sizes. Their mission is to instill life-long nutritional habits which will support student health and the maintenance of a healthy weight. All of their ingredients meet Whole Foods Market's stringent quality standards.

Revolution Foods meals never contain:

-NO rBST or hormones in milk
-NO fried food (including flash fried food)

-NO high fructose corn syrup

-NO trans fats

-NO artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners

-NO flavored milk or juice.

If the idea of "school hot lunch" conjures images of worn cafeteria trays, hair nets, and hamburgers, think again. The excited children participated in the ritual of setting the communal tables- carefully laying out the muslin tablecloths, setting the tables with a full place setting of china, and adorning the tables with their beautiful flower arrangements. When the preparations were complete, the children politely passed the serving vessels around the table, chatted politely about the day's events, and practiced using their best table manners. The children dined on all natural bean and cheese burritos, steamed carrots, salad, and fresh, local, peaches. Our meals are served with the child's choice of Horizon Organic Nonfat DHA Omega 3 milk, Silk Soy DHA Omega 3 with Calcium, or filtered water.

By the time lunch was over, practically all of the children had taken second helpings (interestingly, the steamed carrots and fresh peaches were the first to go) and the serving platters were completely empty! Everyone was very pleased with the quality, flavor, and appearance of the meals;

however, the main point of interest for the children was the ambiance. They were absolutely delighted with the embroidered tablecloths (embroidered place settings allowed them to set the table by matching the plates and silverware to their corresponding outlines), and they spent the majority of lunch practicing their table manners and mastering the skill of cutting food with a knife and fork (this was a new skill for all but one child- and I suspect the reason that the carrots disappeared first-they were the perfect food to practice cutting and eating).

As I watched the elated children learning to use knives and forks, I could not help but think of a recent Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution episode which addressed the subject of giving knives to young children: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOLTGT1Aexg

Just as Jamie Oliver surmised, it took the children less than one meal to have the basics down, and taught them a valuable skill that they will use for the rest of their lives.

We would like to extend a sincere thanks to Revolution Foods, especially Jenny Herman, Jacqueline Gleason, & Pat Donovan, for their commitment to the revolution and for making this wonderful program available to our small school. For more information about their program, please visit their website at: http://www.revfoods.com/

We would also like to thank St. Vrain Community Montessori School. We were too small to serve as our own "drop off site," and SVCM has graciously allowed us to use their location during the school year. Thank you so much for your kindness!

Finally, I wanted to thank my husband, Josh, for spending the weekend installing the new stove at the school and doing the vent and HVAC work to make this possible.

Thanks!

Farm to School Article

Bloom! Montessori's Farm to School Program and nutritional education was featured in last Sunday's edition of the Longmont Times Call. To read the article, follow this link: http://www.colo-news.com/submittedContent/enlarge.asp?topic=3&item=3942&Publication=tc

Reminder: Purchase Your CSA Shares by Friday, January 28th!

It is hard to believe, given all of the snow on the ground, but we are hard at work making plans for our summer program!

One of the many highlights of the summer program is that we participate in the national Slow Foods USA Farm to School Program. This year, we will be partnering with Ollin Farms to provide the students with the opportunity to visit a sustainably operated farm to learn about the cultivation of food (the field trips to the farm are generally one of the highlights of the summer) and the children will be using the fruit and vegetables that the school receives from the farm (in our weekly CSA share) in practical life and food preparation activities. In addition, the children will also maintain their own organic, heirloom vegetable garden at the school. We believe that this program helps us to raise the next generation with an awareness of the importance of enjoying nutritious, local, seasonal, and sustainably produced food. It also assists them in developing a more refined palate which is more accepting of fresh fruit and vegetable offerings, and provides hands on botany activities in which they gain a better understanding of the life cycle and parts of plants.

In conjunction with this program, we will again be offering our families the opportunity to purchase their own CSA shares from the farm as well, with the convenience of being able to collect your shares from the school when you pick up your child.

