Victoria Program Update

Hello Growing Chefs! community,

We want to bring you up to speed on some island-based happenings we have been working on, and introduce you to some of our friends and collaborators.

Springing into Action!

This spring, we had an amazing group of over 25 volunteers excited and ready to share their knowledge in Victoria classrooms. We were geared up for one of our biggest years yet, expanding our reach with 5 new teachers and 2 new schools to offer the Growing Chefs! program to over 100 kids. Unfortunately, we did not get the opportunity to connect in schools, but we found new ways to reach even more kids and families online!

As you may have seen, our team had a lot of fun finding creative ways to bring our Spring Classroom Gardening and Cooking program online, with Growing Chefs! at Home. We could not have done this without the help of our amazing volunteers who helped us continue to serve our mission by sharing their knowledge and expertise via video.

Growing Together From a Distance

Growing Chefs! is proud to have joined Growing Together as a key collaborator to form an island-based initiative of food literacy organizations and growers to support our communities in these unprecedented times. We look forward to curating educational materials and resource listings, as well as promoting opportunities for mentorship and volunteerism.

This website is the hub for the Growing Together initiative. Stay tuned! You can also check out this Growing Together video to learn more about our mission.

Want to support food literacy initiatives in Victoria? Head to the Growing Together Volunteer Form to sign up!

Make sure to check out and follow along with the Growing Together social media pages on Facebook and Instagram.

Feature Spotlight from our Victoria Growing Chefs! Community

Indecent Risotto

Chef Andrew brought the Growing Chefs! Program to the island in collaboration with the Island Chefs Collaborative (ICC) in 2014. Chef Andrew and his partner Shannon have been major supporters of the program, volunteering in the classroom and participating in our Eat. Give. Grow. fundraising campaign. Together as local food champions, they run Indecent Risotto. We dig what they are up to! *Virtually passes the mic*:

Here at Indecent Risotto we believe that in order to cook great food you need to start with the best ingredients. From day one on our food truck we have always bought as many local ingredients as possible. From working with local farms for all of our produce, to local producers of meats, seafood and cheeses, we attain more than 80% local ingredients during the peak summer months.

The best part about doing things this way are the relationships that we have formed with our amazing suppliers. It is our way of building up our communities and truly understanding what it takes to create a local food economy. We feel honoured to be able to go directly to the farm 10 minutes down the road from us and see the changes the seasons bring. Being able to look at a crop and know in two weeks there will be a fantastic new ingredient ready for us to use is the best!

Andrew Paumier and Shannon Moriarty
Indecent Risotto Food Truck

Check out Indecent Risotto online at their website, or on Instagram or Facebook.

Make a Salad Bar Activity

Growing up in the 80’s my absolute favourite restaurant had an all-you-can-eat salad bar. I loved to pick from all the options and toppings and then add on one of the many dressings (I always went for Thousand Island). Then, I would hit up the soft serve ice cream bar! Kids today still really enjoy the variety and choice that a salad bar style presentation offers, set one up at home to relive your childhood and introduce your kids to a super fun way to eat greens. 

You Will Need:

• Lettuce, any type(s).

• Toppings (list of ideas below)

• Dressing, either homemade (use our “Choose your Own Adventure recipe guide to easily create your own) or store-bought

• Pencil and paper

Instructions:

1. Talk with kids about what a salad bar is.

2. Look at the list of salad ingredients below and pick a few that you would like to offer at your in-house salad bar (or brainstorm your own ingredients). You only need a few toppings and they don’t have to be fancy, so use what you have around the house (we made our croutons out of some stale bread).

3. Draw a diagram of how your salad bar will be set-up (generally starting with lettuce at one end and ending with dressing at the other end).

4. If you are feeling crafty, create a name and logo for your salad bar. We called ours Soopa Salad.

5. Get your ingredients, wash and prepare them and set-up your salad bar.

6. Enjoy experimenting with new toppings and flavour combinations.

7. The best part about a salad bar is that you can go back for a second helping!

Ideas for Components of Your Salad Bar:

Growing Chefs! Programs Went Virtual

This year our Spring Classroom Gardening and Cooking Program, like so many things this year, looked a little different.

In early March, we were all set to bring our program to 54 classrooms across the Lower Mainland and in Victoria with a team of nearly 200 volunteers who were ready and eager to get into schools and teach kids about growing and cooking healthy food. Over the spring break, we made the difficult decision to postpone the start date of our programming due to concerns related to the coronavirus, but as April came closer, it became clear that our spring classroom program was not going to happen at all this year.

