Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga College High School

Wall of Fame

2007-07-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

Since it's not always possible to show volunteers how much their work is truly appreciated, we decided to add a picture and description of some of our more dedicated volunteers to our office walls.

We chose six volunteers that made a special contribution to the Campus Kitchen over the past year (LT members, interns, regular volunteers, coordinators, etc.) to go up in the office. In addition to special events like our volunteer appreciation ice cream social, hopefully this will help show our volunteers exactly how important they are.

(This also helps add more flare to our bland office walls, which is nice.)

By the end of the summer, we should have 4 more volunteers up on the wall. Eventually, the entire office should be covered from top to bottom.

The Truth About Fast Food

2007-07-12T13:37:00.000-04:00

The Campus Kitchen Nutrition Education Team found a room full of surprised looks when they presented The Truth About Fast Food, the second in our summer series of lessons. On July 11, 2007 at Meadow Green Courts, the Team discussed nutrition facts about specific menu items at popular fast food chains.

"The children were really surprised at the information we presented them, and were eager to learn more about nutrition in general."
- Brian Larkin, CKGCHS Coordinator

Fat and Sugar Demonstrations

Adding to the lesson were demonstrations that helped the audience visualize what is really in fast food. A plastic bag filled with 52 grams of Crisco, illustrating the approximate amount of fat in a typical fast food meal, and a cup with 13 teaspoons of sugar, the ammount present in a 20 oz bottle of soda, were passed around for everyone to observe (hence the surprised looks!) We also displayed the pennies from our previous experiment, showing the harmful effects of soda.

Following the demonstrations, healthy alternatives to fast food consumption were presented with a healthy “model lunch” that consisted of a sandwich, chips, and an apple. Overall the lesson was successful and the audience see.

Submitted by: Melissa Flores, TFAS/IPVS Intern

Nutrition Lesson Kickoff!

2007-06-28T09:40:00.000-04:00

Our efforts to educate youth about nutritional health were prospectively successful, last week, at our first Campus Kitchen Nutrition Lesson of 2007. Volunteers from Campus Kitchen at GCHS joined Brian Larkin in an Introduction Class about the Importance of Eating Healthy at Meadow Green Courts summer program. Our team presented both old and new food pyramids while also revealing the important differences between the two. The lesson included information about the five food groups: starches, vegetables, fruits, dairy, and protein, and how much of each is appropriate to eat.

To increase awareness about the rising obesity problem in America, our team discussed the possible risks and dangers of obesity. At the conclusion of the lesson everyone enjoyed a tasty, but healthy snack made personally by our CKGCHS volunteers. Did someone say Trail Mix!?

The snack is very easy to make and was a big hit for all the students and volunteers. Everything included in the trail mix can be purchased at a super market for around $20.00.

Ingredients:
Cinnamon Life
Unsalted Roasted Peanuts
Sunflower Kernels
Dried Bananas
Milk Chocolate Chips
Raisins

The different groups represented in our trail mix were then identified by the students from Meadow Green Courts. CKGCHS will continue to present lessons throughout the summer addressing important topics about food, exercise and nutritional health. Teach, Reach, Feed Lead!

Submitted by: Melissa Flores TFAS :IPVS Intern.

Coca Cola: to enjoy? Or not to enjoy… that IS the question

2007-06-14T09:31:00.000-04:00

Hello to everyone out there! My name is Melissa Flores, and I am the new intern here at Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga College High School. I am totally excited about helping out this summer. As part of our Nutrition Lessons we will be putting on for Meadow Green Courts (they host a summer program for kids), we wanted to share a fun but shocking demonstration with all of you out there reading our blogs! Today, we bring you: “Coca Cola: to enjoy? Or not to enjoy… that IS the question”

Brian Larkin, Coordinator of CKGCHS, will happily drop his penny in a glass of coke…

The next day, Brian retrieves the penny from the depths of the coke... to our surprise, and dismay... the penny was clean and shiny! The acid from the coke removed all the penny's impurities. Imagine what that does to your body!?

So, the moral of the story folks, is, coke: although extra tasty and satisfying, is actually acidic enough to clean grime off hard substances... and therefore is probably not safe for you to drink in excess amounts.. Drink water instead!
Marty reexamines his beverage choices, (as we all should):

This preveiw lesson will appear in our series of Nutritional Education Lessons this summer at the Meadow Green Courts. We will dicuss how eating fast food can affect our bodies, and how eating fast food in excess, can be harmful to one's health. Please stay tuned for more lessons on our blog!

Submitted by: Melissa Flores: TFAS:IPVS Intern

CKGCHS Volunteer Appreciation Day

2007-06-01T13:23:00.001-04:00

Since the May 15 post the leadership team at Gonzaga thought it fitting to celebrate the efforts of the noble men here at Gonzaga who have committed at least ten hours of their time to CKGCHS. We had quite a few guys who satisfied the requirement and so an ice cream social was deemed appropriate for such outstanding volunteers. What better way of having an ice cream social than with vanilla and Neapolitan ice cream plus toppings galore and Brian Larkin. And so the leadership team decided May 16 would be the best time to have this afternoon of laughs and ice cream.

