Wheat Food Council Teams Up With Spoons The Wheat Foods Council is donating proceeds from Food for Thought from Parents to Children, a new children's cookbook, to Spoons Across America. The book includes nutritious and delicious wheat-based recipes that introduce parents and kids to healthy food choices, and is also chock-full of educational food facts and fun cooking activities. Celebrity chef - and mother of three - Gale Gand contributed recipes, as did parents from around the country. By purchasing the book for $3.50, you will be supporting Spoons' programs. For more information, click here Lead with a carrot! Become a "Greenmarket Guide" If you love food and are looking for a way to give back to your community, we have the job for you. Spoons Across America needs "Greenmarket Guides" to lead New York City school kids on tours of local Greenmarkets. We will provide you with the training (a one-hour session), you pick the borough (Manhattan, Brooklyn or the Bronx). Most tours take place in October; for more information click here. July 23, 2008   Wow, They Did It Again! Such complex dishes as Chicken Kiev, Pomme Dauphinoise and Panna Cotta can be a challenge for even professional chefs. So it is especially impressive that a group of 13-year-olds - most with no previous cooking experience - mastered those and more in the span of just six weeks. But under the sure tutelage and encouragement of renowned chef Daisy Martinez, that's just what a class of 7th graders at Mark Twain IS 239 in Coney Island, NY did as part of Spoons Across America's Dinner Party Project this past April. This was the second time Chef Daisy brought the program to Mark Twain students, and her desire to repeat the experience was fueled not only by the fact that her daughter, Angela is in the class. "It was so great the first time that I was inspired to do it again," says Ms. Martinez, who stars in the PBS program Daisy Cooks! "I set the bar even higher this time, and the kids totally met the challenge," she marvels. The program was like a teenage culinary boot camp for the students, as Ms. Martinez guided them through classic dishes such as chicken piccata and omelets. "They were learning knife skills and other important techniques, and each week we would sit down to eat what we had made," she explains. For the party, Chef Daisy chose menu items that reflected the students' diverse cultural backgrounds, including Chicken Kiev (Russian), Pork Loin Roulades Stuffed with Roasted Red Pepper and Sweet Plantain Mash (Latino) and Pomme Dauphinoise (French). "This made it personal for the kids and gave them a feeling of ownership over their meal," she explained. On party day, the students peeled, diced and sautéed, under the direction of Chef Martinez, and with help from their teacher Karen Silverman and Hospitality Management students of NYC College of Technology, Spoons Across America Club. As family members and teachers entered the beautifully decorated Mark Twain cafeteria to the strains of the school's own student mariachi band, students greeted them with glasses of sparkling cider and an amuse bouche. Then, the students served their multi-course meal to their guests, and everyone sat down together to enjoy it. The parents were duly impressed, and the children beamed with pride. Growing up in a large extended family, Daisy Martinez learned early on the meaning of sharing food and cooking. "Being in the kitchen with my mother and grandmother was a way for me to feel secure and loved," she says. She passed along those feelings to her own children, and she always made sure the family ate dinner together, no matter what everyone's schedule. She also included her children in the meal preparation. "A lot of parents tend to shoo their kids out of the kitchen when they're making dinner," says Ms. Martinez. "When my kids were little, I would give them simple tasks like scrubbing potatoes or snapping green beans. It's a way to have quality time together, to initiate conversation about school or anything else going on in their lives," she says. Here is one of Chef Daisy's recipe's for you to try at home. Spinach with Pine Nuts and Raisins Espinacas al Estilo Daisy Makes 4 servings ¼ cup raisins 3 tablespoons olive oil 4 cloves garlic, sliced ¼ cup pine nuts 4 bunches (about 2 pounds) or two 10-ounce bags spinach, washed and dried, preferably in a salad spinner A dash or two sherry vinegar Fine sea or kosher salt Freshly ground pepper Pour enough hot water over the raisins in a small bowl to cover them. Let stand until plump, 20 minutes or so. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and pine nuts and cook, stirring, just until the pine nuts start to color. Add as much of the spinach as fits and stir until it is wilted enough to make room for more spinach. Keep going unitl all the spinach is added. Cook just until the spinach is wilted, but still bright green. Add vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, and serve. Pennies From Washington Heights Recently, fifth-graders from P.S. 132 Juan Pablo Duarte in Washington Heights, a vibrant Dominican community in upper Manhattan, proudly presented a check for $600 to Spoons Across America. The dedicated students raised the money from a Penny Drive they conducted - that's right, $600 collected from pennies! Spoons' Executive Director Martha Bear Dallis graciously accepted the check from the students at a special assembly, presided over by the school's principal, Xiomara Nova and attended by members of the stellar teaching staff. "We were so touched by the students' generosity and enthusiasm," says Ms. Bear Dallis. The fifth-graders knew about Spoons from their participation in AIWF/NY Days of Taste®, and the Dinner Party Project®, and they chose to support us as a way of "giving back". Financial support from our sponsors, foundations, individual donors as well as our collaborative partners and organizations enable us to present these programs to students as P.S. 132 and other schools across the country. We are proud to break bread with the P.S. 132 community! Meet Spoons Across America Executive Director Martha Bear Dallis Farm Fresh Memories... Family meals are my lasting memories of visiting grandparents who both had working farms in southern Iowa. Family gatherings involved the aunts cooking up a storm in Grandma Burley's farm house kitchen and laying out platter after platter of home made foods on a dining room table covered with a white tablecloth edged with crocheted trim. There were endless choices of freshly-picked fruits and vegetables, and platters of cookies and layered cakes with white frosting --- all home made with ingredients from Grandma and Grandpa Burley's garden, root cellar, and farm. Although the large family gatherings were twice a year with families traveling from Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska to Grand River and Beaconsfield, Iowa, the tradition of family meals continued year round in our St. Paul, Minnesota home. Taste this... Today, our Bear Dallis family (two daughters, one in college, one an accountant) continues the family meal tradition with a modern day spin. Typically on the weekend we bicycle to the Brooklyn Greenmarkets, gather fresh ingredients, and cook together on Sunday night. "Taste this" is a mantra in the family. We taste, taste, and taste foods, and endlessly talk or e-mail back and forth about food, recipes, and restaurants. We linger and laugh over a meal together, reminisce about a past meal, or start to talk about the next meal. I am proud to don a new 'hat' as the executive director for Spoons Across America®. I bring to the table 12 years of business acumen of operating Bear Dallis Associates, working with not-profit-organizations, sponsors, and volunteers; and first-hand experiences with children's food education programs: AIWF NY / Days of Taste® and The Dinner Party Project®. I was privileged to one of the founding members of Spoons 2001 who believed in the importance of children's food education, and worked to establish the groundwork to become a 501(c) 3 organization, collaborated with like-minded partners and organizations, and developed meaningful hands-on programs that have touched the lives of 21,000+ children and families. Our Spoons grass roots efforts are beckoning for the next level of organizational development and leadership. As executive director, I will work closely with the board of directors, advisors and partners to ensure that every child makes healthy eating choices around the family table. I invite you to join us at our Spoons Across America table so we can increase our reach to educate more children, families and teachers about the benefits of healthy eating. And, I share with you the mantra "Taste this" as we head into the summer season of corn, strawberries and heirloom tomatoes!