As schools were closed and learning moved to an online, distanced format, we wondered if and how we could still bring hands-on food literacy education to students at home. We chatted with some of the teachers who had signed up for our spring program, asked our volunteers if they’d be interested in helping us to develop some online learning materials, and were able to create Growing Chefs! at Home; a twelve-part video series bringing many of our regular program components to students and families at home.

Just as with our regular classroom program, our virtual program began with some instructional videos to get kids and families growing their own home gardens. It was exciting to see how many different gardens students planted at home. Some had a few pots, some got creative repurposing containers into pots for growing, some had full windowsill gardens, while others had large gardens in their backyard… all showing the many ways we can grow food in an urban setting!

Every Tuesday from March 31st until June 26th, we released a new lesson video and at-home lesson outline on our blog that included art projects, at-home science experiments, scavenger hunts, activity worksheets, movement activities, writing exercises, story readings, and of course, recipes.

Growing Chefs! staff and volunteers invited students, teachers, and families into their home kitchens, living rooms, backyards, and home gardens through a series of videos that explored our connections to food throughout the whole food cycle. In these videos, staff and volunteers brought their skills, knowledge, and passion to each lesson, sharing all of this and more with students just as they would in the classroom. They led lessons on how plants grow, why soil and compost are important, exploring new foods through our senses, why eating healthy is important, how food makes us feel, some basic at home cooking lessons, and more.

The teachers that were going to be a part of our in-school program joined us, sending out each weekly lesson to their students as part of their online learning content. In addition to the classrooms that we would normally be reaching, we had thousands of views, likes, and shares as we shared all of this content through our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds.

We could not have made this shift so quickly and successfully if it weren’t for our amazing program team, the passionate teachers who were eager to incorporate food literacy into their online lesson plans and help us develop the most effective ways to do so, and of course, the incredible volunteers who were more than eager to still share their knowledge, passion, and skills with kids and families.

We have all missed being in schools and working in classrooms this year, but we have been so excited to see how many have been following along with our lessons at home and interacting with us online. Thank you to all the teachers, parents, and students who have shared videos and photos of what you’ve been up to with Growing Chefs! at Home. It has warmed our hearts to hear from you and see your amazing gardens and meals you’ve prepared following along with the lessons.

If you missed any of our Growing Chefs! at Home lessons or are looking to take part in these lessons at home, here is a complete list (with links to content) of all the lessons and activities we created this spring:

1. Introduction to Growing Chefs! At Home

2. Lesson 1- Planting our garden

3. Lesson 2 - Vegetable Exploration

4. Lesson 3 - What Vegetables do for us

5. Lesson 4 - Mindful Eating

6. Lesson 5 - Foods and Emotions

7. Lesson 6 - Parts of a Plant & How Plants Grow

8. Lesson 7 - Exploring Soil & Compost

9. Lesson 8 - Making a healthy salad and salad dressing

10. Lesson 9 - Where food comes from, exploring food systems

11. Lesson 10 - Let’s Make a Stir Fry

12. Growing Chefs! at Home Program Wrap-up and Review

While our virtual spring program wraps up with the end of the school year, over the summer we will continue to share ideas and outlines for fun at-home learning activities and recipes on our social media channels. We hope that you will continue to interact with us online!

Donor Profile: Mission Hill Family Estate

Connecting over a delicious meal and favourite beverage is something all of us have in common. We use this to offer comfort, make friends, celebrate special occasions, and show appreciation, gratitude and love. Food is more than just nourishment; it allows us to create memories and express our creativity. Through this experience we are able to go on a journey, connecting with different cultures, traditions and stories.

Pairing wine and food is deeply embedded in our culture, and is a way to not only enhance one’s dining experience, but tune in with your mood and the meal you are eating. Thanks to the continued support from Mission Hill Family Estate, we are able to deepen the relationships with our community members and celebrate the joy of connecting over local food and wine.

Thank you Mission Hill Family Estate for your wine sponsorship, and thank you Executive Chef Patrick Gayler for taking the time to introduce yourself to Growing Chefs!

How long have you been working at Mission Hill Family Estate?
7 years

As Executive Chef, what do you do?
I help the sous chefs source ingredients, make menus, and train new cooks in the restaurant. I also host culinary classes and dinners too.

What makes Mission Hill different from other B.C. wineries?
Our commitment to quality and the Okanagan.

What is the most exciting part of working at Mission Hill?
Being able to focus on putting together great ingredients and wine is always exciting.

