Local Flavor Week in DC Schools

A few weeks ago, the President of Slow Food DC contacted me to see if I was interested in doing a cooking demonstration at a local elementary school in celebration of "Local Flavor Week." I was really excited about working with the kids, and accepted immediately. Ms. Sarah Bernardi, an art teacher at Bancroft Elementary contacted me and told me that the children would be picking produce to cook with themselves, and that she would confirm the mystery ingredient before the demo.

Last week I found out that I would be teaching 4th graders how to cook with exciting, delicious, kid-friendly KALE!!!!!!! The pressure began to mount, and I began having all of these visions of the kids hating me and the food. Left to my own druthers, I would start with a more exciting vegetable- anything but kale- which I still tend to associate with diets and punishment.

I decided that if I wanted the kids to "buy in" to the kale recipe, I better come up with something unusual, and with an interesting story.