To get the ball rolling Neil, a member of the leadership team, suggested the use of contacting volunteers via the internet. To follow up on his suggestion I decided to set up a Facebook event group inviting all the men who satisfied the requirement for the ice cream social. By setting up the Facebook event I was able to find out relatively quickly those who could attend and those who could not attend. I felt considering all of us are guilty of checking our Facebook accounts multiple times a day setting up this Facebook event would be easy and reliable. Well aside from that great plug-in for Facebook the ice cream social turned out to be a blast with about 12 volunteers showing up and brightening our day at CKGCHS.

An afternoon of hanging out and shooting the breeze was certainly a good choice considering many of the seniors had begun to wrap up their final chapter of school. An event like this turned out to be a great way to thank the volunteers and bond a little more outside the business of cooking and delivering the incredible meals these men help make and deliver to our clients.

The line up.
Not forgetting we are a Kitchen the toppings must get their thank you for being so awesomely sweet. A big thank you goes out to the cherries, chocolate syrup, chocolate and mixed sprinkles, whip cream, and the always incredible waffle bowl. That's right in the leadership team's debate on whether to use waffle cones or plastic bowls we made a compromise and bought waffle bowls. The waffle bowl had several key factors that made it a winner for us at CKGCHS. Among the factors that make the waffle bowl incredible are its sweetness, the cool waffle pattern, and the fact that it is bio-degradable unlike the plastic bowls.

- Michael Christian, CKGCHS intern

Pasta with Bacon & Peas Recipe

2007-05-15T13:31:00.000-04:00

This past Monday we had a dilemma in the kitchen. We needed to make 50 meals and the only available protein was a full pan of bacon. Since the only ideas we could come up with involved a breakfast-y sort of meal, we turned to allrecipes.com for advice, and the site gave us the solution to our problem: Pasta with Bacon and Peas.

One of our gracious donors provided us with a slew of already-cooked bow-tie pasta, so we used that instead of the recommended spaghetti. The McKenna Center staff let us use three of their onions and we used canned products for just about everything else.

Ingredients:
2 Full pans of pre-cooked bow-tie pasta
1 Full pan of pre-cooked bacon
3 Large onions, chopped
5 Cans tomato sauce
5 Cans whole tomatoes, drained
12 Cans of peas, drained
Garlic powder
Pepper

(The recipe called for grated Romano cheese, but we didn't have any or a suitable replacement.)

Although we didn't really cook anything, there was a ton of preparing to do. We had to chop the onions, open and drain the cans of peas and tomatoes, as well as cut up the bacon into smaller bite-sized bits.

We added all of the ingredients to the bowl and stirred until there was a nice mixture. We then put the sauce over bow-tie pasta in the meals.

For the other components of the meal, we used donated salad and muffins. The small dressing cups we had leftover from spring break came in handy again because we added a cup of Ranch dressing for our clients. This really helped put the finishing touches on a delicious meal.

Senior Steve Aro shows off the final product.

Summer Season 2007

2007-05-14T18:53:00.000-04:00

Planning is well underway for summer 2007! The board outside the Campus Kitchen office has information, sign-up sheets, and applications for interested Leadership Team members.

Our goals for this summer are to:

Continue regular meal deliveries

Teach nutritional education lessons

Coordinate at least one food drive

Schedule regular training sessions for new volunteers

And as always to have fun in the kitchen!

Spring Break 2007 Slide Show!

2007-04-18T09:29:00.001-04:00

Spring Break Delivery # 3

2007-04-11T14:04:00.000-04:00

The last step in a very successful mission to keep the Campus Kitchen open during spring break was the final delivery of meals.

Sophomores Marty Ellsworth, James Scheib, and Roger Lalle returning from a delivery route.

Volunteers, such as Marty, James, and Robert, were instrumental in keeping the Campus Kitchen going during spring break. During the 10-day break, 14 volunteers logged just over 60 hours total while preparing 149 meals and delivering them to people in the area!

Spring Break Meals # 3

2007-04-11T13:47:00.000-04:00

The Cooking Club came in again and volunteered for the last cooking shift over spring break. The collaboration resulted in yet another fabulous meal!

The contents were sliced ham for the protein, macaroni and cheese for the starch, spinach as the veggie, and pound cake for the dessert. This combination of food has a good variation of color and texture, so I'm positive the clients appreciated the work that went into preparing them.

One new thing we tried during this shift was wrapping the dessert, the pound cake in this case, in small bags. Some times the various food items will shift in the meal container and spill on the dessert. We tried our best to keep that from happening by wrapping the dessert separately.

Gonzaga Alums Help Deliver Meals

2007-04-09T12:29:00.000-04:00

While the school was on spring break, three Gonzaga alums helped out delivering meals with the Campus Kitchen.

