Becky Locker: A Campus Kitchen Intern's Lessons Learned

Wednesday: October 25, 2006 to Thursday: October 26, 2006

Today I had the great opportunity to go on a Campus Kitchens Project new site development visit with my supervisor, Radha Duggal, and the Founder and Director of DC Central Kitchen, Robert Egger. I was thrilled that I could join these two dedicated “movers and shakers” on a visit to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I was going to get to watch Robert give presentations to three different campus service groups and work alongside Radha to spark interest in students and administrators for starting a Campus Kitchen. I was amazed to find out that the College of William and Mary was one of the first schools set up by the Colonists when they first reached America. Radha wanted me to go with her to check out the College of William and Mary so I could see the process of how a Campus Kitchen is implemented. When I worked this summer at Tufts University co-running a Campus Kitchen Culinary Job Training Program, I was unable to be there for the set up phase, so Radha wanted me to experience that part of the program to see it come full circle. Also, she said that it would be great for me to meet the interested students who are trying to set up a Campus Kitchen at the College of William and Mary and to share my personal experiences and love for the program with them and to see if I could help answer any questions or concerns.

A senior, named Julie Price, was the person who had contacted Radha and started getting the ball rolling by filling out a Campus Kitchen feasibility study. I was amazed to find out that the College of William and Mary has over 250 student-interest groups and the Office of Student Volunteer Services has partnerships with 90 local nonprofit agencies and schools (W&M website). Also, I was impressed to find out that this college is one of the leading contributors to the Peace Corps out of all the schools in the nation and they have 10 progressive international service trips where students go to Africa, South America, and Europe. We arrived at the Williamsburg train station around 11:00am and were greeted by Lauren Grainger, one of the directors of the Office of Student Volunteer Services. She showed us around the campus and talked to us about her interest in helping Julie start a Campus Kitchen at their school. In the afternoon, Radha and I got to see Robert’s first presentation of the day to the Monroe Scholars over a lunch of sandwiches and salad. The Monroe Scholars are the most academically distinguished undergraduates at the College of William and Mary and represent approximately the top 7% of the student body. I was pleased to find out that these scholars are also selected in regard to their “deep concern for helping the community, intellectual depth, curiosity and demonstrated devotion to learning for learning’s sake”(W&M website). Both Directors of the Office of Student Volunteer Services, Lauren Grainger and Drew Stelljes, introduced Robert to the Monroe Scholars. The Directors mentioned how Robert had been included in the Non Profit Times’ list of the “50 Most Powerful and Influential Nonprofit Leaders of 2006” and that he had been named an “Oprah Angel” for all his hard work with the DC Central Kitchen.

Robert started his lecture by talking about the importance of making philanthropy our individual life’s work and how it is important for college students to find a healthy balance between life, spirituality, and philanthropy. I admired how Robert said that graduating college students are going to be the “secret weapon of the nonprofit revolution” because we are going to bring in new ideas and methods for creating social change that will be “crazy fun” and out of the box refreshing. Robert explained that he wants the baby boomer generation who started the nonprofit sector to be open to the younger generation’s new strategies for creating change. He also said that it is going to take the sharing of resources and ideas in order for the nonprofit sector to start consolidating and producing more quantifiable big time results. Robert expressed that he sincerely wants to see the line of people nonprofits serve getting shorter and that the only way to do this is for nonprofits to start incorporating empowerment programs into their larger mission. He articulately stated that “American society is more for the redemption of the giver, than the liberation of the receiver”. This is why the core issues of society’s ills are not being fully addressed or worked through and solved. Robert ended his speech by emphasizing that American society needs to reclaim its nonprofits’ “civic courage” to make sure they are working toward actions that lead to long-term solutions.

After Robert’s heart and mind provoking speech, Radha and I were off to see his next speech with the Service Leaders Corps. This group is made up of students who are highly motivated to seek leadership positions within a variety of service organizations. Approximately 20 students are competitively selected through an interview process to get the opportunity to partake in a 10-week program that “builds on the premise that individual citizens have both an opportunity and a responsibility to be involved in the life of the community and in addressing community problems” (W&M website). At this meeting with the Service Leaders Corps, Robert explained that the nonprofit sector has seriously gotten trapped in a service mentality and as a result has lost its systematic approach to unite and rise up together to make change. It was interesting how Robert drew a connection between Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy: they both died talking about the need for people in America to become united. Robert explained that both of these courageous men were perceived by some as “dangerous” because of their deep passion and commitment to uniting people from across socio-economic and racial divides. Robert movingly went on to say that it is time that the nonprofit sector look back at these freedom movements and work hard to “stand on the shoulders of giants” and learn from their ability to organize in order to bring about social change. Change for the betterment of society will fail to occur if nonprofits continue to take on an isolated stance and solely focus on their own organizational interests. Robert Egger exclaimed that the nonprofit sector has many missions, but must find one voice.

Robert’s moving speech ended around 5:00pm. Afterwards we met with Lauren Grainger, and for the first time, Julie Price, the student interested in starting a Campus Kitchen at the College of William and Mary. Also, ten students from the Service Leaders Corps joined us for dinner at a local Williamsburg restaurant where we continued our activism discussions. Robert’s final lecture started at 7:00pm and was an open lecture to anyone who wanted to attend from the college. He talked about the need for the nonprofit sector to get deeply involved in the political process and to claim a seat at the table in regards to helping effect policy change. Egger in his speech also stressed the need for nonprofits to be covered accurately and in depth by the media. Nonprofits should gain coverage on a regular basis not only around the holiday season. Robert explained that the media had turned the nonprofit sector into a commodity that is commercially packed and sold in an artificial way only to trigger temporary emotions primarily related to financial giving. Thus, it is crucial that American society help redeem the nonprofit sector’s original integrity and purpose because nonprofits are the “natural guides for our society’s well being”. After Robert’s speech he had a book signing for his book “Begging For Change”, The Dollars and Sense of Making Nonprofits Responsive, Efficient, and Rewarding For All. To finish the wonderful trip to the College of William and Mary, Radha and I met one on one with Julie Price and talked about the potential for starting a Campus Kitchen very soon. It was evident that this college had a passionate community service minded student body and a campus administration that were truly there to support their students. We left Williamsburg the next day feeling pleased at the engaging activist thinking that took place and how a new Campus Kitchen could be in the works.

Friday: October 6, 2006

Friday marked the second day of the CKP Leadership Conference and the official Five Year Anniversary of the Campus Kitchens Project. In order to celebrate this special day, all the student leaders had an Anniversary Cooking Shift at the DC Central Kitchen. The cooking shift commenced at 6:00am with the students sleepily putting on their fashionable kitchen attire of hairnets and aprons. Even though it was early, I was so thrilled that I was going to lead the volunteer orientation on CKP’s 5 year anniversary. Over the past two months, I have been leading the Thursday volunteer orientation at the DC Central Kitchen and have enjoyed getting to spread the progressive mission the Kitchen promotes of working to combat hunger and create opportunity. I have especially valued getting to orient new volunteers to the DC Central Kitchen’s Culinary Job Training Program because volunteers are given the opportunity to work alongside people who are transitioning from homelessness, drug addiction, and prison. The volunteers are able to use this time cooking in order to discover and celebrate commonalities and to break down the stereotypes people have about poverty.