What makes you proud to work for Mission Hill?
Seeing guests from all over the world enjoying our unique winery and valley .

What is your favourite vegetable?
Onion or potato. I could never pick just one.

What’s your favourite food memory?
Turkey dinner at my grandma’s house.

CLICK HERE to learn more about experiences offered at Mission Hill Family Estate.

Growing Chefs! at Home: Wrap-up and Final Review

With the end of the school year comes the end of our spring Growing Chefs! at Home program. Thank you so much to everyone who has been following along: teachers, students, parents, and families. we hope you had fun and learned a few things along the way.

We’re going to be taking a little break but before we do, have put together a fun review lesson in the form of a trivia game for you all!

Join Jaydeen as she tests your knowledge with ten fun trivia questions, one from each lesson!

Congratulations on completing the Growing Chefs! program! We even have a certificate confirming that you are now a Growing Chef that you can print and display to your friends and family.

Be sure to check back to our blog for more fun at-home activities over the summer and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to be sure you don’t miss any of them. And please, share with us any photos or videos of what you’ve been up to in the garden and in the kitchen at home.

If you missed any of our Growing Chefs! at Home lessons or are looking for a past one here is a complete list of all the lessons and activities we created this spring:

1. Introduction to Growing Chefs! At Home

2. Lesson 1- Planting our garden

3. Lesson 2 - Vegetable Exploration

4. Lesson 3 - What Vegetables do for us

5. Lesson 4 - Mindful Eating

6. Lesson 5 - Foods and Emotions

7. Lesson 6 - Parts of a Plant & How Plants Grow

8. Lesson 7 - Exploring Soil & Compost

9. Lesson 8 - Making a healthy salad and salad dressing

10. Lesson 9 - Where food comes from, exploring food systems

11. Lesson 10 - Let’s Make a Stir Fry

We hope your gardens bring you a beautiful harvest this summer. Keep growing and cooking and trying new foods as we will see you all again real soon!

Cooking Something New in the Kitchen: A Recipe for Learning

If you are like me, you have a few things you regularly cook with your kids. For our family, it is a trusted recipe for double chocolate muffins with banana and zucchini. The recipe is easy, reasonably healthy, and everyone likes it, so we make it often. When I think of cooking with kids I almost always think of things I am familiar with and that also produce a sweet and tasty result (like my chocolate zucchini muffins). 

This year, I have been challenging myself to move away from my comfort zone and try cooking some new things with my kid that aren't so familiar. Things that are new to us both. We have made cranberry sauce, beet hummus, sauerkraut, sourdough bread, and homemade tomato soup to name a few. All things that I have never made before. The results have been predictable; some failures, some success, and plenty of learning. In many cases the cooking process and technique was so much different from the things we usually cook that we couldn’t help but learn (A LOT) along the way. We did research, learned how to use a kitchen scale, tried to understand fermentation and asked friends and family for advice. During this process it occurred to me that the skills required to learn to cook something new (researching, problem solving, resourcefulness) will be pretty useful for my kid as she grows up (probably more useful than the ability to make one recipe for chocolate zucchini muffins). With this in mind over the summer we are planning to continue to cook some new things...and probably some more chocolate zucchini muffins (because they are really very tasty). Next up is fresh pasta…wish us luck!

Want to Cook Something New Together? Here are some tips: 

Decide what you will make together:

• Look in magazines or online for inspiration 

• Pick an item from your heritage and call a family member to ask for the recipe

• Think of what you might order-in and find a similar recipe that you can make at home. 

Research, explore, and prepare together:

• Watch some videos together (we watched someone make sourdough on Youtube about 6 times before we felt ready to try it)

• Ask friends and family for tips (you probably know someone that knows how to cook what you are cooking)

• Explore any concepts that are new to you both, this might be the origin of the dish, cooking techniques or terms

Take some notes:

• Write out the recipe to make sure you all understand the steps

• Take some notes for next time you make the recipe (ie. turn down oven temperature, too dry,  yummy)

Anticipate some bumps:

• It might come out perfect the first time….and it might not. Be prepared to fail(ish) and try again if you like

Have fun cooking something new! 

Growing Chefs! at Home: Lesson 10

We have a special guest for lesson 10!

Executive Chef Ben Mattman from the Vancouver Marriott shows you how to cook a tasty stir fry at home.

He shares what he likes in his stir fry, and even explains a chef’s mise en place, a French term that means having all your ingredients prepared and organized before you begin cooking. We hope you can imagine how good the stir fry smells and tastes while you watch the video. Think about what you would put in your own stir fry!