Alumni in front of St. Aloysius

(L-R) Liam Hardy '02, Matt Cullinane '02, and Brendan O'Boyle '02 all pitched in with the delivery shift.

Delivering the Meals

2007-04-09T12:13:00.000-04:00

Volunteers walking up North Capitol Street.

Even with all the hard-work that went into the cooking shift, the real job was only half-way done. Volunteers helped deliver the meals they made the following day.

One new idea we've been doing at the Campus Kitchen is distributing reflection hand-outs at the end of each shift. These are helpful in figuring out what volunteers got out of the shift. Some reactions from this shift:

"It was nice to meet some of Gonzaga's neighbors." - Anonymous

"I am starting to see a DC community instead of separate residents." - Tom Mason '07

"The general image is that [the residents] are mean, but reality set in when people chatted and said hellos." - Melissa DeLoach

Spring Break, Cooking Club, and the Campus Kitchen

2007-04-06T20:22:00.000-04:00

This week Gonzaga College High School is on spring break, but that doesn't mean the Campus Kitchen is slowing down! With help from the Cooking Club, a group that has cooking sessions to teach students culinary skills, we continued our usual output of meals.

We've tried our best in the past to make cooking shifts fun and educational, but they haven't always been both. Luckily, the moderators of the Cooking Club brought expertise and excitement to the shifts! For our Monday cooking shift, we prepared over 100 meals for delivery on Tuesday and Friday. The Cooking Club graciously donated almost all of the food for the spring break.

The contents of the first meal are:

Protein: Orange pork chops
Vegetable: Green beans
Starch: Cheesy mashed potatoes
Dessert: Brownies

(We also provided after-dinner mints for our clients.)

We cut the bones out of the pork chops with kitchen shears and then proceeded to glaze them with orange marmalade and honey dijon mustard. Volunteers sprinkled chives on the pork in the frying pan. We received a shipment of baked potatoes from one of our donors, so we peeled them, and added sour cream, milk, and cheese to make cheesy mashed potatoes. We had a difficult time mashing them up but it all worked out in the end!

Senior Tom Mason helps cook the pork chops!

We usually would have stopped with one set of meals, but we were having so much fun that we plowed ahead with a super-sized cooking shift and made double meals!

The second set of meals we made included:

Protein: Chicken cacciatore
Starch: Egg noodles
Vegetable: Salad
Dessert: Cookies or eclaires
Dressing: Ranch or Italian

(After-dinner mints were included, too.)

The recipe used for the chicken cacciatore called for green peas, so volunteers added them to the chicken cacciatore and spooned everything over egg noodles for the entree. For the salad, we used two bags of shredded lettuce donated from our donor, Brock. We also had celery donated from our other donor, Venable, but not much else. We added shredded carrots and cherry tomatoes the day of delivery to complete them. Previously when we've made salads (and we've made them many many many many times), we didn't put dressing on because it would make the lettuce soggy. The Cooking Club moderators brought in tiny plastic cups and tops to put salad dressing in. When we delivered the meals, we gave clients a choice of ranch or Italian dressing. Brilliant! For dessert, to top everything off, we made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Senior Tom Mason and sophomore Martin Ellsworth making cookies.

After all was said and done, the Cooking Club prepared over 100 meals of exceptional quality for delivery. The skills that volunteers learned, including cutting and frying pork, are ones that we have not taught before. Volunteers seemed happy to have so much actual cooking to do. This Spring Break cooking shift was very successful and hopefully the Cooking Club and Campus Kitchen can collaborate again in the future.

Track Team Members Run Delivery Shift

2007-03-29T17:41:00.000-04:00

Recently members from Gonzaga's Track & Field team came to the Campus Kitchen to participate in a delivery shift. Oddly enough the shift took longer than usual!

Three Schools Combine for Many Meals

2007-03-07T14:19:00.000-05:00

This week the Campus Kitchen used the help of three schools, George Washington University, Vanderbilt University, and Gonzaga College High School, to produce double meals.

In addition to the usual Monday and Tuesday shifts, the Campus Kitchen welcomed volunteers from George Washington's HMSR 152 class for a special Saturday cooking shift. Alongside their professor, Honey Nashman, the group made bread pudding and helped assemble meals for our Tuesday delivery shift.

Two days later, seven students from Vanderbilt University volunteered their time at the Monday cooking shift as part of an Alternative Spring Break trip. The group helped to make another 55 meals for our clients.

For the entrées in these meals, the Vanderbilt group made taco salads for our child-friendly location and chicken Caesar salads for the elderly locations. The lettuce we used was purchased, but everything else in the salads was donated from two local law firms.

The students even helped to make home-made croutons out of donated bread. We used this recipe, which was quick and easy, to prepare them.

Vandy Volunteers Showing Off Croutons
Finally, the many meals were ready for delivery on Tuesday. With the help of students from the Social Justice class at Gonzaga College High School, we delivered the meals to the client agencies around the school’s campus.

With three schools colluding for the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga College High School, we were able to produce more meals and involve more groups!

