Step into Our Office, Part I

People pay how much money for mushrooms dug up by pigs?!?

Sometimes, there’s nothing quite as enjoyable as looking at the clock at 3:50 PM and wondering what we’ll be doing in class that day. These seldom, but coveted moments are generally courtesy of a guest chef or guest speaker who has volunteered to spice up our normal 4 to 6 spot with fresh perspective, useful chef tips, and an arsenal of cool gadgets and specialty ingredients. In addition to being a nice break from our usual curriculum, these guest classes are often the closest that we can get to a “field trip” during our after school program. I also suspect that by the time March rolls around, students are already chomping at the bit to show off their accumulated skills in front of a “real” representative of the food industry. Either way, our latest Brainfood guests have put a much needed spring in the step of our regular routine.

~Ice Cream Myth Busters and Pie in a Blender: Rebecca’s Class~

Who: Rebecca Scritchfield, dietician

Last Time at Brainfood: Summer 2007

Why she’s famous at Brainfood: Rebecca built a presentation on healthy eating around the MTV classic, “Pimp My Ride” and she also held 20

astonished high school students’ attention while explaining the chemical process behind creating trans-fats.

What’s cooking this time: Rebecca’s class was packed full of facts on everything from how portion sizes have changed over time, to the caloric count on Cold Stone Creamery’s icy concoctions, to how to make healthful substitutions. One of these substitutions involved slimming down the normally fat-laden pie crust in a perennial autumn favorite: pumpkin pie. In Rebecca’s version, students zipped up all the lower-calorie ingredients for the pie (including Bisquick mix and Splenda) in a blender, and then poured the mixture into a pie pan. 20 minutes later, and a nicely spiced pumpkin pie with a wafer thin crust hit the table and was promptly inhaled.

~A Whole Grain Primer with Christina~

Who: Christina Giallourakis, holistic health counselor and founder of Inspire Nutrition

Last Time at Brainfood: Summer 2007

Why we love having her in class: She effortlessly made whole grains cool for our 2007 class of summer students. Having Brainfood participants argue about who gets to cook the red quinoa is sweet music to the ear. Or my ear, at least.

What’s cooking this time: More whole grains! Whole grains being Christina’s specialty topic at Brainfood, she has all the right props. Among my favorites are a complete set of 16 whole grain samples housed in little glass vials, packaging from common whole grain products, and a very useful flametamer for achieving the perfect simmer on our boisterous gas stove.

In our ambitious class day, students put together a faux risotto dish, with quinoa standing in for the usual Arborio rice, a colorful “Stoplight Salad” with diced peppers quinoa, a brown rice pulao (think Indian spiced rice pilaf) and a lovely black rice dish redolent of lightly sweetened coconut milk. Christina also gave students pointers on how to navigate the confusing language of food advertising and identify foods that actually have all three parts of a grain--germ, bran, and endosperm—that make it “whole”, not “refined”.

~Moules, Moules, and Moules: a very Teddy Class

Who: Teddy Folkman, Executive Chef, Dr. Granville Moore’s

Last Time at Brainfood: Much too long ago!

Why he’s always welcome in our kitchen: Teddy is always going 100 mph in the kitchen-- just the right speed for engaging Brainfood students. From indulging requests to flambe food to regaling students with stories about life in the food industry, Teddy really gets Brainfood.

What’s cooking this time: As we mentioned previously, Teddy is the self-proclaimed King of Moules, and after his class at Brainfood, we can vouch that he really does merit the title. He stopped by on a busy Thursday at Chinatown, toting a couple pounds of butter and a bag of rope-grown mussels straight from Prince Edward Island—that’s when we knew that we were in for a treat. Teddy expounded on the virtues of everything from fresh herbs to reading seafood tags, and then gathered students round for their close up with the mussels.

Here, a chef with a different demeanor might have launched into a culinary ode to the mussel, or begin with a quiet meditation on anatomy of a bivalve. Teddy, however, subscribes to a slightly different pedagogy—embracing the lovable weirdness of the foods we eat. He had students carefully sift through a five pound bag of mussels, discarding the ones with broken shells and pulling off any stringy mussel beards that students regarded with equal amounts of intrigue and suspicion. (“What kind of seafood needs a beard?!?!” – a fair question.)

And then finally, it was on to the grand finale, as mussels hit the pan with butter, fines herbes, kosher salt, and a twist of fresh black pepper. Teddy, noting the eager masses that were hovering around the stove, dispensed with the usual plating procedure and invited students to just dig in. It was then and there, elbow deep in mussels shells and fingers dripping with herbs and butter, that a new love for a strangely bearded, completely delicious, bivalve was born.