Our forty person group cooked from 6:00am to 9:00am and worked hard to puree sweet potatoes to feed hundreds using a piece of cooking equipment powerful and large enough to be a cement jackhammer. Also, turkey, ham, and peanut butter sandwiches were turning out assembly line style, and 50 pound bags of onions were being chopped vigorously to be used for a meat sauce being prepared in the large hot cooking kettles. After our productive early morning cooking shift, we all noshed on bagels and drank coffee and got to listen to Director of DC Central Kitchen, Robert Egger, give his insight on how food recovery programs need to focus their efforts on incorporating programs that help empower impoverished individuals. Robert is one of the best speakers I have ever heard because he’s not afraid to give his honest outlook and ideas on the current poverty and hunger situation in the United States.

The most inspirational part of his speech was when he made an analogy using a wishbone and how it will only make thin soup, and how a backbone will provide a full bodied soup. In short Robert explained, if you really want to start addressing poverty you are going to have to get to the root causes, the “backbone” of the problems and not wish or use the “wishbone” that the situation will work itself out and clear up on its own. He went on to say that in this line of nonprofit work nothing stays passionate when routine; thus it is vital that we each work hard to find creative and progressive way to accomplish our social change missions. After Robert gave his inspiring speech, DCCK staff sang the Campus Kitchens Project happy birthday and we all got to enjoy slices of celebratory cake. Once we licked our plates clean, the conference participants split up into two groups. One group traveled to Washington D.C.’s Hillel Headquarters where students discussed leadership development and brainstormed ways to keep the Campus Kitchens Project a productive and expanding student run program.
I attended the Culinary Skills 101 session at Washington D.C.’s First Baptist Church (the location of CKP’s national headquarters) with Chef Barton Seaver, executive chef of Café Saint-Ex and Bar Pilar. Chef Barton talked to our group about the importance of knowing where our food comes from and supporting locally grown food. Barton was generous to bring a variety of fresh organic produce and meat products for us to use in a creative cooking activity. Some of the ingredients Barton had spread out on display for us to touch and smell included honey-cured bacon, tree mushrooms, a variety of produce (eggplants, red potatoes, green beans), aromatic lemon basil, olive oil, and garlic. To get our culinary imagination juices flowing, Barton had us admire the beautiful ingredients on the table up close and choose one memory that was triggered by any of the ingredients.

As I began to hold and smell the different types of ingredients, the olive oil and onions captured my interest because since I was a little girl I have enjoyed cooking Italian food with my father. Olive oil and garlic make me think of all the wonderful memories I have had with my dad in the kitchen and how with his guidance, I developed a passion for cooking and wanted to combine cooking and teaching as a career. As I thought about how much cooking has positively affected my life, Barton had us all gather in a circle and share our memories we associated with these food ingredients. After a beautiful sharing of food memories, Barton excitedly announced we would be breaking up into small teams of three to create our own pasta dish using the diverse ingredients on the table.

I paired up with Brian Larkin, CKP coordinator at Gonzaga College High School, and Jen, CKP coordinator at Northwestern University, and created a delicious pasta dish with fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, eggplant, and a whole lot of garlic and olive oil. After we all finished cooking our individual pasta dishes, Barton explained that he chose to do this activity with us because he wanted us Campus Kitchen coordinators to feel more comfortable challenging our culinary skills and to not be afraid to be creative with trying new recipes using unfamiliar ingredients. Barton explained that once we each felt comfortable around a variety of ingredients and kitchen equipment, creating meals using recovered food would become more of an exciting process than a stressful one. I gained a wealth of culinary wisdom from this cooking exercise, and I admire how chef Barton encouraged us to live by the philosophy that food not only helps sustain us physically, but also helps nourish our soul.

Wednesday: August 30, 2006

Today I spent my morning and afternoon giving speeches at Gonzaga College High School, an all boys Jesuit academy, where I helped introduce students to a new nutrition initiative the national CKP office was planning on incorporating into their Washington D.C. based Campus Kitchen. The Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga College High School is unique in that it is the only Campus Kitchen that involves high school students in combating hunger and providing skills to in-need individuals within their community. This fall the Campus Kitchen is excited to expand its program services to include nutrition classes for low-income children. Brian Larkin is a Gonzaga College High School Graduate who has been hired through their alumni scholar foundation to be the fresh out of college Campus Kitchen coordinator. Brian and I decided to target the Social Justice and Religion classes for our Campus Kitchen nutritional education presentations. We knew these classes stressed the importance of engaging in activist action and worked hard to make service learning and community development educational and rewarding for high school students. We explained that the Gonzaga Campus Kitchens Project would come in weekly to the South Capitol transition housing complex, called the Tyler House, where we would help encourage low-income children to explore nutritious food options that would help them sustain a healthy and well-balanced lifestyle. Brian and I believe that it is important for youth to become interested in nutrition and health education and to learn in a creative and supportive classroom environment. This is why we chose high school age boys to play the role of both mentor and teacher to youth who face difficult life situations. We believe that these high school age mentors could provide the youth an engaging and memorable learning experience.

In addition to providing nutrition education classes to low-income youth, I also believe that the food production companies need to be held accountable for making unhealthy foods cheap. It is unjust that fresh produce and nutritious foods are sold at higher prices compared to most commercially processed foods that low-income people can afford. The commercially processed foods are high in fat, sugar, and starch content. The Federal and/or State governments need to supplement the cost of healthy foods to lower markets’ and food producers’ prices. An alternative method would be for the Federal and/or State governments to tax “junk” food because these products are contributing to the obesity epidemic and related diseases in the United States.

Gonzaga College High School started its Campus Kitchen in January 2006 and has proven to the skeptics that high school boys are perfectly capable and passionate about contributing to positive social change even at their tender adolescent age. I feel that high school students in general are not taken seriously enough about how far their efforts can go in touching lives and making change. Unfortunately nowadays, high school students are not seen as capable of finding niches in the community where their services can be used reliably. This is why I admire the Campus Kitchens Project for challenging the notion that community service hours should only be done as a requirement to graduate. Instead, the Campus Kitchens Project views community service as a practice that promotes a lifestyle of giving and compassion. Once young and old people together can lead a lifestyle where social change is incorporated into their daily consciousness, then societal change can more easily become a reality. High school students need to be encouraged and trusted to be the next “movers and shakers” and to be given the skills and opportunity to be key players in activist work.

Wednesday: August 16, 2006
and
Friday: August 18, 2006

Both Wednesday and Friday were memorable training days for me because I got the opportunity to volunteer with DCCK’s street-level outreach program, First Helping. My Wednesday morning started out at 7:45am loading four large warm holding cabinets of breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and pastries into a large delivery truck which would be distributed to homeless individuals throughout the East of the River delivery route. Every day of the work week 570 breakfast sandwiches and muffins are created at the DCCK for this admirable program. The morning meals are used “as a tool to build trust and respect” with individuals living on the streets and to help them move into the shelter system to have greater access to additional support programs ranging from substance abuse to mental health programs. First Helping was established in 1996 and has steadily “assisted in helping more than 100 men and women into treatment programs” (www.dccentralkitchen.org).