Bread Pudding with Apple Recipe

2007-02-12T12:53:00.000-05:00

Bread pudding is one of our regular desserts at the Campus Kitchen. We receive a lot of bread from our donors, so we try to put it all to good use. Since we serve it frequently (about once a month), it can get repetitive for both volunteers and our clients. Therefore, we try to spice it up with cinnamon, raisins and/or apples.

During this particular meal preparation shift we had extra apples so we searched for and found an on-line recipe for Apple Bread Pudding. This particular website is a great place to find recipes on the quick. They even have an ingredient search which is very helpful!

Ingredients:
8 cups of bread cubes
3 apples
1 cup of white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1 cup of half-and-half cream

(We made two pans, so we doubled everything.)

Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Cook Time: 45 Minutes
Makes about 20 servings

After preheating the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, I had volunteers cut up the bread into small cubes. They then peeled, cored, and cut the apples into small bits. After everything had been properly cut, the pieces were spread about the previously greased baking pan.

Volunteers then added the rest of the ingredients (sugar, eggs, milk, cinnamon, and cream) to a large mixing bowl and stirred thoroughly. We don't have a blender in the kitchen, so this can take quite a while. After it was well mixed, the mixture was poured over the bread cubes and apples.

Finally, we baked the desserts at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.

The bread pudding turned out very well! I would only make two changes when we make it again. First, I would have cut the apples into smaller pieces so they would turn out a tad bit softer. Second, I would have included the crust of the bread. This would have given the dessert more texture. Other than that, everything turned out well. We added the bread pudding dessert to our meals, which consisted of spaghetti with sausage, and mixed vegetables.

This recipe for bread pudding is fantastic for three reasons. First, it keeps volunteers interested in the meal preparation shift. Also, it helps use all of our bread surplus. Finally, after all is said and done it looks, smells, and tastes delicious.

Tuna Casserole Recipe

2007-02-07T17:27:00.000-05:00

One of the meal staples at the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga College High School is tuna casserole. This is one of the first recipes we turn to when we have a shortage of protein. It is very easy to follow, requires only items we regularly have, and doesn't need to be baked at the kitchen.

Ingredients:
2 cans of sweet peas, drained
6 cans of tuna, drained
6 cans of cream of mushroom soup
Elbow pasta (or egg noodles)
One bag of potato chips
Makes about 40 servings

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain. Since we aren't going to bake the casserole (the clients will do that themselves!), we need to run cold water over the pasta after it is finished (1).

The next step is to add the remaining ingredients to the mix. Return the cold pasta to a bowl. Add all of the cans of tuna, sweet peas, and cream of mushroom soup to the bowl and mix it up.

The secret ingredient for this recipe is a small bag of potato chips (2). Have a volunteer crush them in the bag and lightly spread them over the casserole. Once this is done, scoop a healthy serving into each clam shell container. Add a serving of vegetable and dessert and the meal is ready to go(3).

This recipe is a lot of fun for volunteers to follow. It keeps them entertained and busy, and the resulting meal is really delicious.

Gravy Train With Biscuit Wheels

2007-01-16T15:23:00.000-05:00

We haven't been getting the usual amount of dessert from our donors recently, so we've had to bake cakes, brownies and other assorted desserts to make up for the shortage. Out of the box mixtures are easy to follow and are fun for the volunteers to make in groups.

During a recent cooking shift, our group of six volunteers made pound cake from one of these mixtures. Pound cake needs to be stirred and beaten longer than the cake mix and it gave one volunteer a workout when he stirred for five consecutive minutes.

Sticking to the strategy of making the most of the kitchen, we have been keeping our volunteers busy with many jobs during cooking shifts. At this particular shift, we decided to get creative and spice up donated food with our own creation. Relying strictly on donated food doesn't produce the best meals possible, so we like to add our own touches to make the meals better.

During this shift, we made gravy from packets left over from our TurkeyPalooza extravaganza. They only ingredient volunteers needed to add to the mixture was milk. After it cooled, volunteers poured the gravy onto soft biscuits donated from a local law firm.

Once the gravy was added to all the meals and the pound cake had properly cooled, volunteers cut up the cake and placed pieces in the meal containers. Food that was donated to us included chicken, biscuits and snow peas. By adding corn, gravy and a small piece of pound cake, we made all 64 of the meals better and more attractive.

The clients that we serve definitely appreciate the extra effort that goes into our meal preparation shifts. One of my favorite parts of this job is when clients tell our volunteers during delivery shifts how much they enjoyed the food.

Although these longer cooking shifts are starting to creep past the two hour mark, volunteers don't seem to mind because it's a lot of fun and the resulting meals look better than ever.

The final product.

Let's Bake a Cake

2007-01-11T13:45:00.000-05:00

As we get back into the swing of things at the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga College High School, one of our goals is to continue to cook and bake. This keeps things more interesting for volunteers and provides more fresh food for our clients.

