Somerville Farm to School Project

One of my favorite things about summer and fall is the food! Not just eating the food but visiting local places where food is grown and sold. My family and I spend countless hours shopping at farmers' markets, listening to music on farms, picking our own fruits and vegetables and meeting up with friends at food events and festivals. If you're wondering how to improve your family's connection to real food and the people who grow and produce it, here are a few tips. Left to right: Strawberry picking at Verrill Farm , Buying veggies at the SomervilleMobile Market, Attending the SomerStrEATS event   Visit a farm! See goats, chickens, sheep, cows and pigs! Learn about the fruits and vegetables that grow in and around Somerville! Chat with a farmer! Listen to live music! Pick your own food directly from the farm! For lists of farms and farmers' markets visit the MDAR (Massachusetts Department of Agriculture) and Mass Farmers' Markets websites. ...

"They have learned so much!" That's what one of the Transition to Kindergarten teachers said to me as I left her classroom for the last time. I had been visiting 6 different classrooms once a week for the past four weeks to teach the students about the plant parts we eat and what plants need to grow. Another teacher quipped, "I didn't know which plant parts I was eating until I went to college. It's great that they are learning about it now." That was our goal: to get students thinking about where food comes from and to get teachers thinking about how to incorporate food literacy into their lessons. Our first day started with Sunbutter and seed collections. Chef Guy Koppe from Project Bread led the kids in preparing Sunbutter, using this recipe. The students watch toasted sunflower seeds transform into creamy Sunbutter right before their eyes.    Preparing and tasting sunbutter   After reading Seeds, seeds, seeds! by Nancy Elizabeth Wal...

If you are anything like me, you associate cranberries with winter holidays - think cranberry sauce and turkey!  But after meeting with Cindy Rhodes, owner of Cape Cod Select with her husband Matt,  I learned that cranberries can be used in all seasons! And for both sweet and savory dishes! The cranberry harvesting season begins in a few short weeks. Grab the fresh ones while you can! For a year round treat, you can find Cape Cod Select berries in the freezer section of your grocery store. Naturally tart berries are a perfect pairing for sweeter meats such as pork and turkey. Coupled with fruit such as mangoes and bananas they make a delicious smoothie. After a recent visit to Cape Cod Select cranberry bog as part of my Boston Local Food Festival guest blogger stint, I challenged myself to develop a few savory recipes using cranberries. For the first recipe I paired cranberries with thyme to create a topping for focaccia tiles.   Using this recipe ...

School's out, but that doesn't mean an end to the fun lunches you enjoyed at school. Healthy, delicious and FREE meals will be served throughout the summer at various Somerville locations--a great way to reunite with your friends and share a meal together. Both breakfast and lunch will be available to everyone ages 18 years and younger.  Please see the f lier --in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole--for a list of locations and dates. Bring your brothers, sisters, cousins and friends for breakfast and lunch! The Somerville Public Schools is participating in the Summer Food Service Program. Meals will be provided to all children 18 years old and younger without charge and are the same for all children regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability, and there will be no discrimination in the course of the meal service. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination against its customers, employees, and applicants for emp...

Who likes Fish & Chips?   That's the question we posed to students at the Winter Hill Community Innovation School this past Wednesday.  Technically, we were wondering if they liked Baked Sole with a side of Sweet Potato Fries. It turns out that many of the students LOVED the fish and chips!  Over fifty percent of the students tried it. As they tried it, we gave them stickers to reward their bravery of trying a new food! They were also asked if they liked the fish and would eat it again. Eighty-one percent of the students surveyed would eat the fish again!   They also enjoyed sweet potatoes (not local), apples (sourced regionally from New York) and strawberries (sourced locally from Natick, MA). This special lunch was a Local Harvest Day pilot at the Winter Hill Community Innovation School. It marks the first time that Sea to School was a focus of school lunch here in Somerville. We hope to expand this program into other scho...

Last night we hosted our first benefit night at Flatbread Pizza in Somerville. We were overwhelmed by the community's support and thrilled to meet so many new supporters of the Farm to School Project! Thank you to the entire staff at Flatbread Pizza and those individuals and businesses who generously donated to our raffle! Boston Red Sox Tickets via John Welch Cambridge Naturals Gift Basket Midsummer Night's Green Farm Gift Box Flatbread Pizza hat and t-shirts Gift Certificates from Sarma Restaurant , O2 Yoga , 3 Little Figs , Bloc 11 / Diesel / Forge , Dave's Fresh Pasta , Flatbread Pizza , La Brasa , Magpie Gifts , Mahoney's Garden Center , and Porter Square Books . Thank you to everyone who supports our mission of empowering mindful eaters! Content provided by Karyn Novakowski, PEP Nutrition Education Coordinator, Somerville Farm to School Project Director.

