Breaking Bread: Familes & Food

Breaking Bread: Families & Food. This is a Mini-Program, where all of our 3, 4 and 5 students will rotate through a 2 day Culinary Workshop. On a Tuesday,the group will meet to discuss the menu based on local, season food, and to prep for the cook day, Thursday of the same week. The day of the cook, will find the students packaging their meals (with family portions) to take home and enjoy collectively with family, sharing recipes and efforts, all the while strengthening family ties, which are often non-existent in todays families.

Update (March 5, 2013)

Breaking Bread has started! Students can be heard on Tuesdays, chattering about the surprise meal they will be cooking for their families at the next session when they arrive. Learning about local, seasonal food is engaging and often surprising " Really, this comes from the ground?". Revision of Canada's Food Guide, Safe Food Handling, and Good Kitchen Practices is proving to be a great success. To date we have completed 3 sessions, with stellar reviews from families, who have not only pulled out the good family china to eat, but are spending time after the meal to continue re-connecting. Post March Break, our sessions will resume, with an amended menu to reflect the seasonal change in available food. Photo to follow.

Update (March 26, 2013)

Local homegrown Grocery. Find out where your food comes from, learn about several Food Box Programs, support our growers and farmers, and generally feel good about what we ate!

Update (March 26, 2013)

A division of Atlantic Superstore. Great Manager, Danny Shaw who is always helpful to point out the local available produce and meats, when available.
www.superstore.ca

Update (June 3, 2013)

WOW! What an amazing turn of events which have come to fruition, from the simple idea of teaching our students about Real Food. Students throughout the year, were treating to Discovery Boxes in their classrooms, where a local food or product was sampled in as many forms as possible. Example. Spring Brook Cranberry Farms, did a whole school presentation on Cranberries complete from A through Z. I then put together 11 Discovery boxes with the following : Fresh harvested cranberries, organic dried cranberries, unsweetened pure cranberry juice, and cranberry muffins. Students sampled these starting from the tartest and then rated their findings on a questionnaire. Each month we tried to have a different grower/producer highlighted. From this idea, came the integration of serving these foods, (seasonally) within our Breakfast Program, thus increasing the exposure to our students, and continuing the learning about local and sustainable foods. We then hosted a Mini Chef's Cooking Program, called Breaking Bread: Families and Food. Again the idea was to tie in our knowledge of local foods, develop recipes using this knowledge, then have our grades, 3 4 and 5's come into the kitchen and create. Along the way, they would pick up, safe kitchen practices, safe food handling, and without even knowing, increase their Literacy and Numeracy skills! The best part of this program, was Take Home day! This was the Thursday of each scheduled week when the groups cooked. Students would pack up their labours of love, into thermal bags, and then eagerly await to greet their parents with what was in the bag. They all went home to a night of family style supper, catching up on each other's day, sharing what was to come, and breaking bread with re-kindling connections and love. This component of the project was by far the coolest, as it struck a chord in many families (again the feedback from the questionnaire inside the bag) who recognized just how often they don't eat together anymore, or even take the time to share about each others day, because of the hectic lifestyles and after school commitments they have. Food can mitigate all barriers, it doesn't care how much money you make, the origin of your name, or whether you are in the top percentile of your class. It provides a level field for us all to re-connect, give thanks, sustain our hearts and souls, and increase our own Food Security issues. Thank you for this extremely wonderful opportunity to provide this showcase to our students and our community stakeholders.

Our Local Food Suppliers and Growers.docx [document]
This is a page from our resulting Breaking Bread Cook book, which came out of the completion of the cooking program. This shows a small listing of some of the products we used when teaching this program.

Photos:
* Winter crumble using last season's frozen strawberries, blueberries and a few Honeycrisp apples, waiting to go into the oven.
* Funny how making something in the kitchen can bring people together!
* Aprons & Attitude! Too much fun!
* Vegetables prepped and ready for the cook day!
* Look...it's Mr.Potato Head!

chicken%20stew%20recipe-1.docx [document]
One of the recipes used in the program. Chicken Stew.

Update (June 3, 2013)

Proper personal hygiene and safe knife skills were taught as part of the components of the cooking program.

Update (June 3, 2013)

Proud of their culinary efforts. Students showcase their Ooey, gooey Cranberry Chocolate Squares. These were made with 95% locally sourced and supported ingredients, now if only we could find a cocoa producer!

Update (June 3, 2013)

An amazing meal is only as good as it's ingredients! An equally amazing program is only as good as its facilitator. We are THANKFUL for Mrs.Rector.

Update (June 3, 2013)

Our Cheesy Baked Potato Topped Cottage Pies, holy yum!