Earlier this week we baked two cakes for dessert for our meals. I let the six volunteers split into two groups and make the cakes on their own. They were excellent at following the recipe.

The volunteers added everything in the right order and stirred until the batter was thoroughly smooth. It turned into somewhat of a competition between the two groups, and both cakes turned out wonderful.

After the cakes were finished cooling, the groups added icing and sprinkles for presentation. We cut them into small pieces and added them to all of the meal containers. The pieces of cake were a great addition to our meals, which also included fresh salad and lunch meat sandwiches.

One of the difficulties in cooking is the unknown of volunteer cooperation and enthusiasm. It takes a while to prepare and bake two cakes, and it could have been a long cooking shift if the group wasn't as dedicated and interested as they were. This particular group was fantastic at following directions and working as a team, and as a result our meals turned out excellent!

A job well done.

Delivery Day

2006-11-29T11:19:00.000-05:00

The final part of the TurkeyPalooza event was delivering the finished meals to our clients. The day of delivery, I found out that there were extra bags from the McKenna Center's Thanksgiving event that we could deliver to our clients in one location. Also, one of the art teachers at Gonzaga gave us Thanksgiving cards that we delivered to another location. These extra items made the event much bigger for the clients, which was something I was a little concerned about.

The bags contained many items that the clients could use to make their Thanksgiving meals even better.

The cards were a great way to engage the clients upon delivery. It gave the volunteers a way to talk with them moreso than usual.

Great success!

Preparing the Meals

2006-11-21T12:45:00.000-05:00

On Monday, November 20th, we had the cooking shift to put the final touches on our Thanksgiving-themed meals. Thankfully, it wasn't too difficult since we spread out the work load over the previous week.

For the protein section, we had the turkey already prepared. For the vegetable portion, we used canned corn. For starch, we had either mashed potatoes or canned sweet potatoes. All we needed to provide was a dessert. To make the meals even more festive we used a surplus of canned pumpkin and graham cracker crust to make pumpkin bars.

This was a great activity that the volunteers seemed to really enjoy. After these were finished and cooled, our meals were complete and ready to go!

The next (and final) step was to deliver the meals to our clients.

Turkey Pull

2006-11-21T12:26:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, November 18th we had the 2nd Annual Turkey Pull at Gonzaga College High School. At this event we carved the turkeys and pulled the meat off of the bones. The pieces of turkey were placed in a big container for the big TurkeyPalooza event.

The event was very fun and all of the volunteers seemed to enjoy the process. One of the more difficult aspects of this job has been ensuring that there are enough Gonzaga volunteers to show up on Saturdays. This event was about par for the course, with three in attendance out of the five volunteers that signed up. Regardless, we filled an entire pan to the brim with turkey in less than two hours.

After finishing carving the turkeys, I saw the wishbone and couldn't help but think about Robert Egger's speech from the Student Leadership Conference. He spoke about the wishbone vs. the backbone, and how using each produced different results. If there's one definite of this entire TurkeyPalooza event, it's that it definitely requires the backbone (although the wishbone helps, too.)

After completion of the turkey carving, we were almost ready to deliver the meals. The next step was making desserts and packing them up.

Cooking Turkeys

2006-11-21T10:34:00.000-05:00

In addition to the regular meals we made for our meal preparation shift, this past Thursday we also cooked eight turkeys for our big TurkeyPalooza event. Having never even attempted to cook a turkey before, this was a pretty big deal. There were four major steps to cooking the turkeys: 1.) defrosting 2.) cleaning 3.) seasoning 4.) cooling.

Getting things started.

Since they had been defrosting for a few days, the first step was to clean the turkeys. We had to remove the neck and giblets, which scared away some of the volunteers. The majority of volunteers weren't interested in having any part of this process, but one leadership team member stepped up to the plate.

Washing out the turkey.

After the turkeys were patted dry, the next step was to season them. We used poultry seasoning and oil and had the volunteers spread it all over the turkey. One mistake we made was not folding the leg under the bird prior to adding the oil. This made the leg very difficult to stay in place.

Seasoning the birds.

After all was said and done, it took about 8 hours to cook the turkeys, wait for them to cool, and then store them properly. The turkeys looked and smelled delicious.

Almost ready to eat!

Take Your Turkey to Work Day

2006-11-15T09:49:00.000-05:00

7am turkey call.
Today we celebrated Take Your Turkey to Work Day at Gonzaga! It has been a smashing success so far as we've received more than the number of turkeys we were initially looking for.

Three tiers of turkey.
Here's to hoping that everything else during TurkeyPalooza runs as smoothly!

YouTube Turkey Video

2006-11-14T14:13:00.000-05:00

Peel Sessions

2006-11-13T18:26:00.000-05:00

Sign up board outside my office.
Today was the first day of actual preparation for TurkeyPalooza. We won't deliver the Thanksgiving-themed meals for another week, but it's important to start work on some projects as early as possible to make sure there isn't a time crunch towards the end.