On this very hot day, cool off by reading and listening to Farm to School inspiration! How does a school district source 50% local food? Listen to this episode of Inside School Food to learn how they are doing it in Portland, Maine. It's Farmers' Market season! Why not encourage your kids to try something new with a farmers' market scavenger hunt . Have you ever heard about Farm to Ballet? Read about it here .

Join the Somerville Farm to School Project for a fundraiser on Tuesday, June 16, 5pm to close at Flatbread Pizza, 45 Day St, Somerville. Enjoy a delicious Flatbread pizza and learn about the Farm to School Project. Whether you eat in or take out, we will receive a donation for every pizza sold! Raffle tickets for the following donated prizes will also be available: Boston Red Sox tickets Cambridge Naturals gift basket Midsummer Night’s Farm gift basket Gift certificates from Bloc 11, Dave’s Fresh   Pasta, Mahoney’s Garden Center, Magpie Gift Shop, O2 Yoga,   Porter Square Books, and Sarma Restaurant Bring your friends and family to support our mission of empowering mindful eaters!

On this sunny Friday, we bring you a little Farm to School inspiration from around web! Listen to a piece about a Kindergarten teacher in Queche, VT who is taking her students outside for one whole day! We are a little jealous of these solar gardening structures at Linton Springs Elementary Schools in Sykesville, MD. image via Whole Kids Foundation Setting up an outdoor kitchen? This video from the Edible Schoolyard Project tells you everything you need to know!

Save the date for a Somerville Farm to School Fundraiser! Enjoy delicious Flatbread pizza , Tuesday, June 16 from 5:00 to close. Eat in or take out ---either way, the Somerville Farm to School Project receives a donation for every pizza sold! This event supports the Somerville Farm to School Project, a project of the Food and Nutrition Services Department of the Somerville Public Schools. We work closely with kitchen staff, educators, and community based organizations to provide good food inspiration and education to students and parents so that Somerville's youth can eat will all day long! Explore the blog for more information about the Somerville Farm to School Project. Check back with us for more details about the benefit night!  

Spring is here and garden parties are happening in all the Somerville School Gardens! A few weeks ago, the Brown School held a Garden Party to kick off their school garden season. Under blue skies, students and their families turned soil and prepped the beds for planting. They also plant beans, snap peas, arugula, spinach, carrots, kale, Swiss chard, and lettuce.  Everything looks great and they should see their first seeds sprouting in less than a week! Content and photos provided by Shawn Szturma, Brown School Garden Parent Volunteer.

Our National Nutrition Month festivities continued last week at the Dr. Albert F. Argenziano School at Lincoln Park! Students continue to LOVE the veggie dip with 57% of the students trying the dip and 83% voting that they would eat the dip again! A special thank you to Argenziano parents for volunteering with us at this event and UMass Extension Team Nutrition for their continued collaboration. Results from previous taste tests can be found at the links below: Arthur D. Healey School East Somerville Community School Winter Hill Community Innovation School Contents provided by Karyn Novakowski, PEP Grant Nutrition Education Coordinator.

On Wednesday, April 1 the Winter Hill Community Innovation School was treated to a lunchtime visit by Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Superintendent of Schools Tony Pierantozzi. The Mayor and Superintendent were at the Winter Hill attending one of our National Nutrition Month Celebrations, which included joining students during lunch period and taking part in a taste test . In a speech to the students, both the Mayor and the Superintendent reminded students about the importance of eating fresh foods and whole grains. They emphasized that food is the fuel that gives our bodies energy to be physically active and stay fit. The Mayor challenged the students to be ambassadors for health in their own lives, encouraging friends and family members to "Bite into a Healthy Lifestyle."  Superintendent Tony Pierantozzi addressing Winter Hill students.   Mayor Joseph Curtatone reminding students to be ambassadors for health. The Mayor and Superintende...

After the long, cold, snowy winter it's hard to believe that spring is here.  Even after spending the winter under many feet of snow, garlic in the Kennedy School garden is starting to peek through the soil. Can you see the green? Garlic sprouting in the Kennedy School Garden The garlic was planted last fall by Roxanne Scrima's Kindergarten class. They waited patiently all winter to see if their garlic cloves would sprout. Today they visited the garden and planted more seeds in class.   We began our lesson by learning about plant parts and what seeds need to grow. We even pretended to be seeds! Then we looked at seeds from different plants: flowers, herbs, greens and fruits.   Students described the seeds first. The calendula seed looked like a worm or a snail. Many students thought the basil resembled coffee grounds. One student said it looked like "a period at the end of a sentence." Others pointed out that the mesclun was a ...