This Wednesday I got to work with Paul Yorkman and Bill Hepler who are two dedicated outreach workers for the First Helping team. We stopped at four different locations throughout the South side of Washington D.C. and got to meet a variety of street residents battling substance abuse and mental illness. I truly valued and felt comfortable going out into the streets and connecting with our First Helping recipients. I admire these outreach workers for putting in the tedious but rewarding time to reach out to struggling individuals in the community and help them get connected with rehabilitation services. I agree with First Helping that all of those who are homeless are worthy of having a productive and safe life.

On Friday I walked down to the Foggy Bottom District of Washington D.C. and got to participate a second time with DCCK’s First Helping outreach program. I was looking forward this morning to joining a new group of outreach workers at a small park on E Street between 19th and 18th. Every week outreach workers from First Helping are assigned to go to both the East of the River Route and the Foggy Bottom Route and distribute food and social service support. The park we used to set up Friday’s breakfast was located right in the middle of the Department of the Interior and the U.S. General Services Administration. Even though this area was full of wealth and professional sway, it was apparent that homelessness was heavily prevalent and not adequately addressed in this area.

Lawrence was my outreach partner this morning and every Monday through Friday he dedicated his time to do outreach work in the Foggy Bottom District. While we served a hearty warm breakfast I enjoyed getting to talk with Lawrence and learn about his history with outreach work. On the menu this morning was sausage and turkey breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and pastries and bread that had been donated to DCCK surprisingly by the convenience store 711. In under an hour, Lawrence and I had gotten through the remainder of the breakfast food and got to talk with some of the homeless park regulars. Lawrence and I were a great team and both of our energies motivated the other. By the end of the 9:00am shift, Lawrence jokingly asked me “Do you live on a farm because you sure are a hard worker with nothing but smiles!” I thanked him kindly and said that “I never was a farm girl, but sure loved getting my hands dirty and doing work that helped people brought me much happiness and fulfillment”. I departed around 9:15 am and told Lawrence it was a pleasure working with him and walked back to the Campus Kitchens Project national office. At the office I worked on writing my Tufts CKP Culinary Job Training Blog, reading nutrition education materials, and researching info in order to revamp the Culinary Job Training Manual. With just five days of interning in Washington D.C. under my belt, I felt that I had gained a lot of knowledge and felt excited to dive into the next four months of interning.

Monday: August 14, 2006

Monday marked the beginning of my next chapter as an intern for the Campus Kitchens Project in the politically charged area of Washington D.C. Even though I felt like a part of me was going to always be in Boston, I was very excited to have a new adventure ahead of me working for the national Campus Kitchens Office. I was going to gain first hand experience on what makes a grassroots organization tick and gain strength. Remarkably, the CKP national office is located only two blocks away from my UCDC Center apartment where I will be living for the remainder of my six-month internship. The office is situated in the back of Washington D.C.’s First Baptist Church where additional spaces have been allotted for nonprofit office use. I was shocked the moment I stepped into the office to see that the “national headquarters” was no bigger then a dorm room packed with stacks of multicolor manuals, five computers, and the essential coffee maker and microwave. I admire how much activist magic has been able to take place within this cozy office.

I arrived at the CKP office around 1:00pm because I had spent the morning volunteering with the DC Central Kitchen’s culinary job training program. DC Central Kitchen is the CKP’s sister organization and both work closely together to come up with progressive programs in order to combat hunger and provide opportunity to empower impoverished people. On my first day of interning I had the pleasure of meeting Robert Egger, the Director of DCCK at the kitchen and he made me feel welcomed and part of the team. Currently, Egger is working on developing the first ever Nonprofit Congress which will bring together hundreds of delegates from nonprofits around the nation in order to discuss the nonprofit sector and converge the think tanks and networking resources fueling many of the nation’s nonprofits.

I absolutely loved being at this progressive nonprofit because I got to see how a large-scale culinary job training program was successfully run! The culinary job training program I helped to co-run at Tufts University had five trainees, whereas the DC Central Kitchen usually teaches between 15 to 20 trainees. I was paired up with a South Carolina church group of high school students and Chef James at the hot food station. James is an alumnus of the DCCK’s culinary job training program and is one of the instructional chefs at the kitchen. It is inspiring to learn how a number of DCCK’s culinary job training graduates have wanted to stay with this organization and have been employed as part of the DCCK staff. Also, the DCCK has a wonderful policy of welcoming outside community residents into the kitchen daily to assist with the food preparation effort. I admire how this organization believes in the power of using the kitchen as a central location to unite people from different backgrounds, to promote side-by-side comradeship, and to use this special space in order to discover and celebrate commonalities.

My young team members and I helped cook a tasty chicken cacciatore entree using industrial sized kettles in order to keep all the tomato sauce, vegetables, and chicken simmering. While I was at the hot cooking station, I was blown away to hear from Chef James that the DC Central Kitchen produces an estimated 4,000 meals a day for delivery with “little or no charge” to more than 100 nonprofit agencies throughout the District of Columbia, suburban Maryland, and Northern Virginia! This one organization has found multi-faceted ways in order to combat waste, hunger, and create opportunity. I knew that the DC Central Kitchen would be the place where I would learn so much from the participating culinary job trainees and passionate staff. I departed from the DCCK around 12:15pm feeling both uplifted and encouraged that this nonprofit organization was helping those who have been oppressed by society’s institutions reclaim their power and voice in society through the guidance and support of empowerment programs such as the culinary job training program.

When I reached the door of the Campus Kitchens Project I was automatically recognized as the new intern and enthusiastically greeted by Karen Borchert, the Director and co-founder of the Campus Kitchens Project, Abby Flottemesch, the National Development Manger and Radha Duggal, the National Program Manager for CKP and my supervisor. Radha is the person who got me connected with Eleanor Heidkamp-Young for the Tufts Campus Kitchens Project and designed my current intern responsibilities. For this I am forever grateful to her because having the opportunity to co-run a culinary job training program changed my life! Teaching and working with these struggling but determined individuals reinforced my passion for blending cooking with social work! It is incredible observing these three young women take on the huge task of creating, maintaining, and expanding this unique student driven nonprofit. Currently, the office is pumping with excitement because the dynamic female trio are expecting the organization to be close to “tipping” because this fall three new Campus Kitchen locations are opening (Wake Forest University, Washington and Lee University, and University of Nebraska at Kearney). My first day ended with a solid understanding of the DCCK and CKP’s layout and I was excited to be part of the force to create opportunity for empowerment and sustainable solutions for the future.

Reflective Final Remarks

These field notes are designed to help give an inside peak of what it is like as a college student to run a Campus Kitchens Project culinary job training course. I admire how the Campus Kitchens Project helps give power back to individuals who have been oppressed by society’s institutions. The five culinary job trainee graduates through this course were able to reclaim their self-esteem and feel more comfortable to transition into the job market. The Campus Kitchens Project is helping to motivate and inspire not only the lives of the individuals who participate in these programs, but the students and community members who believe it wise to “use the kitchen [imaginatively] to turn up the heat on hunger."

Eleanor and I on the cutting edge. Guest Chef Robert from Red Bones Restaurant presenting a lesson on good tasting BBQ.

I am now embarking on my next chapter as an intern for the Campus Kitchens Project in the politically stimulating Washington D.C. This blog will follow my next CKP activist adventures and document my work as an intern.

So stayed tuned for more Campus Kitchens news and reflections!

Thursday: August 3, 2006

I was sad that the final week of the Campus Kitchens Culinary Job Training Program had finally arrived because we all had grown into a close and supportive family over the past eight weeks.

