Tasting Week 2013 Opens Next Week

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Carla Matlin

The schools are buzzing with excitement. Chefs are busy preparing their workshops for next week. We heard from a few chefs already on their plans:

Chef Michelle Boldrini from Facebook will present different kinds of sweeteners
Hugues Pasquier from Galaxy Desserts will make chocolate mousse
Elizabeth Schindler from Google will make Chia Pudding and Chia Mole
Gnakouri Tohouri from GMATO foods will introduce Attieke (a manioc semolina)
Laura Stec from Kaiser and Nathan Beriau from Ritz Carlton will make healthy snacks.

Stay tuned for some more exciting new food adventures.

Tasting Week Closing with a Grand Finale

Posted on November 13, 2012 by armelle

Omnivore tour

We closed our celebration of taste and flavor at the Observation Post of the Presidio on a bright sunny day, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. Thanks to Omnivore World Tour, we were able to open up the discovery of taste to families. Children from 3 to 14 years old participated in six workshops organized around the five senses and the discovery of street food.

Germain Biotteau from Macarons Chantal Guillon hosted the SEE workshop, also entitled Eat with Your Eyes. He organized a fun and tasty game with macarons to show the importance of sight and appearance in cooking. The kids had to guess what flavor of the macarons by looking at them and then tasting them.

Nathan Beriau from Ritz Carlton San Francisco hosted the HEAR workshop, also entitled Listen to Food. Kids got to hear what a fresh carrot and celery branch sounds like when it is snapped, and how to look for freshness with their ears when they shop for ingredients.

Cynthia Falatic from Ritz Carlton San Francisco hosted the SMELL workshop, also

Rosted marshmallows

entitled How Smell Triggers Memory. She let the kids smell different desserts and asked them what memories they associated with them. Many kids could smell the campfire when smelling roasted marshmallows.

Jonathan Silverman from Feel the Earth hosted the TOUCH workshop. The kids made soil with coconut fiber and rocks, and were proud to create their own necklace of life with a cotton and seed.

Mateo Boucher from Real Food company hosted the TASTE workshop and focused on pomegranates. The kids learned how to peel open, prepare and taste pomegranates.

Marianne Despres introduced us to Street Food. Marianne transformed an authentic French 1970 Citroen H-Van into a Food-Truck and now cooks fresh and Argentine style empanadas served directly from the oven!

To finish off the day, all the kids received a special Lunch Box prepared by the Students from the Cordon Bleu.

Thanks to all

Thanks to all the Chefs for a highly successful Tasting Week 2012! See you next year!

Thinking Out of the Box

Posted on October 19, 2012 by armelle

Today the chefs went out of their way to engage the kids to think about food in a creative way. Chef Steve Catalano from Left Bank Menlo Park made vanilla ice cream. It’s a simple recipe but it demands lots of energy.

Steve Catalano

The Barron Park elementary kids got a good workout as they rolled the ice cream maker ball back and forth on the mats. The kids never imagined that cooking could be so physical. Meanwhile chef Jeremy Bringardner from LYFE Kitchen and his charming assistant tried to stump the fourth graders from Ohlone elementary by asking them to identify all sorts of vegetables and hers. The kids knew so much that the chef was very impressed. David Bastide from Left Bank on Santana Row visited the French American school in Sunnyvale and introduced many fruits and vegetables in all different textures and applications, for instance fresh pears, vanilla poached pears, tarragon compressed pears; beets in different forms and stages. One of the big highlights of the day was the hugely popular exhibition cooking at Nixon Elementary during hot lunch, which rallied 275 students compared to the usual 80 on a regular day. One child even tried to hire the chef to cater for his upcoming birthday party!

Open Up Your Minds to Healthy Food

Posted on October 18, 2012 by armelle

Tasting Week hosted ten workshops in parallel today at Juana Briones Elementary, Nixon Elementary, Walter Hays Elementary and Escondido Elementary in Palo Alto, as well as Brentwood Academy in East Palo Alto. This is our record for one day. The common thread of today was “keep an open mind” when trying new food. As chef John Bentley from Bentley’s put it when he passed around an artichoke salad “You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t like it, but I want you to keep an open mind and give it a try”.