During today's cooking shift, we had more volunteers than usual. I had the group of six split into two groups of three. One group did the normal food preparation while the other group peeled potatoes.

Peeling the potatoes
The work that went into this was pretty intense. The groups switched places once to keep everything from becoming stale and boring. Everyone seemed to be a good sport about the process and we finished an entire bag of potatoes in one shift.

Before and after...
The turkeys won't be dealt with until Thursday. In the meantime, they were defrosting on the sidelines. This week is sure to get very busy, so it will definitely be helpful to get simple jobs like peeling potatoes out of the way.

Almost turkey time.

Capital Food Fight

2006-11-07T11:42:00.000-05:00

There's a nice preview of the Capital Food Fight, DC Central Kitchen's annual event, up now on DCist.com. They give the event some really nice exposure, especially by writing:

More than the food and networking, however, it's a great fundraiser for the Central Kitchen, which helps Washington's homeless community by providing both fresh food and job training for work in the food industry.

The big event takes place one week from tomorrow, and I've heard it's always a blast. For more information on the event, check out the official site.

TurkeyPalooza 2006

2006-11-06T12:46:00.000-05:00

TurkeyPalooza... it has begun.

Saturday Shifts

2006-10-25T12:40:00.000-04:00

One important part of running a Campus Kitchen is getting groups outside the school to help participate in the project. After all, the Campus Kitchen is intended to serve the community. At Gonzaga, one of the best ways to accomplish this is to have Saturday shifts with youths as volunteers.

This past Saturday, we had a group from Holy Trinity in Georgetown come to our campus and help with the meal preparation. Since the group was comprised of eighth-graders, the weekend is the only time they can come in to help.

The easiest way to get the kids interested in the experience is to have them prepare the desserts! On Saturday, we made raspberry swirl cake and bread pudding with raisins. The raspberry swirl cake is easy to make and something we've done a lot. This was the first time we've made bread pudding, though. We get a ton of bread and use it only for sandwhiches. By making pudding we can make of a lot more of the bread.

The end results!
After is was all said and done, the group seemed to really enjoy the experience. They're signed up for a delivery shift in December, so next time they'll be able to see where the food goes!

Conference Day 3

2006-10-09T18:36:00.000-04:00

The following is a three part account of the CKP Student Leadership Conference. (Part 1 of the recap. Part 2 of the recap.) Click here for more first-hand accounts of the conference.

CKP National Conference Day 3
Date: October 7, 2006
Location: Gonzaga College High School, Rosemary's Thyme

Everyone met at Gonzaga College High School for breakfast around 8:30 am, and then went over to Cantwell Hall for the Breakout Sessions. These sessions were 40-minute lessons on various concepts related to the Campus Kitchens Project.

The three Breakout Sessions I attended were "Marketing the Campus Kitchen" with Karen Borchert, "Managing the Budget" with Glenda Cognevich, and "Culinary Job Training" with Becky Locker. All three of the Breakout Sessions taught me something I didn't know about the Campus Kitchens Project.

This format was very helpful for me to learn about topics that I knew little about. Only one of my Leadership Team members was able to attend these sessions, and it would have been nice if more of them were there.

After the Breakout Sessions, we had lunch in the Jesuit Dining Room. This was followed by a lengthy discussion about what everyone learned at the conference. For me personally, it was incredible to witness how similar every Campus Kitchen is. We all face similar problems and this conference opened my eyes. During this part of the day, all the schools split up to make a list of what they want to accomplish. There were three dates used as goals in this exercise: by next week, by Dec. 31st, by next conference. We also had to list what we were going to do for the local Campus Kitchen as well as the Campus Kitchens Project as a whole.

The CKGCHS Plan
We had a brief break before reconvening at Rosemary's Thyme restaurant on 18th Street. The food there was excellent and the company was exquisite. There, the annual awards were presented to distinguished volunteers. I was really impressed by all of the volunteers that won accolades. It was so inspiring to hear their stories that it made me want to do more.

(L-R: Brian, Sara, Rebecca, Peter, Will)
The final day of the conference was my favorite because it allowed for the most communication between Campus Kitchens. Hearing everyone talk about their kitchen made me realize how similar our causes are. In the same way Robert Egger is bringing together non-profits, we need to work together to achieve the ultimate goal of ending hunger in America.

Conference Day 2

2006-10-08T23:00:00.000-04:00

The following is an account of the CKP Student Leadership conference. (Part 1 of the recap. Part 3 of the recap.) Click here for more first-hand accounts of the conference.

CKP National Conference Day 2
Date: October 6, 2006
Location: DC Central Kitchen, First Baptist Church, Gonzaga College High School

The second day of the conference began bright and early at DC Central Kitchen. We arrived at 6am, in the pouring rain, to begin volunteering in the kitchen. This cooking shift marked the 5th year anniversary to the day of the first ever Campus Kitchen cooking shift. Everyone wore their CKP 5th Year Anniversary t-shirts, and it was quite the sight to behold.