Graduation was very exciting because each culinary job trainee got to choose his/her own dish to create for our graduation banquet. The delicious meal consisted of a chicken penne Alfredo entrée and a stuffed eggplant and zucchini entrée. For side dishes there was a traditional Haitian dish called Fritayer. This side dish had fried pork, plantains, and a cabbage side salad. The other side dish created was a wild rice dish and had corn, onions, red and yellow peppers, and chicken stock in it. A large batch of cream of tartar biscuits completed our culinary job trainees’ beautiful dinner buffet.

Graduation was a day I will always remember and hold as a special memory.

Over 50 people came to the Tufts Campus Kitchens culinary job training graduation. Friends and family of the five trainees, community members (even the Somerville mayor), guest chefs, and our supportive advisory board attended this special event. Eleanor and I presented each trainee with a certificate for outstanding performance and satisfactory completion of the Tufts culinary job training program. Along with the certificates they received a set of personal business cards, a professional chef coat with their names inscribed on it, and a copy of the Tufts CKP slide show. Starting from the week I first arrived at Tufts, I began documenting our cooking shifts and great guest chef presentations.

My friend Brian Lee and I combined these photos into a five-minute slide show and gave out copies to the trainees because I thought that it would be a great keepsake for them to remember all they accomplished in this program. Many tears, warm embraces, and delicious food were shared throughout the night and we gave the trainees a celebration that they fully deserved.

Monday: July 17, 2006

My Monday ServSafe lecture was going to cover safe thawing and cooling methods for food products. Also, I was going to lecture on specific rules that are important for foodhandlers to follow when preparing food. When I became ServSafe certified, I was shocked to learn that the practice of thawing food by leaving it out at room temperature (roughly 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit) was hazardous to the safety of food. This method of thawing is risky because the food is left within the Temperature Danger Zone (between 41 degrees and 135 degrees Fahrenheit), that is the temperature range in which microorganisms happily grow best. I immediately thought of all the uninformed households who leave their food to thaw at room temperature and how this could pose a hazard to their health. Thus, I was eager to teach my students the importance of thawing food in a refrigerator at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, thawing food by submerging it under running potable (drinking) water at a temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, thawing food in a microwave oven (only if the food will be cooked immediately after thawing), or having a foodhandler thaw food as part of the cooking process. As a class, we talked about the importance of reducing the quantity of food to help it cool down quicker and that using stainless steel pans helps the heat transfer faster and will speed up the cooling process. I used colorful posters to show how the Ice-Water Bath, Cold Paddle, and Blast Chiller were all safe and time efficient methods to cool down food. We made great time covering the important thawing and cooling methods, and the trainees were ready to have a lesson with a new guest chef.

Today’s guest chef presenter was Chef Mark Pavao from the Danish Pastry House and he was going to present a lesson on baking and “The American Pie”.





Mark is the head baker at the Danish Pastry House and is a graduate of the prestigious culinary academy, Johnson and Wails. Mark brought ingredients for our culinary job trainees to be able to bake an apple pie and apple turnovers from scratch. It was clear to Eleanor and I that Mark had given many cooking demonstrations because he was a natural in getting our CKP trainees excited about the baking presentation and he was a strong believer in hands on class participation. Mark had prepared a beautiful handout for our Campus Kitchens Trainees to keep and refer to. The handout gave the history of the pie and provided a clear, step-by-step recipe for making pie dough, apple filling, and how to assemble a pie into a delicious final product. I was thrilled to learn that historians have recorded that the roots of pie can loosely be traced back to the ancient Egyptians. The bakers to the pharaohs incorporated nuts, honey, and fruits, in bread dough, a primitive form of pastry. Mark went on to explain that historians believe that the Greeks actually originated pie pastry. The pies during this period were made with a flour-water paste wrapped around meat. It was fascinating to discover that the first pies were called “coffins” or “coffyns” and were savory meat pies. Also, it was amazing to find out that these meat and sauce filled pies were baked more like a modern casserole with no pan, rather the crust itself was used as a pan and its pastry was tough and inedible. All five trainees were amazed by Mark’s knowledge about pies, and everyone couldn’t wait to start the pie baking festivities.

He encouraged each trainee to help measure out the wet and dry ingredients for the pie dough. Also, he instructed our trainees on how to properly and diligently core, peel, and cut the large granny smith apples.




Once the trainees completed their apple filling and dough-mixing tasks, they got to practice their dough rolling and pinching skills. Then Mark showed our culinary job trainees how to do a lattice piecrust and to use an egg wash to give the crust a nice golden brown color. To our delight, there was leftover apple filling and Mark came up with the resourceful idea to make apple turnovers with this extra filling and the excess dough trimmings from the piecrust. Mark placed the plump apple pie and five apple turnovers into the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes. Once the timer went off, all five trainees rushed to the oven to admire the bubbling golden brown pie and turnovers.



While the aromatic desserts cooled, Mark talked with our trainees about what he looks for when hiring new employees for his baking team. He stressed the importance of being a dedicated, good spirited, and punctual worker. Mark made a really valid point when he said that, “It is crucial to come into a new work environment with an open mind and to be open to learn new skills and to develop already acquired ones”. He stressed that employers get turned off when an interviewee or a new employee assumes he/she knows all there is to know in the world of baking or cooking. Thus, to work in this business (the food industry) one needs to stay open to acquiring new food wisdom from each new personal experience or work environment. Mark encouraged our Campus Kitchens culinary job trainees to present themselves honestly when going for an interview and to really emphasize personal qualities and experiences that set themselves apart from others who might be interested in applying for the same job position. While Mark gave his motivational words of baker wisdom, we all got to savor the flavorful apple creations. Mark’s baking presentation ended at 4:00pm, and we all thanked him for his educational and inspiring presentation. Eleanor and I left the kitchen that afternoon with happy stomachs and enthused spirits.

Monday: July 10, 2006

Monday’s ServSafe lesson covered the general rules for holding food at self-service areas and the serving logistics that help to minimize cross-contamination. I made posters that showed the common Hot Holding Equipment foodhandlers use to keep food at serving temperatures (135 degrees Fahrenheit or above). Steam Tables, Chafing Dishes, and Heated Cabinets are excellent methods to keep food warm. We also talked about the importance of having food at self-service areas (Buffet lines) protected by a sneeze guard. A sneeze guard acts as a shield to prevent physical hazards (hair, dirt, glass) from getting into and contaminating food. Also, items at food bars need to be clearly identified, replenished on a timely basis, and raw foods should always be kept away from ready-to-eat foods. I stressed it was important for food establishments to not allow their self-service customers to reuse their soiled (dirty) plates or silverware for refills because this action can spread germs throughout the food bar. Our Monday ServSafe lesson ended with our class discussing the disturbing reality about how some food establishments have been known to reuse garnishes and bread baskets that have already been served once. We felt very paranoid about going out to eat after this sanitation lesson and we all got suited up with aprons and hairnets for our guest chef presentation.

Toby Hewitt was today’s guest chef presenter and he was a good humored and animated presenter.



