Food and kids

[fabrisse]

I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my last post. I'm going to go ahead and submit my questions and suggestions to them, but I think I'm going to look at one of the other available positions here instead. There's just too much chance of physical or mental harm to me if I go for that one.

I have found out that we may be founding a cooking club starting next month. One of the kids here is very interested in becoming a chef (he's hoping to go to Johnson and Wales), and loves to cook already. Right now, I'm lending him some cookbooks for other regions (his primary culture is Caribbean).

Now, the cooking club is a good idea. However, as is so often the case, the execution will be poor. Money is the cause. The most the club will put toward it is $50.00 per month. There will be five or six kids involved, plus me and a staff member. It is not impossible to feed 8 people on $12.50, but we'll have no staples to call on. The staff person is talking about grilled cheese and tomato soup again.

Admittedly, I'm planning on meals that can be done cheaply. Macaroni and cheese that doesn't come out of a blue box, for example. But I also want to serve a salad with it, if at all possible. Suggestions are welcome.

Comments

[tpau]

hmm... ask for donations?

vegetables are cheap at a farm stand, but nto in the dead of winter :(

[kstanley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it sounds like you need to do some fund raising. Perhaps you could create a list of staple ingredients that you need and work with a local grocery chain? Maybe they could ask people checking out at the cashier for donations (like the do for other charities)? A few people donating a pound of rice here, a bag of flour there, ought to make a difference.

[tpau]

i was thinking, even aske some of your employed friends, and you can at least double the budget each month...

[tpau]

and i meant that as in " don't ask the unemployed ones, they probably need the monye " sort of way...

Stir Fry

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

A brown rice stir fry is inexpensive, healthy and pretty varied. The difficulty is that for the best variety you need a choice of spices and to increase the health value you need more veggies.

However, if you can borrow various spices, you might wind up with extra brown rice as a side for future meals...

Another good meal is vegetarian chili. Actually, any home-made soup is inexpensive. It's the point of soup. Real soup and garlic bread is better than grilled cheese and canned soup, though tomato soup from scratch and grilled french bread is different.

Re: Stir Fry

[siderea]

Somehow, I don't think Fabrisse was asking for recipe suggestions. :)

[siderea]

Wait... Is there a presumption that you have to feed a complete meal? When someone says "cooking club" that's not what I assume. There might be one dish that everyone works on, and everyone just gets a taste. (I'm remembering making taffy in 3rd grade.)

If so, can you charge the people who eat the food? After all, that's how we do things in the SCA; we have cooking clubs with no subsidy whatsoever. Or are they too poor? Could you do something whereby kids who aren't in the club can pay money to eat the food, which subsidizes the work?

Also, what is the time investment for the club members? Is it such that in growing season you might get them to raise their own veggies?

BTW, in addition to lending the aspiring chef cookbooks, you might want to lend him copies of Saveur if you have any around. Cookbooks are the foodie equivalent of Joy of Sex, Saveur is the foodie equivalent of Playboy.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Hoo yeah. I had to let my subscription to Saveur lapse, but I have over a year's worth. It's a great idea. I also thought asking if he'd be willing to help with prep for dinner parties in return for learning new techniques. And we're already planning a goat swapping party for May. I teach him my Provencal recipe (the one with the lemon juice and fresh herbs) in return for his teaching me Jamaican curried goat. That's privately, though, and I'm hesitant to do too much of that.

We're hoping to expand the club so that there will be a possibility of gardens for the kids to work with, but right now -- pipe dream. The time investment for members is about 3 hours a meeting, and having a hot meal at the end of it is the reward for the work. At least for the first month (December), I want to ask if we can meet fortnightly and have $25.00 for each meal.

I have ideas like Tomato mushroom soup and popovers that can probably be done for the original budget. It's the staples that worry me. They're what the club isn't allowing for really in the Kid's Cafe, too.

Re: Stir Fry

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

No.

But Christovau -- come and cook with us one night. They'll be shocked that rice comes in brown and it's, y'know, tasty.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I'm trying to think of ways to do soups and stuff, but it has to be food they'll eat. I think that may be part of the impetus behind all the grilled cheese remarks.

[siderea]

It's the staples that worry me. They're what the club isn't allowing for really in the Kid's Cafe, too.

Righto. So. Make up a shopping list of what you need and how frequently. Then you draft a wonderfully polite letter asking for it (explain how it's for charity, encouraging kids to cook/shop, etc.) and you send it off to your local grocery store.

That's, IIRC, precisely where all the little water bottles for Knowne World Dance III came from (thank you Belmont Spring!)

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I don't think the club would permit it. They already use the local chains for the daycare food and will be calling on them for the Kid's Cafe. But I may start hitting up friends for flour, sugar, oil, and rice.

*sigh*

I like my friends, I'd like to keep them.

How are you, sweetie?

[kstanley.livejournal.com]

Dandy. It's all Going So Well. I'm the happiest I have been since I was a kid, and I'm just not lying. This going back to school thing was a great idea.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

There might be a way to do that. One of the things that I think's important for them to learn is the shopping part. Maybe we can work something out with the grocery store as a "educate your future consumers" project.

Thank you, Belmont Springs.

[eanja]

It certainly wouldn't hurt to ask if friends have extra staples. It might not be what you need, but I, for example, still have at least 10 pounds of sugar, 5 pounds of pinto (I think) beans, a gallon of canola oil, various individual cans of stuff and assorted duplicate spices that the temporary roommate left me and that I would be delighted to get rid of. You never know what people might be able to contribute. Plus it's for a good cause and staples aren't usually that expensive as long as it isn't one person needing to buy all of them.

If you don't mind my asking, where do you find goat meat? I've never seen it outside Indian restaurants, but perhaps that's just because I'm in the suburbs and the supermarkets out here are pretty generic.

On another note, I do hope the other job you are considering works out.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Goat I get from Hal al markets. There's one in Quincy near Wollaston that I've used. The kid says he can get it in his neighborhood, but I don't have more specifics.

You may find me begging you for staples donation. ;-) The oil especially.

When's Gilbert and Sullivan?

[eanja]

Gilbert and Sullivan is December 6, at 2pm. I'm going to head downtown and get tickets tomorrow - hopefully there will still be decent seats left.

Just let me know on staples. Is it OK if some of the stuff has been opened? This is why I couldn't donate it to a food pantry or anything, but hopefully since you know me this won't be an issue.