Chef Marco Fossati

We received a similar message from Chef Marco Fossati from the Four Seasons as he showed a real parmesan wheel weighing 90 pounds “when you buy parmesan cheese, go for the real stuff. It is worth the extra effort today because it will make you stronger in the long run”. Pastry Chef Cynthia Falatic from the Ritz Carlton introduced healthy trail mix to a group of kindergartners, chefs Michel Suas and Miyuko from the San Francisco Baking Institute showed children how to grind wheat and make real bread, while chef Aaron Johnson organized a full tasting spread including lost of different fruits, vegetables and even anchovies.

Michel Suas Bread

The children kept a very open mind and tried lots of new things. Highlight of the day – tasting real parmesan dipped in honey and seeing the beautiful dress made out of bread from Miyuko for Jean-Paul Gaultier’s exhibit at the De Young Museum.

Back to the Fundamentals

Posted on October 17, 2012 by armelle

10-17-12

Today’s workshops were incredibly diverse, but had one thing in common. Every chef shared their favorite fundamental ingredient for good cooking. Chef Nathan Beriau focused his workshop on salt and pepper, introducing the kids form Palo Verde Elementary school in Palo Alto to various forms of salt and pepper from around the world. At the same time in another classroom at Palo Verde, chefs Kimberly Tran and Jordan Keao were teaching children how to make butter, another fundamental of good cooking.

Chef Peter Rudolph from Madera restaurant agrees that butter is a fundamental, but he adds that good olive oil is key to great cooking, and he makes his point by gulping down a whole glass of olive oil in front of an audience in awe at Ohlone Elementary school. Chef Rudolph used both butter and olive oil to make his delicious pumpkin soup with croutons sauteed with garlic and sage. In San Francisco, artisan chocolate maker Shawn Williams from Feve Chocolates showed children how to use all forms of chocolate, yet another fundamental ingredient in great cooking.

Juana Briones Elementary is getting ready for the visits of chef Marco Fossati tomorrow by hosting an exhibition cooking at lunchtime, courtesy of Sodexo, the provider to PAUSD Food Services. One hundred and sixty kids got to enjoy a special meal of chicken teriyaki, tofu brown rice and sauteed vegetables.

A to Z Salad Bar Kicks Off in Palo Alto, La Soiree Kicks Off in San Francisco

Posted on October 15, 2012 by armelle

PAUSD Salad Bar

Palo Alto Food Services is celebrating Tasting Week with us again this year. Nine Palo Alto schools will host special lunch programs over the next few days. On Friday October 12, Barron Park Elementary inaugurated the first A to Z salad bar. Kids in the hot lunch program were able to sample 26 different types of fruits and vegetables, one for each letter of the alphabet. S for strawberry, J for Jicama and W for watermelon were some of the most popular items, but the kids also rushed to letter X – for eXtra fancy pluot. Some adventurous children even tried the V – very smelly green onion. Balloons, crayons, and worksheets on healthy eating were there to complement the salad bar.

On Friday evening, adults only gathered at the San Francisco Metreon to celebrate the now traditional French Soiree of the American Chamber of Commerce. The evening buzzed with cooking and wine tasting competitions, ice carving, pulled sugar and chocolate demonstrations. Take a look at the beautiful wolf head carved in 40 pounds of chocolate! At Tasting Week we also celebrated our first donation through the live auction kindly donated by the Ritz Carlton. By the way, if you want to donate to Tasting Week online, feel free to jump in by contributing to http://www.gofundme.com/17ucx0

Pre-Tasting Week Workshop Kicks Off at International School of the Peninsula

Posted on October 11, 2012 by armelle

Today Bernard Moutal, Chef at the Golden Gate Grill in San Francisco, visited the International School of the Peninsula in Palo Alto. He led a group of 2nd and 3rd graders in making palm tree pastries. Palm trees, also known as elephant ears, are made from puff pastry, which is rolled out, coated with sugar, and then the two sides are rolled up together so that they meet in the middle, making a roll that is then cut into about ¼” slides and baked.

ISTP’s “Palmier”

The kids really enjoyed putting plastic gloves onto their hands before starting the workshop. They were quick to name the key ingredients used to stick the palm tree together (water and egg), but they had very creative ideas when asked what went into the puff pastry (cinnamon and eggs for instance), but in fact there is nothing more than butter, flour, salt and water. This just goes to show you that you can make something wonderful out of very simple ingredients. The key factor of success is using the best butter you can find, time and patience. Today Bernard needed even more patience than usual since our oven was very slow…but it was worth the wait!