Toby towered over the Campus Kitchens Project trainees at six foot three and continually came close to running into the top heat vents over the stove and kept joking about how the people who design kitchens discriminate against tall people. Toby is the sous chef for Tufts Catering Department and notably graduated from the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in upstate New York. Eleanor and I could immediately tell that Toby was associated with the Tufts Catering Department because he brought two wholesale free range chickens, large Portobello mushrooms that looked like they had just been picked from moist soil, large yellow onions with bunches of aromatic thyme, a sophisticated bottle of Merlot wine, a pound of cured bacon, and his secret homemade veal stock he had made the day before. All the trainees were excited to be working with such high quality and savory food products and enjoyed learning how to braise chicken in a wine, vegetable, and veal stock sauce. Toby explained that the art of braising is all about slow cooking and allowing the poultry to absorb all the flavorful liquids from the added ingredients. He also said, that a foodhandler can tell when a chicken has been properly braised by whether or not the meat falls right off the bones from tenderness. The presentation lasted only an hour and a half because Toby had come prepared with a final product of our braised chicken dish. He knew that the chicken we had just assembled for braising wouldn’t finish cooking in time for us to sample our work. Luckily, while our chicken was cooking steadily we all got to enjoy the tasty braised chicken Toby had brought and we all agreed today was another successful Campus Kitchens day.

Thursday: July 6, 2006

For this Thursday’s lecture I was going to discuss the correct methods of how to store food in a cooler, freezer, or in dry storage, and the crucial importance of thermometers in a food establishment.

Posters galore.

Foodhandlers can choose between Bimetallic Stemmed Thermometers, Thermocouples, or Thermistors to use for taking the temperature of food and equipment. I had made posters the night before that visually portrayed the two different methods for calibrating Bimetallic Stemmed Thermometers.

There is the Boiling-Point Method in which clean potable water is brought to a boil in a deep pan and then a thermometer is placed into the boiling water so that the sensing probe is completely submerged, then the foodhandler uses a wrench to rotate the head of the thermometer until it reads 212 degrees Fahrenheit or boiling. The second method used to calibrate Bimetallic Stemmed Thermometers is the Ice-Point Method in which a clean container is filled with half cold water and half crushed ice until full. Then the thermometer is placed into the water so that the sensing area is completely submerged. The foodhandler finally uses a wrench to rotate the head of the thermometer until it reads 32 degrees Fahrenheit or freezing.

As a class we talked about the importance of regularly resetting and cleaning thermometers to ensure accuracy and to prevent cross contamination. I stressed the importance of inserting the thermometer into the thickest part of the food product when measuring its internal cooking temperature because it provides a more accurate temperature reading. Also, I explained that foodhandlers should never use a glass thermometer filled with mercury or spirits to monitor the temperature of the food because the glass could shatter into the food and the chemicals could turn the food toxic for consumption. The last part of Thursday’s ServSafe lesson focused on the minimal internal temperatures different types of food need to attain to be fully cooked. For example, poultry, stuffed meats, stuffing, and leftovers should be cooked to a minimal internal temperature of 165 degrees, ground meat and injected meats to 155 degrees, whole meat, eggs, and fish to 145 degrees, vegetables and commercially processed foods to 135 degrees. At the end of this jam-packed ServSafe lesson, all five of the trainees got ready for our food distribution cooking shifts.

Eleanor was in charge of creating the meal production plan for today and we were going to make a hearty meat sauce with penne pasta (that would serve 20 and our CKP family) and a Spanish rice entrée with ground beef, green onions, and squash (that would serve 75).

We filled up four, plastic hotel pans with fresh strawberries, bananas, and pastries to provide our shelters with some dessert variety. The Casper Homeless Shelter’s vegetable dish consisted of sautéed green and yellow summer squash seasoned with garlic powder, lemon pepper, and salt. The Somerville Homeless Coalition received steamed cut green beans and carrots. We finished our meal production at 3:35pm and sat down for a delicious lunch and a weekly trainee incentive. Every Thursday Eleanor and I reward one of our five trainees with a weekly incentive for showing dedication, a positive attitude, and promptness. This week the incentive was a ten dollar gift certificate to O’Naturals, a health food restaurant in downtown Davis. I believe that these weekly incentives are a great way to motivate and encourage our trainees to stick with the program even when they feel overwhelmed. Also, I view these incentives as a way for Eleanor and I to give thanks and honor our trainees for all their hard work and perseverance.

Monday: July 3, 2006

Today’s pre-forth of July Campus Kitchens training was quite a compact day! I dedicated most of Sunday to developing a lesson plan that would introduce my ServSafe trainees to the food safety system HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) and to the Flow of Food which is a term that describes the pathway food takes through an establishment. The Flow of Food includes the stages of purchasing, receiving, storing, preparing, cooking, holding, cooling, reheating, and serving. Throughout these stages there are procedures foodhandlers can take to help limit the chances of foodborne illness from occurring, for example: purchasing food from approved suppliers, monitoring the amount of time food is being cooked and held for, and taking cooking and cooling temperatures of food. The HACCP food safety system recognizes the Flow of Food stages of cooking, holding, cooling, and reheating as Critical Control Points (CCP) because they are the last steps where a foodhandler can intervene to prevent, control, or eliminate the growth of microorganisms before the food is about to be served to customers.



Thus, it is important to monitor the minimal internal temperature food is cooked to. Make sure cold food is held at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below and that warm food is held at 135 degrees Fahrenheit or above. It is also important to make sure food is correctly cooled down to 41 degrees Fahrenheit by using either the one stage or two stage cooling method. It is advisable to monitor food when it is being cooled to be sure food does not stay in the Temperature Danger Zone (between 41 degrees Fahrenheit and 135 degrees Fahrenheit) for more than four hours or else the food needs to be discarded. When reheating food, a foodhandler must cook leftovers to a minimal internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

I was excited to teach this ServSafe lesson because I was going to use the portable chalkboard to illustrate how a foodhandler can use the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system to monitor a particular food’s flow through an establishment. I decided to show my class a chicken fajita pathway and visually demonstrate how a foodhandler would ensure possible hazards were identified and eliminated at specific points through this food’s (chicken fajitas) flow through an establishment.




For example, chicken should be purchased from an approved supplier, received at a temperature of 41 degrees or lower, be odorless and firm to the touch, have no discoloration, and must be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit in order to sufficiently reduce the number of microorganisms that might be present on the poultry. The cooked chicken must register this temperature for at least 15 seconds to be sure the temperature reading is accurate an then held at 135 degrees or higher. While making my HACCP and Flow of Food presentation, I was pleased to see that my students were enthusiastic over my chicken fajita pathway visual aid and we had a fun and interactive class. At 1:30pm the trainees took a ten-minute break and then got all their cooking gear on for the fourth guest chef presentation.

Both Eleanor and I were excited for this afternoon’s guest chef presenter because he was going to be our first outside chef volunteering his time to teach our Campus Kitchens trainees. The three previous guest chef presentations were led solely by chefs from Tufts’ dining services and these chefs had been very professional in their teaching and very personable with our five trainees. Today’s chef, Ed Devlin, from the Superior Kitchen had started in the food industry at the young age of fourteen washing dishes and then worked his way up to a head chef position without ever attending culinary school.






Devlin was going to show our trainees how to marinate poultry, make gravy reusing the chicken giblets, bake home-style biscuits for strawberry shortcake, and make a seasoned vegetable rice side dish in the oven.