Ollin Farms is a beautiful, family owned farm, which provides an enormous variety of nutrient dense foods which they grow using sustainable agricultural practices. Community Supported Agriculture is a socio-economic model of farming in which members of the community pledge support to a local farming operation by purchasing a weekly share of the farm's produce. It provides participants with high-quality, local, sustainably grown produce, while sharing the risks and benefits inherent in farming. Participants will receive a weekly share for 21 weeks during the CSA season (May 30th-October 17th). If you saw pictures from last summer, you will remember the excitement that ensued each week when Farmer Mike came to drop off the shares (I have never seen children so desperate to find a raw turnip to munch on).

We are particularly excited about this partnership because they offer a tremendous variety of fruits and vegetables (over 150 varieties!), they have several options as far as share size, they partner with a chef to offer some great harvest dinners at the farm, and in addition to growing fruits and vegetables, they also raise chickens, sheep, and honeybees! For more information about the farm, their farming practices, or to view a list of the fruits and vegetables they provide, please visit their website at: http://www.ollinfarms.com/

If you would like to purchase a CSA Share for your family through the school, please return your CSA contract (with a check payable to Ollin Farms) to the school prior to Friday, January 28th!

You may also contact Ollin Farms directly to purchase shares after this date, if you decide to participate later, but we do expect that they will sell out well before summer.

Plans for the Vegetable Garden

Whether it means carrying hyacinths around the classroom and sharing their delicate fragrance with your friends or spending the weekend pouring through seed catalogues, we all find ourselves dreaming of Spring.

This weekend, we formalized plans for our edible classroom, the Bloom! Potager. In March, the children will begin starting seeds indoors to transplant once the danger of frost has finally passed. Our goal is to give the children a better understanding of the natural world (botany, the life cycle of plants, a garden ecosystem, composting/decomposition), encourage children to eat a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables, create meaningful experiences between children and food, and expose them to the pleasures of gardening.

We selected diverse vegetables that we thought the children would really enjoy- including a lot of vegetables with really vibrant colors, foods that could be included in traditional Montessori food preparation exercises, and small vegetables (baby carrots, grape tomatoes, miniature varieties of peppers, cucumbers, and beets), that would be perfect for an individual snack!

The gardens will be grown without the use of any synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. The seeds we will use are primarily organic, heirloom varieties that we purchased from Seed Savers Exchange, a lovely non-profit in Iowa that is devoted to increasing genetic biodiversity in the food system by helping to save the world's diverse, but endangered, garden heritage from homogenization by seed conglomerates. They operate the largest non-governmental seed bank in the United States where they permanently maintain thousands of rare and unique vegetable varieties from around the world- more than 25,000 endangered vegetable varieties! Most of the seeds were hand carried to North America by immigrants and passed along to their ancestors.

Who knows, maybe Maria Montessori had some of the same varieties in her own garden!

For more information about Seed Saver's Exchange, please visit their website at:

http://www.seedsavers.org/

Here's what the children will be growing in the Bloom! Gardens this Spring:

"Green" Beans:

-Climbing French: Classic green beans! The most widely grown climbing French bean in the 1930's

-Pencil Pod Golden Wax Beans: An beautiful translucent stringless bean, introduced in 1900

-Red Swan: A stabilized cross between a purple snap bean and a pinto bean! Dusty red rose colored!

-Sultan's Golden Crescent: A beautiful, curly, translucent, stringless bean that is almost extinct.

We can't wait to see the children picking green beans for snack! Hopefully, the vibrant colors will entice even the most reluctant eaters!

Other Beans:

-Hidatsa Shield Figure: There are Slow Foods Arc of Taste beans raised by the Hidasta Indians

-Tiger's Eye: These hail from Chile or Argentina, beautiful mottled appearance

We foresee lots of bean shelling!

Beets:

-Cylindra: Tiny carrot shaped beets that resemble red carrots. Sweet, easy to peel, perfect for snack time!

-Chioggia: Beautiful red and white concentric rings. Came from Italy in the 1840's

Carrots:

-Dragon: Tiny, refined purple carrots! Does that sound like a great snack food or what?

-Paris Market: Really tiny, red-orange carrots.

-Scarlet Nantes: Yummy baby carrots!

Cucumbers:

-Crystal Apples: Apple shaped cucumbers from New Zealand. Great for fresh eating at snack time with dip!

-Parisian Pickling: Known in Europe as Improved Bourbonne, used for making cornichons and gherkins!