Below you can find the recipe for the palm tree pastries. Try them with your kids and let us know if they like it!

The Path Towards Better Lunches in Palo Alto

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Carla Matlin

Georgeanne Brennan at Terman Middle School

Today, on October 25, 2011, several Palo Alto parents met at Terman Middle School to eat the school hot lunch and listen to Georgeanne Brennan, award-winning cookbook writer, reporter and specialist in school lunches.

Georgeanne shared her experience in helping the districts of Oakland and Los Angeles to improve their hot lunch programs. She also gave an account of her trip to France, to explore the French school lunches. Georgeanne picked France because of the low obesity rate among children in this country. Highlights of her trip are included in her report attached to the resource page of this website. Georgeanne explained that the success of the hot lunch program in France is not only due to the variety of the menu. Their success is also linked to other factors, namely that lunch follows recess, children must stay at a table during a minimum of 30 minutes, and the food is served in real plates with real knives and forks.

Salad Bar at Terman Middle School

As parents from the Palo Alto district, we then had a healthy discussion about our vision for school lunches and the challenges we need to overcome. In a single hour of discussion, we came up with a flurry of suggestions. They included involving the kids as panelists in the selection of new school lunch items, replacing “sporks” with real
forks and spoons, trying out recess before lunch, inviting parents and grandparents to sit down at the table with the children to encourage mealtime discussions, requesting transperence on the origin of foods served in our district, banning certain items from the menu altogether, putting microwave ovens in the schools for children bringing their own lunches to school, setting up a “foodboosters” program for parents to contribute financially to the hot lunch program, expanding the seating options for children to eat lunch, involving local gardens in the food program, and many more ideas.

If we can come up with these many ideas in 60 minutes, imagine what we can do with perseverance, patience and determination throughout this school year. Palo Alto Tasting Week gave us a glimpse into the wonderful possibilities of discovery through food and cooking. This celebration has started a meaningful dialogue on the improvement of food in our schools and the impact of food on our community. This is where it all starts.

Wine Event at Lavanda, in Downtown Palo Alto

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Carla Matlin

Lavanda, October 22, Wine Event

On Saturday 22nd, 2011, in downtown Palo Alto, Lavanda Restaurant opened its doors to a special wine tasting event hosted by “Tasting week”. There, a group of wine aficionados tasted and compared French and Californian wines paired with unique bites. The tasting was blind (wine is revealed at the end) and the organizers, Aurelia Setton, volunteer expert in wine, Rapahel Knapp, Wine importer from returntoterroir and Bruce Schmidt, Lavanda restaurant owner had set up this tasting to be tricky! First, they surprised us with a Picpoul (yes, this is a grape type), which was from France Languedoc region but tasted like a California Sauvignon Blanc! Then, we went on to tasting a Gewurztraminer from Anderson Valley, California. It was sweet and elegant, the majority of the group thought it was a French wine….The 2 reds where just as much of a surprise: the first one was a very nice 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon matched with a delicate chicken liver crostini. I don’t like chicken liver, but this tasted sweet and mild. Loved the pairing! The last wine was a Tannat (a French grape) from the South West of France. The truffled mushroom talagio cheese crostini was marvelous with it!

What a discovery for all of us! Even the Mayor of Palo Alto was there, ready to be surprised.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Carrots

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Carla Matlin

chef Craig Von Foerster and Principal Matt Nagle at Juana Briones Elementary school

On Friday Juana Briones Elementary school hosted chef Craig Von Foerster, Executive Chef at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, voted one the top 5 best restaurants in the San Francisco Bay in the Zagat. Chef Craig came all the way from Big Sur with a full carload of…carrots. The kids were a little intrigued at first, but ended up completely enthralled. He showed them the difference between supermarket bagged mini-carrots and fresh carrots from his garden. He showed them white, yellow, and purple carrots.

chef Craig Von Foerster

He made carrot soup and pickled carrots. And finished with a giant carrot cake. And while he was preparing his carrots, he answered dozens of questions from the children about his favorite and least favorite foods, his origin, what it is like working in a restaurant, and much more. At the end of the presentation, the children all lined up to get Chef Craig’s authograph on their plate!

A few moms snuck in to grab a taste of carrot soup and to talk with Chef Craig. Next year we need to plan a workshop for parents too!

Bay Area Tasting Week

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