Thursday: June 29, 2006

Thursday marked the first day Eleanor and I were reunited as co-captains of the Campus Kitchens Project after her week long trip to Wisconsin. I was delighted that our dynamic duo was back together. We woke up early that morning to grab a cup of java before we were scheduled to meet the Campus Kitchens Project Advisory Board at 10:00am. I was looking forward to meet the members of the CKP Advisory Board because this group of adults has been a consistent support base for our program. Every three weeks Eleanor and I will meet with the CKP Advisory Board to discuss how the program is going and to determine the necessary steps to keep this progressive program going at Tufts University next summer. The CKP Advisory Board consists of Patti Klos, the Director of Dining Services, Barbara Rubel, the Director of Community Relations, Mark Alston-Follansbee, the Director of the Somerville Homeless Coalition, Lisa Brukilacchio, the Community Engagement Specialist for Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, and Nancy Wilson, the Associate Dean of Tisch College.

At the meeting, I was touched by the Campus Kitchens Project Advisory Board members for their encouragement and generosity of time and resources. The members of the board made me feel welcomed and were excited that Eleanor and I could work together on the Tufts Campus Kitchens Pilot Program. I bonded right off with the Student Programs Manager, Mindy Nirenberg, because she had a captivating energy and passion for social activism.





Mindy thought it was fabulous that the UCSC Community Studies Major encouraged students to go on a six month field study at a non-profit. I am delighted that Eleanor and I will get to have Wednesday meetings with Mindy to share our accomplishments and struggles in the program.

The Campus Kitchens Project Advisory Board meeting was very stimulating because we talked about the importance of “teaching a man how to fish”. The Advisory Board members agreed that the culinary job training program was a great way to provide opportunity and empower individuals who are transitioning out of homelessness or unemployment. Mindy stressed the importance for Eleanor and I to work diligently on gaining more student and community involvement so that this program could become sustainable and be able to continue next summer. Lisa, the Tisch College Community Engagement Specialist, also added that Eleanor and I should start searching for two Tisch College scholars who could be trusted to carry on this program. The Advisory Board agreed that the two scholars would have to be hard working individuals who were passionate about confronting the core issues associated with poverty and hunger. Eleanor and I are determined to find two scholars who will have these qualities in order to ensure the future of the Tufts Campus Kitchens Project.

The Advisory Board meeting wrapped up at 11:15am and I promptly started to hang my homemade ServSafe posters up in the Chase Conference Center. This Thursday’s lesson was going to focus on the important principles for receiving and purchasing food products, food packaging vocabulary, and steps foodhandlers should take when inspecting deliveries of food. I was going to stress the importance of taking time to thoroughly inspect food shipments and to be aware of specific signs that inform a foodhandler whether or not a food product is acceptable to receive. My posters drew attention to the different packaging processes such as MAP (Modified Atmosphere Packaging) in which air is removed from a food package and replaced with gases (such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen) to extend a product’s shelf life. Also, there are the packaging methods of Sous Vide and UHT (Ultra High Temperature) Pasteurized Food. The Sous Vide method of packaging is when food is partially or fully cooked and then vacuum-packed in individual pouches and then chilled. UHT Pasteurization is when food is heat-treated at very high temperatures (pasteurized) to kill microorganisms. Also, UHT Pasteurized Food is sealed under sterile conditions to keep it from becoming contaminated. At the end of our purchasing and receiving ServSafe lesson, the trainees took a thirty-question quiz to help them prepare for the ServSafe Certification exam. The 90-question ServSafe exam will be administered to our trainees on Monday, July 31, 2006 in the Chase Conference Center. Every Thursday I give our culinary job trainees a quiz that covers in detail the food safety and sanitation material they have learned over the course of that week. I believe these weekly tests will help our trainees gain a better understanding of what to expect for the final ServSafe exam and will provide them with an understanding of how the test is designed.

After the trainees turned in their exams, we all met back up in the kitchen to start our Thursday cooking shift. The meal plan for today consisted of a warm rice dish with chicken and vegetables, a sautéed mixed squash dish, and a summer salad with carrots and tomatoes. Both Shelters were going to receive chocolate and fruit pastries as well as sliced loaves of bread and bagels. In addition to desert breads, we made a grape, banana, and peach fruit salad for our two shelters. I was excited for this afternoon’s meal production because we were going to try a new recipe from the food networks’s website for a Tex Mex Chicken Ole tortilla dish.



This Tex Mex dish was going to be for our Campus Kitchens Family lunch and throughout the whole cooking shift my appetite grew in anticipation of our lunch. Meal production finished at 3:30pm and we all sat down to enjoy a delicious lunch.




At 4:00pm our loyal Campus Kitchens volunteer, Julia, came in to do the food delivery shift with me. All day I was looking forward to go on my first delivery shift and get to personally see how the Somerville Homeless Coalition and the Casper Homeless Shelter are organized. We loaded all the prepared hot and cold food into temperature holding carriers and went on our way first to the Somerville Homeless Coalition. We arrived in front of a tall brick church and, with trays in hand, rang the doorbell twice to be let in. The doors opened wide and a nice man led us down the heavily worn stairs into the basement of the church to where the homeless shelter was set up. We unloaded our Thursday meal production trays onto their cozy kitchen’s wooden countertop. Julia and I departed with words of gratitude and we wished them a good week and proceeded onto the Casper Homeless Shelter in Cambridge. When arriving at the shelter, I was amazed at how plain the outside of the cement building was with no address or name associated with the building.

We parked right in front of the shelter and knocked on the glass door to be allowed in by the female security guard. Since Casper is a wet shelter (a shelter that allows drug and alcohol users to use their services) there is heightened security. We carried the food into the back of the shelter where a medium sized industrial kitchen is set up to feed 75 people. We transferred the Campus Kitchens Project trays of food into their holding containers and explained what each dish was. Julia and I wished them a good evening and began to walk back out into the center of the shelter where people were beginning to congregate at the tables and socialize with each other. Everyone we met was very appreciative for our food creations and they were eager to peek at what lay hidden within the Casper holding trays. We left the Casper Homeless Shelter feeling disheartened with all the people who were displaced, but pleased that 75 people would be able to enjoy a delicious and well balanced meal to comfort them during the night.

Tuesday: June 27, 2006

Tuesday marked my first solo day orchestrating the weekly Campus Kitchens Project meal distribution program, and I knew I had my work cut out for me. The morning started out with two enthusiastic volunteers, Unaza and Mindy Nierenberg (a member of our CKP advisory board), doing a donation pick-up at Dave’s Pasta and Pemberton Farms. Pemberton Farms is the location where Campus Kitchens meet with the non-profit organization, Food For Free, to gain a bounty of fresh produce and meat left over from farmers markets around Boston. The CKP volunteers came back to Carmichael Dinning Hall around 11:00am, and I was overjoyed unloading the numerous boxes filled with colorful vegetables, cheeses, and hand made tortellini from which we could now make delicious meals. Also, I was excited to discover that Food For Free gave us 25 pounds of ground beef because for the last couple of weeks we have struggled to provide enough protein in our meals to the Somerville Homeless Coalition’s Chapel Street Shelter and Casper Homeless Shelter. Even though Tuesdays and Thursdays have proved to be the most plentiful food donation pick-up days, the Tufts Campus Kitchens Project has continually gotten scarce protein donations, and I have had to resort to praying to the food donation gods to help replenish our dwindling protein supplies.

