Carina Gervacio's blog

Even the rain couldn’t stop this group of enthusiastic chefs.

They waded through hoards of rabid cherry blossom tourists, braved the positively gloomy weather, and arrived at our Chinatown site with one thing on their mind: pizza.  And they were in for a treat, because this was a pizza-making workshop unlike any that Brainfood staff or students had ever hosted before.

A post from Brainfood Staffer, Carolyn Panzarella...

On March 15th a proud group of students, parents, Brainfood staff, volunteers and board members got together to honor program’s first class of Community MVPs.  Students who had attended 60 or more hours were rewarded with their very own Chef’s coats!  Those who didn’t quite make 60 hours were given the colorful trademark Brainfood aprons. 

From guest blogger Carolyn Panzarella....

After hours of working to perfect  answers for the Youth Service America grant, our hard work has paid off!  We were granted our full budget for a workshop with Homeless Children’s Playtime Project.  The grant is meant to address the issue of childhood hunger with the hope that all the programs/projects granted funding will take place around Global Youth Service Day (April 20-22, 2012).  We received a shining report from the YSA staff in our approval letter: “We received many wonderful applications but yours stood out as one of the best.”   We were also mentioned in an article posted on Market Watch with regards to the upcoming project.

Chicken.  Broccoli.  Alfredo.  This trifecta of ingredients has long caused Brainfood students to swoon (and sometimes drool) in anticipation of learning how to cook the much-beloved pasta dish.  The only catch to the traditional version dish is the jaw-dropping quantity of cream and parmesan cheese that go into the sauce.  The thick, creamy sauce that we all love often has enough sodium and saturated fat to send a small child into instant food coma – which is to say, the sauce severely compromises the nutritional value of eating the lean protein and fresh vegetable in the dish.  And yet, like any unhealthy food relationship, we just can’t say no.  And that’s exactly why Brainfood MVPS chose this recipe as the perfect candidate for a healthier makeover.

From guest blogger Ibti Vincent, Weekly MVPs Classroom Assitant.... 

Last week marked Brainfood's first ever Community MVPs Open House and Food Fair, and boy was it a fun (and delicious) event! Though the group taught their first workshop at Walker Jones Elementary this fall, for many in attendance this was their first opportunity to see the peer nutrition educators hosting food demos and leading a special event.

From Guest Blogger Carolyn Panzarella, Community MVPs Intern....

The Community MVPs classroom has been bustling with activity in the last few weeks.  As always, we have been continuing practicing public speaking.  All this practice will be put into use in the coming months when we will be putting on more workshops. 

The students have been practicing their elevator speeches:  a short summary used to quickly and simply define a product, service, or organization and its value proposition.  We have done a number of exercises to perfect their speeches including volume practice in the big hall downstairs, as projecting voices is always a difficult task, and writing out the speech and pitching it to the class.  

The Community MVPs rang in December with a fun field trip to DC’s lovely Grand Hyatt.  Staff from the hotel’s restaurant, Cure, and from the human resources department helped to make our experience very enjoyable.  Four lucky ladies were chosen to stay behind to do a “secret” workshop with managers from Cure while the rest of the group was led on a tour of the hotel. 

Brainfood MVPs set off for their first workshop Thursday, November 3rd.   Our plan was to go to Walker Jones Elementary school and work with second and third graders to harvest some vegetables from their huge school garden and then incorporate those vegetables into a healthy version of Asian take out food. 

Hello everyone, my name is LaSchellé Owens, I am the new instructor here at Brainfood-Chinatown location, I am so happy to be apart of Brainfood Kitchen All Star program this school year. My students are all from different schools in DC. I met such great students who are excited about learning, building life skills, and new cooking skills. I am learning so much myself as well. I am pumped up about what we have in store for the students this school year. So far we have started off with baking.  Our recipes varied from Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake Brownies and Vegan Pumpkin Pie Chocolate Chip Muffins to Cheddar Biscuits and Sweet Potato Biscuits. Which by the way were all DELICIOUS!!!  Everyone was so proud of their new found baking skills, such as sifting flour, separating an egg and measuring the “Brainfood Way” and so was I.  

Our kitchen's still empty, and our fridge is too, but my oh my, are we excited about this fall.

You'd be excited too, if you were in charge of building a fully mobile youth teaching unit to bring low-cost workshops on healthy eating to DC residents.  Stay tuned as we launch our pilot year of Community MVPs and welcome our new class of Kitchen All Stars.

We're still deep in planning mode at Brainfood, but if you've got a hankering for more Brainfood, here's a few things to consider:

- Volunteer with us!  We have two upcoming volunteer info sessions on Wednesday, August 31st and Thursday, September 8th.  We're looking for assistants for both the Kitchen All Stars and MVPs program.  Email Carina to RSVP for an info session.