Related Activities:

Draw Your Stir Fry: Watch the video of chef Ben making a stir fry and then draw the ingredients that you would add to your own stir fry on this fun plate worksheet. The best part about drawing a stir fry is that you have all the ingredients that you can imagine, and everything is in season. Make sure you add some bright beautiful vegetables! 

What's in your stir fry?

What's in your stir fry? Growing Chefs! volunteers and staff tell us what they like in their stir fry. We hope this video will give you some ideas of all the different things that can go in a stir fry. 

Write Your Own Recipe for Stir Fry and Stir Fry Sauce:

You get to be the chef! This template will help you pick ingredients and write a recipe for your very own stir fry and stir fry sauce.

Explore your kitchen:
We’ve prepared a fun scavenger hunt activity to explore the colours, fragrances, and flavours right in your own kitchen.

Lettuce Taste Test:

Did you know there are hundreds of different types of leafy greens that we can eat? Explore more flavours in the kitchen by following along with our Lettuce Taste Test activity.

Explore our Growing Gardens:

We may be in the kitchen this week but every week there are new and exciting things happening in the garden! Explore the changes you see happening with a fun game of Garden BINGO!

Thank you for joining us this week!

Please join us again next week for the final lesson of our 2020 Growing Chefs! at Home Spring Program.

Lettuce Explore! A Lettuce Taste Test

In this activity, kids (and adults) can explore the flavours, textures, and appearance of lettuce and greens. Taking some time to appreciate the qualities of the simple foods we grow and eat can be a great sensory and learning experience. You might even be surprised to find out how much beauty and flavour can be packed into a humble lettuce leaf! 

You Will Need:

• Three or four varieties of lettuce or salad greens (from your garden, farmers market or grocery store)

• White paper, pencil, and felts/crayons/coloured pencils

Instructions:

1. Select 3 or 4 varieties of lettuce.

2. Wash and arrange a few leaves of each lettuce on a plate.

3. Ask all tasters to wash their hands.

4. Pick one variety of lettuce to start. 

5. Use your sense of sight to observe what the lettuce looks like. Look at the back, front, and side of the leaf. Draw or trace the lettuce leaf on a piece of paper, add details and colour if you like.

6. Taste the lettuce. As you chew the lettuce think about the texture of the lettuce in your mouth. Add some words that describe the texture to your drawing. Next, think about how the lettuce tastes. Add some descriptive words to your drawing. Do all the parts of the lettuce have the same taste and texture? If you need help thinking of descriptive words we have included a few in a list below.  

7. Draw and taste the other varieties of lettuce.

8. Vote on the lettuce you like the best.

Taste & Texture Descriptive Words

Lettuce Fun Facts:

• Historians believe lettuce was first cultivated in ancient Egypt.

• Lettuce is often eaten raw but it is also delicious to eat steamed, in a stir fry or grilled on the barbecue. Have you ever tried barbecued lettuce?

• In 2015, the astronauts on the International Space Station grew and ate red romaine lettuce called “Outredgeous” lettuce.

• Lettuce is part of the Asteraceae family. This family also includes the daisy and sunflower. 

• There are four main types of Lettuce: butterhead, crisphead, loose leaf, and romaine.

Getting to know your food - Vegetable Biographies

This week, we are learning all about food systems. What is a food system? It’s the journey that food takes from being planted as a seed all the way to being eaten by you.

We’ve got two simple creative writing activities to help get kids thinking about where their food comes from and how their food choices have an impact.

In some cases, like the beans and peas from your windowsill vegetable garden, that journey is very short. You plant the seed, care for the seedling, transplant to a bigger pot if needed, harvest it once it’s full grown, wash it, cook it, compost any scraps, and eat it. 

In other cases, the journey can be quite long with a number of different steps, including growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, selling, eating, and composting. Some foods travel really far before they’re eaten. Now that many fruits and vegetables are grown on big farms all year round in warm climates, we get them at any time of year here too, even if they’re not “in season”—meaning growing naturally that time of year. 

Think of something that you like to eat that doesn’t grow nearby. For example, here in Vancouver, lemons don’t grow well. It’s not warm enough. So the lemons we see at the grocery store are likely grown somewhere much warmer and far away, like India, Brazil, California, and Mexico.

We’re going to do a fun creative writing project to think about the different journeys that food can take to get to your plate. First, you’ll make a pros and cons list and second you’ll write a biography for two different vegetables. 

