RE Log Spring 2022

10 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2022 As the years went on, WITS assisted the city with every step it took to improve its food service and nutrition education. When the DOE placed salad bars in every school, Easton’s nonprofit sent in local chefs to teach cafeteria staff how to prepare them. With the help of Wellness in the Schools, the DOE developed an alternative menu that principals could choose to adopt, with healthier and vegan options. The organization also lent support by training staff and creating curricula when it became feasible for that menu to no longer be the alternative – in other words, when the system moved toward a healthier menu citywide. Transitioning a school cafeteria to healthier options is a logistically daunting process. Easton recalls not even being able to fit into the kitchen at Ella Baker by the end of that first year, when she was nine months pregnant with her third child; other schools throughout New York City are similarly cramped and under-equipped to serve the thousands of students that depend on them. The pandemic has tested the limits of this already frayed system. Some school kitchens in New York found themselves serving 15,000 meals per day in 2020 – an overload that made it difficult to maintain the new focus on whole foods and scratch cooking that Wellness in the Schools had helped usher in. Even under normal circumstances, school cafeterias are required to follow a litany of regulations, governing everything from calorie count to ingredient sourcing, that restaurant kitchens do not. Costs have to be kept down – way down: New York reimburses schools around $1.80 per meal – even though daytime deliveries increase the cost and complexity of procuring ingredients. To a restaurant chef who might be used to changing the menu overnight, on a whim or in response to market trends, the red tape can be a headache. “When we have chefs that are working with us, there’s a lot of friction and frustration,” O’Brien said. “The creative chef who understands the technical side of how to prepare a delicious meal has very little patience or appreciation for the bureaucracy it takes to actually deliver that meal within a system that is here to safeguard the future of our children. Bureaucracy can be a good word when it comes to food safety or children’s safety.” From O’Brien’s perspective, the key to the success of Easton and her organization is their ability to listen to this perspective. “With Wellness in the Schools, they stuck it out with us,” he said. “They took the time to learn, to find ways to work with us, to find opportunities to improve the program. They didn’t just point the finger at us and say we’re not doing a good job and walk away. They actually worked really hard to lift up our program, to lift up our front line employees.” “It’s really a culinary, inspired way of thinking.” – Christopher Tricarico, Senior Executive Director, NYC DOE’s Office of Food and Nutrition Services Nancy Easton ’84 and Chef Andrew Benson meet with SAGE Dining Services Chef Alfredo Silva