Cooking the New $1 Menu: Straight from the Farm

Our community faces a severe lack of fresh produce. The High School for Public Service Youth Farm is located in an area designated by the city as a FRESH Food Store Area, meaning it is under-served in food retail in addition to having high rates of diet-related disease and obesity. For many families, the most affordable food often comes from fast food restaurants and bodegas.

We already have the farm and class in progress, however, our lack of proper culinary equipment is holding us back from fully engaging everyone in the classroom. Imagine teens eager to cook, sitting around waiting for a knife or a cutting board. This equipment will last a long time on the farm supporting not only our Go Green! class but also our summer youth employment program during which the teens prepare lunch everyday fresh from the farm. We will be growing greens and mushrooms in the classroom this winter, so we will be cooking all throughout the year. The sooner we get the equipment, the more students will benefit.

Go Green! is a new 10th grade Health class that uses the High School for Public Service Youth Farm as an outdoor classroom to study sustainable agriculture and its effects on environmental and public health. Students have learned skills such as seed starting, compost management, harvest practices and culinary techniques. Many have tried and enjoyed previously unfamiliar vegetables while preparing recipes like Tomatillo Salsa and Raw Kale Salad. Our summer youth also help run our farmers market selling affordable produce to the community. This coming summer, the teens will run cooking demonstrations during the farmers market and distribute recipes to the community. This fall, the students cooked a healthy, delicious $1 meal in class, and we hope to continue proving that meals can be affordable, nutritious and yummy.