Activity One: Pros/Cons

What’s a pro/con list? This is a list where you think up all the positive or good things about something--these are the pros--and all the negative or bad things--these are the cons. For example--let’s make a pro/con list about peanut butter. The pros I can think of are: 

• it’s delicious 

• for some people, it’s healthy

The cons are that:

• it sticks to the roof of your mouth 

• some people are very allergic to it 

Let’s make a list of the pros and cons about food that comes from far away. Can you think about all the positive things about food that comes from far away? Can you think about all the negative things? 

Can’t think of anything? Click here for some sample answers. 

Activity Two: Vegetable Biographies 

Now that we’ve thought of all the pros and cons of food that is grown far away, let’s come up with a story about two different fruits or vegetables and the story of how they ended up on your plate. 

What’s a biography? It’s the story of someone's life written by someone else. In this case, it’s the story of the life of two vegetables written by you. 

For the first story, think about a fruit or vegetable that grows locally. For the second story, think of one that grows far away. You can choose whatever kind of fruit or vegetable you like. 

With your grown-up, you can research:

• How it’s grown

• How it’s picked or harvested

• Where it grows 

• How to cook with it

To create your stories, you can:

1. Draw a picture of the two different journeys.

2. Say the story out loud to your grown up and ask them to write it down on the worksheet. 

3. Write it down yourself on your worksheet. 

The Vegetable Biography worksheets have some questions to get you started on your story. 

1. What country do I grow in? 

2. What’s the weather like? 

3. How am I harvested? 

4. How do I get from the farm to the table?

5. Who are the people that your fruit or vegetable meet? Do they meet any of the people described from this week’s earlier lessons about food systems?

We’ve included two examples of a biographies of local habanero peppers and biographies of one that grows from far away. 

By Greta, Age 9, Austin, Texas

Food Biography - Local 

Once upon a time a habanero chile was growing in Texas. It is a very hot chile if you eat it, and it likes to grow in hot weather like we have in Texas. Because its seeds are so hot most animals don’t eat them but birds can’t feel the burn.

Food Biography - Far Away 

One spring day, a sandhill crane ate a habanero and began its annual migration and flew to Vancouver. There, it pooped. And the poop, which contained a few undigested habanero seeds, landed in a pot of dirt on a balcony in False Creek. Then, as usual in Vancouver, it rained. And the seeds sprouted. Fortunately, the pot (and balcony) belonged to a family with relatives in Texas who knew what it was, and how deliciously spicy it could be.

DA END

By Nico, age 4, Vancouver, BC 

Food Biography - Local (Habanero) 

His name is Hot Dog. He lives in our garden. He lives in Vancouver

Food Biography - Far Away (Habanero) 

This is Lemon. He grows next to the lettuce. He lives on Mars. 

Drawings by Nico’s mom

We hope you enjoy this activity about food systems! We can’t wait to see or read your vegetable biographies. We hope you share them with us.  

For our full Where Food Comes From: Food Systems Lesson and more activities click here to explore all of Lesson 9 of Growing Chefs! at Home.

Growing Chefs! at Home: Lesson 9

This week we are diving in to look a little bit closer at our food systems, exploring where our food comes from and those that are involved in all the steps of our food system. Amanda is joining us this week to check in with some of your gardens at home and to talk a little about urban agriculture and get us thinking about what it means to support a local food system.

We also have some very special guests from Vancouver Island, Farmer Mich and Chef Patrick show us an example of how they eat very local food as they invite us to visit them our their farm and in their kitchen to teach us how to make a delicious frittata!

Related Activities:

Food Systems Matching Worksheet - Print this fun worksheet and see if you can match the people and places to the part of the food system they are involved in. (Answer key included).

Thank a Local Food Systems Hero - Our volunteers have come together to share their appreciation for their food heroes. Watch the video of their thank you’s and use our letter template to draft your own thank you, or maybe make a video of your own to share, or draw a picture. If you know the mailing address or social media account of your food hero be sure to share your appreciation with them directly!

Food Systems Hero Art & Colouring Sheet - Who is your food systems hero? Are they a farmer, a chef, a farmer, maybe a beekeeper? Design your own food systems superhero! Thank you to our friends at Daiya Foods for sharing their wonderful hero artwork!

Getting to Know Your Food: Write a Vegetable Biography - Sometimes we have the option to chose local food, sometimes we don’t and that’s ok. The more we know about where our food comes from the more informed decisions we can make to help build and maintain healthy food systems for all. Get to know your food’s story with our fun vegetable biography creative writing activity.