We are sure the children would love doing some pickling activities!

Melons:

-Delice de la Table: French heirloom from 1885- almost extinct, very sweet, translates as "delight of the table"

-Prescott Fond Blanc: French melon from 1850- beautiful warted skin and an incredible fragrance when ripe

Melon balling activities!

Onions:

-Borettana: Italian cipollini heirlooms! Great for pickling and kabobs!

Peas:

-Dwarf Gray Sugars: Introduced in 1892- stringless, beautiful purple blossoms!

-Green Arrow: Standard English peas!

We know the children will love wandering through the garden picking the prolific sugar snap peas, and shelling proper English peas!

Peppers:

-Buran: Sweet, bright red, glossy, Polish heirloom, bell peppers

-Joe's Round: Originally from Italy, brought to the US by the Sesito family of NY. Sweet 3/4" round peppers (almost like a grape tomato)- perfect for snack time!

Squash:

-Galeux d' Eysines: Introduced in France in 1996- sweet, moist, and covered with beautiful warts

-Long Island Cheese: East Coast heirloom remembered for great squash pie!

-Pumpkins: Duh!

Radishes:

-Early Scarlet Globe- Beautiful, bright red radishes!

-French Breakfast: Oblong and blunt, rose scarlet with a white tip (like a beautiful carrot!). Perfect for snack!

Tomato:

-Currant Sweet Pea: Very prolific! Excellent clean tomato flavor!

-Italian Heirloom: Beautiful heirlooms from Italy. Easy to peel, great for canning!

Watermelon:

-Golden Midget: Golden yellow plants and fruit with very sweet salmon flesh

-Moon and Stars: Oval fruits covered with bright yellow stars and one large moon.

The children will also be growing a small herb garden and a garden with some heirloom flowers (including a large number chosen to attract butterflies- which the children will be hatching!).

We can't wat to see the children wandering through the gardens, stuffing their mouths with fresh vegetables that they grew themselves!

Partnership with The Family Table Farm

"we may be witnessing the first generation in history that has not been required to participate in that primal rite of socialization, the family meal...the family meal is not only the core curriculum in the school of civilizing discourse; it is also a set of protocols that curb our natural savagery and our animal greed and cultivate a capacity for sharing and thougtfulness... children today are not only physically starved by the junk food that they consume... far worse, they are deprived of the main course of civilized life- the practice of sitting down at the table and observing the attendant conversations."

-Francine du Plessix Grey

At Bloom! Montessori, we consider it important to create meaningful experiences between our students and sustainably grown food. We want our students to understand where their food comes from, who grows it, how to prepare it, and the importance of sharing it with family and friends.

Young children enjoy preparing food and sharing it with one another. This permits them to care and nurture each other and creates a familial atmosphere of inclusion and belonging. It also provides them with independence, an opportunity to develop fine motor skills, and exposes them to manners, social graces, and courtesies.

We provide children with filtered water and nutritious, whole grain foods. We use organic and Rghb-free ingredients whenever possible. We consciously limit children's intake of processed, unnecessarily sweet or salty, or pre-packaged foods to special occasions.

Daily, children at Bloom! safely prepare their own snacks (peeling eggs and clementines, peeling slicing bananas, cucumbers, and carrots, slicing tofu, baking muffins, juicing oranges, cracking nuts, spreading hummus, almond, or peanut butter), pour water from small pitchers into their own glasses, serve themselves from tiny serving dishes, and eat from real glass plates and cloth napkins. They arrange their communal tables, wait until everyone is served to begin eating, and conclude their meals by washing their own dishes and sweeping and crumbing the tables and floor.

We are very excited to announce that in June we will be including fresh, local produce in our cuisine through our partnership with The Family Table Farm (owned by Mike and Lisel Record)! We will be joining the national Farm to School Program which connects schools with local farms to teach students about the path from farm to fork and instill healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime.

As part of the program, we will be sourcing our produce locally from The Family Table Farm, offering our families the option of purchasing their own community supported agriculture (CSA) shares from the farm, and the children will be maintaining an organic vegetable garden and vermicompost program at the school. More information will be coming soon!

In the meantime, we encourage you to check out The Family Table Farm website at: http://www.thefamilytablefarm.com/


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