The Campus Kitchens Project’s national model requires its participating campus kitchens to offer a protein, vegetable, starch, and dessert in every meal created for outside social service programs. Eleanor and I are now in the midst of creating a meat recovery plan that will target local meat markets and restaurants that specialize in meat and poultry. Our ultimate goal is to gain donors who will be reliable and willing to supply our program weekly with quality leftover raw meat or discounted prices on their meat products. Luckily, our protein supply for today’s meal production had been partially secured thanks to the donations of canned tuna we received from our first door-to-door food drive last weekend. In response to the cans of donated tuna and Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup we acquired, a tuna noodle casserole was definitely in order.

Tufts dining hall, Dewick-MacPhie, has also been helping us out every Monday and Wednesday by providing us with their left-over food they would otherwise throw out. We contentedly take it off their hands and load it up into Tufts’ volunteer van and rework the unused food with other donated ingredients into creative culinary creations. Recently, the Dewick-MacPhie dining hall has had limited left-over food resources for our program. Their food production output has been substantially reduced due to Tufts University being on summer session and having a limited student and administrative body. It has been exciting each week to discover what tasty food products Dwick-MacPhie has for our food recovery and production program to salvage. I was thrilled to see how the Tufts’ dining and catering services have been so cooperative and generous with our program letting us use their facilities and kitchen supplies. I am thankful for the strong commitment Tufts’ dining and catering services has shown to this program. They have been helpful in providing chefs for our weekly guest chef presentations and in supplying our Campus Kitchen with supplies.

This Tuesday was also exciting because our job trainees had the opportunity to take part in a resume-writing workshop presented by the Tufts’ Career Services Department. While I was finishing up the meal production plan, Nicole Anderson and Susannah Longenbaker, from Career Services gave a lecture that focused on important skills needed for writing resumes for jobs in the food industry.





The two women talked about the importance of having clarity and making an organized resume. Also, Nicole and Susannah explained the importance of writing to an audience and incorporating job or life experiences that may stand out to employers. The women passed out individual black leather binders with printed out sample resumes and lists of good word choices to use when describing oneself in a resume. Stephanie Lawrence, one of our loyal student volunteers from Harvard University, came in that morning to help out with the workshop and then join the trainees and myself for the Tuesday afternoon cooking shift.




The resume writing workshop ended around 1:30pm and Nicole and Susannah graciously offered to meet with each student individually in the coming weeks if they had any questions while they were in the process of developing their own resumes. Once Career Services had left, all five trainees and Stephanie and I got all suited up with aprons, hairnets, and gloves and jumped into our meal production agenda. Team one was responsible for making the green salad with radishes and tomatoes as well as cutting up the bread and the pound cakes from the Monday guest chef presentation. Team two was going to be the rockin’ mashed potatoes team, and Team three was going to create the tuna noodle casserole.



I felt very calm throughout the cooking shift and enjoyed talking with all the team members. It was great hearing conversations centered on food fill the air and by 3:30pm we were all finished cooking and cleaning. While our food distribution meal was being held warm in the ovens and kept cool in the walk-in refrigerator, all three teams got to enjoy a well earned lunch together. I was ecstatic how smooth the resume workshop and cooking shift went even through we were short handed. At the end of this rewarding meal producing day, I realized that working in a kitchen and helping people brought me so much happiness. I hoped in the future to continue this type of work because I felt the most alive and comfortable in this environment.

Monday: June 26, 2006

Today was my first morning running the Campus Kitchens Project on my own, and I felt both excited and a little nervous to have this large responsibility handed over to me at the start of week two of my internship. I got to Carmichael Dining Hall at 9:00am to get myself situated and set up the classroom for the 12:00-1:30pm ServSafe lesson. I had made eight colorful and informative posters the night before to use as a visual aid with my lecture because I have observed that my five students are more motivated to learn and absorb the presented curriculum if they are provided with both a visual and interactive learning experience. Also, I have two students from Haiti and one student from Brazil who are still developing their English skills and appreciate the material being visually presented to them so they can copy down the important concepts. Wednesdays have been established as tutorial days for any student who needs extra clarification and help on the material. I have been encouraging my students to come in and work with me one-on-one especially if they are struggling with a language barrier because I want my class as a whole to feel comfortable with the material and to believe that they have the ability to master these difficult concepts. I am determined to make the overall ServSafe learning experience for my non-native English speakers as smooth and engaging as possible.

Monday’s ServSafe lesson focused on the four different types of microorganisms (Bacteria, Virus, Parasite, and Fungi) and how they contribute to foodborne illness. This was my second lecture covering this material and I could tell my students were beginning to feel overwhelmed with the technical side of the information. I assured them that we were going to take it slow and work together as a team to get through this part of the certification course. Since bacteria are the biggest threat of all the microorganisms, I spent most of the class time discussing in depth the most common and dangerous bacteria that foodhandlers need to be aware of and how to prevent the spread of these bacteria in their food establishment. Also, for this lesson I used the “Bacteria Villain Posters” which were cleverly designed by the Campus Kitchens Project headquarters in Washington D.C. to depict the top eight prevalent bacteria associated with foodborne illness.

For the past two weeks, I have been designing my lectures by combining the information from the fourth edition ServSafe Essentials course book, the Campus Kitchens Project teaching manual, in addition to my own strategies for presenting the ServSafe material creatively. The ServSafe certification test requires people to have a solid understanding as to how microorganisms contaminate food and make you ill, where they are commonly found, and their specific “superpowers” or characteristics they possess.

Throughout my past two weeks of teaching, I have been amazed to learn that the basic practices of washing one’s hands and preventing cross-contamination between ready-to-eat and raw foods play a crucial role in food safety. Also, the course has stressed the importance of foodhandlers cooking food products to their minimal internal cooking temperatures in order to prevent microorganisms from growing. Even though today’s lesson was factually very full, my class got through all the microorganism material we needed to and now could move onto the weekly Monday guest chef presentation.

After a ten-minute break, the class came back together in the industrial size Carmichael Dining Hall kitchen to participate in a guest chef demonstration taught by Tufts University Chef-Manager, Peter Kourafalos. Peter had graciously agreed to come a second week in a row to teach our students skills on measurement and baking because our scheduled guest chef fell through at the last minute. Chef Kourafalos was going to teach our class how to make pound cake and emphasize the measurement conversion process throughout the demonstration. Eleanor and I feel fortunate to have been working with Chef Kourafalos because he has always selflessly offered his assistance and culinary knowledge to the Campus Kitchens Program. The class loved the pound cake demonstration because they got to learn how to do the creaming method using the industrial sized mixer as well as how to individually make personal-sized pound cakes.

Peter told the story of Rosie, the one-arm baker form the North End (Italian district) in Boston, in order to stress the importance of using the utmost care with these powerful mixers. He told the class “You wouldn’t want to end up single handed like good old Rosie just by making a pound cake!” The whole class was in good spirits throughout the presentation especially when our Brazilian student said “Why aren’t we making these cakes in a frying pan with oil”? We all were puzzled with his request to use a frying pan to make pound cakes, until we realized that he thought we were all talking about making pancakes instead of pound cakes. The class broke out into laughter because we lovingly understood how these words could be mistaken for the other. The guest chef presentation ended at 4:00pm and we all got to sample a piece from one of the pound cakes and wrapped the other individual loafs in saran wrap for the next day’s food production and distribution program. As the students began to leave for home, I felt overjoyed and relieved at how smoothly my first day flying solo went, and I was looking forward to cooking with my team of students tomorrow!