After a fantastic introductary speech by Becky, everyone got to work in a different section of the kitchen. I was placed at the vegetable station, cutting up celery and carrots. Cutting celery for three hours gave most of our team blisters on our cutting hands, but it was a small price to pay for such a worthy cause.

Celery boards and the celery team (L-R: Brian, Sara, Monica, Meaghan, James)

In addition to making the meals for DCCK's usual clients, we also made the meals for Gonzaga's delivery. The kitchen that we use at Gonzaga College High School is way too small to accomodate the more than 40 people that showed up for this cooking shift.

Following the cooking shift, DC Central Kitchen founder Robert Egger (Pictured Right) spoke with the group. Robert is one of the best speakers I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. The first time I ever heard him speak was at the 64th Graduation class of DC Central Kitchen's culinary job training course, and he keeps getting better ever time I hear him. The main aspect of his talk that I will remember is his analogy of the wishbone and the backbone. There are two bones one can cook with, the wishbone and the backbone. The wishbone will make thin soup, but the backbone will provide a full meal. In short, if you really want to start cooking, you're going to need the backbone.

After finishing up at DC Central Kitchen, the big group split in two. The leadership team members and volunteers stayed at the kitchen and worked on a new constitution, while the group of coordinators took the Metro over to the national office's building, the First Baptist Church.

While there, we had a cooking exercise taught by Barton Seaver (Pictured Left). Barton is the executive chef at two of D.C.'s finest restaurants, Bar Pilar and Café Saint-Ex. I thought it was fascinating that an accomplished chef who has travelled extensively around the world would be such a proponent of locally grown food. As his hat read, "No farms, no food." Barton brought a bunch of fresh, locally purchased, organic ingrediants for us to cook with. These included: tomatoes, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, vegetable oil, lemons, green beans, sausage, and bacon among many others.

After hearing Barton speak about the possible uses of all the fresh veggies, we split up into small groups and experimented with all the possibilities. Becky from CKP, Jen from Northwestern and I worked on a little dish with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and cheese.

When life hands you lemons...

... make delicious pasta! (L-R: Jen, Brian, Becky)

Following the cooking demonstration, we all sat down and ate lunch provided by California Tortilla. After that it was off to Gonzaga College High School for our usual Friday delivery shift, which went very well. Unfortunately, due to the rain the scheduled tour of the area was scrapped. There were three Gonzaga Leadership Team members that led three groups of volunteers to our locations. Because of our usual Friday food pickup, I wasn't able to go with them. I heard, however, that it was the highlight of the weekend for some of the volunteers.

After the delivery shift, there was some free time to explore Washington, D.C. and to prepare for the final day of the conference!

Conference Day 1

2006-10-07T11:22:00.000-04:00

The following is a three part account of the CKP Student Leadership conference. (Part 2 of the recap. Part 3 of the recap.) Click here for more first-hand accounts of the conference.

CKP National Conference Day 1
Date: October 5, 2006
Locations: Gonzaga College High School, DC Central Kitchen

On the first day of the conference, the members from Campus Kitchen's across the nation converged at Gonzaga College High School. Coordinators and Leadership Team members from Saint Louis University, Northwestern Unitersity, Marquette University, Gonzaga University, Augsburg College, Minnesota State University at Mankato, Univeristy of Nebraska at Kearny and Wake Forest University all had people attend! It was really incredible to see so many people involved with the Campus Kitchens Project. It was also exciting to meet the people from possible future Campus Kitchens.

We had an orientation from 4-5pm where anyone interested received a tour of our campus. I had three members of our leadership team members take small groups around the grounds.

A tour of Gonzaga's campus.

Afterwards, we had speakers from Gonzaga, the McKenna Center, DC Central Kitchen and the Campus Kitchens Project's national office. Mike Curtin, the Chief Operation Officer at DCCK as well as a Gonzaga graduate, spoke with the 40 or so people in attendance.

Mike Curtin.

Following the speakers, we walked over to the DC Central Kitchen for a taste-testing. At all the different stations, they offered incredible food including pasta with sun dried tomatoes, spinach and cheese, and potstickers. The food is always delicious at the kitchen, and this time was no different!

Salad Station.
Starch Station. Vegetable Station with Becky and Brian.

Overall it was a fantastic first day! The speakers at Gonzaga and the taste-testing at DC Central Kitchen both gave the visitors a brief glimpse of what was to come. The day ended somewhat early, which was nice because we had to meet back at DC Central Kitchen the next day at 6 in the morning!

CKP National Conference

2006-10-07T08:29:00.000-04:00

This weekend we're celebrating the 5th year of the Campus Kitchens Project!! The annual conference is in Washington, D.C., so a lot of the activities are on Gonzaga's campus.

Woohoo!
Check back this weekend for more information and pictures of the conference!

09.27.06: Nutrition Lesson

2006-09-28T08:30:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first Nutrition Lesson offered by the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga College High School. This project was kick-started by Becky, who is working at the Campus Kitchen Project's National Office. We worked together to get everything going for the nutrition lesson. There were a couple bumps in the road on our journey, but we persevered and made the most of out everything.