Friday and Saturday: June 23-24, 2006

Campus Kitchens’ first door-to-door food drive commenced on this Friday afternoon. Two Tufts student volunteers, Dhriti Bhatta and Sara Jackson, helped me distribute flyers promoting our Campus Kitchens first food drive. Eleanor and I were hoping this food drive would be a great way to raise awareness about our program and would be a great event to start incorporating the local Somerville and Medford communities into our Campus Kitchens support network. The flyers described our Campus Kitchens Project and our mission to help “teach, reach, feed, and lead” adults who were transitioning from unemployment back into the job market. Printed on the back of the flyer was a grocery list of recommended food items people could donate to our food recovery and distribution program. Food items we were hoping to specifically receive were tuna, beans, canned tomatoes and sauce, spices, tinfoil, and saran wrap. Sara and I decided to distribute flyers in the Somerville area, and Dhriti focused on Medford because she worked right in the center of this part of town. The CKP food drive flyers were jointly designed by Eleanor and me and nicely printed out on vibrant orange paper and hole punched by Dhriti. Our flyer supply ran out quickly and we hoped that the next day’s pick up route would provide the program with an ample supply of food donations.

Sara lending a helping hand.
The next day Sara and I met up again and gleaned the block for food donations. We were blown away with the generous food contributions the long block of Winthrop made. It felt like a scavenger hunt collecting all the donated food items placed in large brown paper bags. I was ecstatic to see how some people went out of their way to buy new food products to help our evolving Tufts Campus Kitchens Project. Sara and I had gathered so many items that we had to go back to her house in order to retrieve a large rollaway suitcase to fit all the food donations.


Suitcase full of donated goodies!
By the end of Saturday afternoon, the Tufts Campus Kitchens Project had gained over 50 canned and boxed food items, and I was humbled by the Somerville and Medford communities’ positive response to our program. I believe that local community door-to-door food drives like the one Campus Kitchens did this weekend helps to temporarily fuel, but not sufficiently support a program that hopes to provide skills and empowerment to those who are in dire need of stable employment. Thus, small acts of kindness are always welcomed, but people need to realize that what is truly needed in this society are acts of kindness that will support progressive long lasting change, not temporary relief.

Thursday: June 22, 2006

Today marked my first experience creating our Campus Kitchens meal production plan for feeding the Somerville Homeless Coalition's Chapel Street Shelter and the Casper Homeless Shelter. I was looking forward to having the opportunity to exercise my recipe building skills, and at the same time was feeling a little anxious about having the full responsibility of making sure we could produce enough food to feed 110 people (the two shelters and our CKP trainee family). From observing the meal production events of this past Tuesday and from talking with Eleanor, I knew that the job of meal production planner was both challenging and adrenaline pumping. Both Tuesday and Thursday have been quite jam-packed days filled with early morning food donation pick-ups which take place form 9:00am to 11:00am.

The Tufts Campus Kitchens Project has been generously given food donations from the non-profit Food For Free, the Danish Pastry House, Dave’s Pasta, and McKennons meat market. With the loyal support of these businesses, the Tufts CKP has been able to create meals from scratch using fresh produce and meat products that would have otherwise been left to go to waste.

Culinary Job Trainees cooking up a storm!

Tuesday: June 20, 2006

Today was my first experience cooking alongside the culinary job trainees for our Campus Kitchens food distribution program!

Me and the lovely Culinary Job Trainees!

Eleanor was in charge of this afternoon's meal production plan and I was looking forward to shadowing her and learning the strategies to be able to create over 100 meals from scratch. When writing the meal production plans, Eleanor explained that it was beneficial to divide our five culinary job trainees and ourselves into three teams and designate a specific food dish to each team.

Eleanor and trainee hard at work

We decided that after this week, Tuesday would become my meal production day and Eleanor would take Thursday on as her day to create the meal plan. I thought it was a great idea to construct a step-by-step meal plan that would explain in detail the responsibilies each group had in creating their dish. The in-depth meal plan would allow the trainees to be as independent and time efficient as possible.

As the teams of trainees finished up creating their food dishes, we all got to come back together at 3:30pm to have a Campus Kitchens Project family lunch. Sitting around the table eating with all the trainees and Eleanor made me think how the act of cooking and eating together can truly unite people and nourish both the heart and stomach. It was rewarding to know that all our hard work meant that over a hundred people would have dinner that evening at the Somerville Homeless Coalition's Chapel Street Shelter and the Casper Homeless Shelter. I admire how the Campus Kitchens culinary job training program allows its trainees to get an education while at the same time give back to their community. The trainees' involvement in our food distribution program allows them to be active participants in the movement to fight food insecurity.

The Campus Kitchens Culinary Job Training Adventure Begins:

The Tufts Program

"Pot Luck" : Mural in Cambridge, Mass

“Family Is Whoever Happens To Be Sitting Around The Dinner Table”

The Beauty of the Campus Kitchens Project:

The Campus Kitchens Project (CKP) is designed to get college students involved in combating hunger while providing skills and opportunities to individuals who are transitioning from homelessness or who are unemployed welfare recipients.

Currently, there are eight CKP locations throughout the nation working to unite college students together with local communities and social service agencies in order to build support networks that can better address the core issues surrounding food insecurity and homelessness. The schools which have made it their mission to “teach, reach, feed, lead” are Saint Louis University, Dillard University, Northwestern University, Marquette University, Augsburg College, Gonzaga University, Minnesota State University at Mankato, and Gonzaga College High School. This year is particularly exciting for the Campus Kitchens Project national office because three new campuses are kicking off their own Campus Kitchens simultaneously this fall (Wake Forest University, Washington and Lee University, and the University of Nebraska at Kearney).

The Campus Kitchens Project has developed a national model that encourages students to be leaders in hunger relief by working to recover food from their school dining services and community businesses that would otherwise go to waste. Students reuse these valuable food resources to create nutritious and delicious meals for service agencies in their surrounding area.

A meal production day.

Since the launch of the program in 2001, the Campus Kitchens Project has served over 400,000 meals to proactive service agencies and has logged over 65,000 hours of volunteer time.

The Campus Kitchens Project believes that “providing meals is only part of the solution” to combating hunger and as a result has incorporated a culinary job training program into their larger goals. Empowerment and self-sufficiency are the core values that the Campus Kitchens Project wants to help reintroduce into the lives of transitioning adults through an eight to ten week culinary job training program. The CKP culinary job trainees gain extensive knowledge about the food service industry and how to be a safe foodhandler capable of preventing foodborne illness. Also, the culinary job trainees are taught important life skill lessons that focus on self esteem building, resume writing and interviewing strategies.

It is admirable how the Campus Kitchens culinary job training program allows its trainees to get an education and, through the production of meals, give back to their community. The trainees take part in the food distribution program alongside student volunteers. This allows the trainees to be active participants in the movement to fight food insecurity. Thus, the program gives them an opportunity to help people whose life situations are similar to theirs and to feel like they are making a difference one meal at a time. The Campus Kitchens Project has been influential in providing services to “strengthen bodies, empower minds, and build communities” all on a local level using the compassion and leadership of college students.

Welcoming sign in Haley House Cafe

“It is going to take a lot of creative minds and passionate, driven people for large scale change to start occurring in the battle to gain food security and empower impoverished people.”