Both Becky and myself put a lot of work into the event, and we were very nervous about how it would turn out. We went to one of our usual delivery locations, and instead of dropping off meals, we taught a group of children an educational and fun nutrition lesson. At the end, we provided them with a nutritious treat. We weren't sure how the lesson was going to go, but in the end it turned out fantastic! The lesson went better than I could have imagined.

Becky and Sean going over the food pyramid.

We had three volunteers show up, Sean, Jon, and Kevin. Before we went over to the location, the five of us finalized our game plan at the high school. The three volunteers were excellent about taking on the responsibility of teaching parts of the lesson. I was worried that they would just stand around, but they interacted with the students and went above and beyond my expectations. For future lessons, I'll try to get the volunteers more involved earlier and have a bigger say in what the lesson plan will be.

Crack team of volunteers.

The only downside of the lesson was that there were only six people present, short of the 15-20 people we expected. We would have loved to have more people, but with the smaller number we were able to make a bigger impact. Also, the children were all able to participate. All the kids had their say in the lesson, and everyone got a chance to speak up.

A few of the kids taking in the food pyramid.

Teaching the lesson was very fun. All of the students were interested and very active. They did as much talking as we did!

Becky's AWESOME postor of the Food Pyramid.

The lesson itself went very well. We had an ice-breaker in the beginning to get everyone talking. The three volunteers, Becky and myself all got a chance to teach part of the lesson. Our main goal was to inform about the food pyramid as well as stress the importance of eating breakfast. The kids knew a lot to begin with, and they were very eager to answer all our questions. At the end of the nutrition lesson, we had all the kids line up to make a healthy snack.

Students lining up to make their snack!

For the snack at the end of the lesson, we made Crunchy Granola Yogurt Parfaits. The ingredients for the treat included both plain and strawberry yogurt, crunchy granola, raisins, chocolate chips, and banana chips. The students were very creative in making their snacks, mixing and matching all the different ingredients.

It was so nice to see everyone enjoying their treats. One student even made an extra one to take up to his grandmother. This was an awesome end to an awesome lesson.

The fruits of our labor!

09.25.06: Cooking Shift

2006-09-26T09:12:00.000-04:00

This week I decided to get more cooking and preparing involved in the cooking shift. For the last week or so we were depending too much on already prepared food. Like Ron at the McKenna Center said, I don't just want to complete a puzzle, I want to make the pieces as well. Since we have the time and the volunteers, we might as well make something!

Yesterday, we used the time during our shift to make ham sandwhiches for the child-friendly location. We had some already prepared sandwhiches from one of our donors, but decided to save those for Thursday and use the large donation of sliced ham we had. In addition to the ham, we cut up some lettuce and sliced some tomatoes to make them look delicious. We complemented the sandwhiches with fresh fruit and green beans to finalize the meal.

Mmmm... ham.
For the other locations, we used our time and resources to make a big salad. We had a lot of lettuce, cabbage, olives, cucumbers, carrots, crutons and pieces of chicken, so there was a lot to work with. This type of activity is really fun and easy for the volunteers to work on themselves.

You can make friends with salad.
All in all, it's a lot more fun for me and the volunteers when there is stuff to make. I'm definitely going to get more cooking (even if it's just making salads and sandwhiches) involved in all of the cooking shifts.

09.21.06: Meal Preparation Shift

2006-09-22T08:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we had another cooking shift that went well. Not as much food to choose from as on Monday, but we still had good meals.

For the children at one location, we had pre-made sandwhiches and wraps. The wraps were very colorful and made the meals look great. We added mixed vegetables, mozzarella sticks and a small pastry.

Colorful wraps!

For one of the other options, we had heavenly barbeque meatballs, but nothing pefect to match with them. We didn't have sub rolls or pasta, so we left them alone and added rice as the starch. They got the same veggies and pastries as the other locations.

Meatballs from above!

Overall, it wasn't the best meal in terms of combination, but the food looked delicious. All of the student volunteers agreed that they would definitely eat the meals.

Done!

09.18.06: Meal Preparation Shift

2006-09-19T10:07:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we had a really great meal plan. A plethora of food came in so we had a ton of food to choose from.

Our meal plan for the day.
The meal plan for our child-friendly agency included a mini pepperoni pizza, salad, and fruit cup for dessert. For those that didn't receive pepperoni pizza, we added large chunks of chicken to the salad for their protein portion.

Meal for child-friendly location.

The meal plan for another location included pork, corn bread, salad and pudding. The alternate plan included chicken and shrimp paella as a substitute for pork. The clients at this place are predominately elderly, so we try to keep everything basic and include large portions of meat.

Meal for the other location.

New Leadership Team 2006-07

2006-09-18T13:02:00.000-04:00

This past week we made our new Leadership Team official!

We have a team of one coordinator, two people working at Campus Kitchens' National Office, and seven members of the Leadership Team.