"Many drops fill the cup"

One of the efforts that I, and the staff at Mainspring, are always working towards is the environmental sustainability of our school.

If any of you have heard the song "3rd Eye Vision" by Mishka, you may recognize the title of this post as one of the lyrics.

For the other 99.9% of you (no offense to Mishka- it's a competitive industry, love) the idea of the song is to motivate us all to take the baby steps in our lives that, when added together, make our home-planet a happier, healthier place.

There is no social movement that happens overnight. The day Martin Luther King Jr. realized there was racial injustice in America was not the same day the Civil Rights Act of '64 was enacted. There are crucial, tiny steps that happen from the moment a problem is noticed to the moment a problem is solved. These tiny steps are the "many drops that fill the cup."

One of the types of "drops" that can fill the "cup" of an environmentally friendly culture is to teach our children environmentally responsible lessons. We do that here at Mainspring by both by making their surroundings environmentally conscious and by involving them actively along the way.

In the kitchen, here are some of the recent little steps we've taken:

Reusable bowls and spoons at every breakfast 

Reusable dishes and flatware at lunches whenever possible

(This is a work in progress since right now it costs our school to pay Ms. Rachel overtime to stay and wash dishes on the days we don't have a kitchen helper. We usually opt for disposable lunch dishes on those days.)

A bussing station we set up at pre-schooler height 

so the kids can participate in caring for the dishes we wash and re-use.

Active student participation in all aspects of tending the school garden.

This is Mariposa, from the Shining Star classroom. 

Here, she is delivering beautiful okra from the school garden to my kitchen door 

And look! I used that okra the same day in the lentil soup at lunch:

Yum!

I encourage all of you to make more environmentally-friendly decisions.

Kids love helping! 

They thrive when they are doing something they feel is productive. 

Involve them in the extra effort.

And don't forget- if you are a parent or guardian, you are your child's #1 role-model. 

Teaching by making yourself an example of an environmentally responsible person is very powerful.

Have more Earth-friendly ideas for our kitchen? Leave a comment!

Thanks for tuning in,

Ms. Rachel

Updates from the Mainspring Garden

One of the exciting things about the Mainspring School food system is our precious little vegetable and herb garden.

Mr. Brendan, Lead Teacher in the Songbird (3 y/o) classroom, is the one who heads up the operation and it is located on the older kids' playground (on the East side of the school). Currently, the garden is pretty small. It really just serves as a teaching point, making significant contributions to the school lunches just two or three times per month.

Teaching gardens like these are rising in popularity around the nation. And for good reason! You should see how attentive the kids are when there is a living plant in front of them that they can use to better understand the infinite complexity of nature. And they are all absolutely giddy when they interrupt their recess time to make a delivery of a tiny harvest to my kitchen door. If you are interested in the school garden movement (and who's not?!), do check out Alice Waters's Edible Schoolyard project:

Even Michelle Obama, founder of the Let's Move initiative to raise healthier Americans, is getting her hands dirty in the new vegetable garden at the White House!

Without further ado, here are some hi-lites from Mainspring's own school garden in the past month:

Larkin and Nicola help pick rosemary for that day's spinach lasagna!

Okra from the garden put to good use in black bean vegetarian chili...



And of course Austen's acorns. They are not necessarily from the garden, but he does definitely collect them on a daily basis from the playground and presents at least one to me at lunch time. On this particular day, I found this gift ontop of my bussing shelves after lunch:

That, I think, will suffice for today's post. More to come very soon!

-Ms. Rachel-



Pilot Light

Where to start?!

There have been many exciting things happening in my cozy kitchen at Mainspring School since I took the position of Kitchen Manager about 6 months ago. And now I can share them with you!

Mainspring Schools is a beautiful organizaiton that offers an exceptional education to children ages 6 weeks to pre-kindergarten. As a former full-time babysitter, I can personally attest to the high quality experience every child is provided at Mainspring. Not that they need my stamp of approval; they are a NAEYC accredited preschool! This is the highest standard to which an early childhood care center/school can be held in the US.

I am so grateful to my employers at Mainspring for allowing me the freedom to act on my personal values while working as Kitchen Manager. These values have thus transformed into goals that I have for the foodservice system at the school. Everyday I work towards these goals as much as the limited budget of our small non-profit can allow.

My goals are to:

1. Serve our students nutritionally optimal food
2. Challenge our students by introducing them to food they may not encounter regularly
3. Create as little trash as possible
4. Waste as little food, water, and energy as possible
5. Enrich our students' food culture by reaching out to and educating the parents about sustainable and healthy food practices
6. Interact with our students often, educating them about the source or their food, its preparation, and the appeal of being involved in both the vegetable garden and the kitchen
7. Accomplish all of these goals while finding the most budget-friendly methods and opening up the program to involvement and donations from the Austin community and general public.

You will find subsequent posts dedicated individually to the progress of each of these goals. You will also find posts about Austin food and sustainability events as well as updates on all the fun things I get to do and make at my job! Recipes will be abundant (culminating in a future cook book for pre-schoolers to be ready for fundraising sales... that's right!). And there will be no lack of direct quotes from all the precious students I get to feed!

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For example: Butternut Applesauce! And a note from Averi...

Upon receiving my (huge) delivery of butternut squash from local Gundermann Acres, I had to figure out how to incorporate it into my menu before it had a chance to go bad.

By the way, I order all of my produce through the Sustainable Food Center, thanks to our Farm to Child Care grant. Both topics I'll address in future posts.

One snack idea I came up with: roasting butternut squash and combining it with the always popular applesauce. The ratio of squash to applesauce you might make at home is completely up to you. So the general procedure (with photos from my process in the Mainspring kitchen) is:

1. Collect your ingredients: raw butternut squash, canned/bottled applesauce (props to whoever makes their own applesauce instead of buying it prepared), and cinnamon

2. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F, and cut each squash length-wise.

3. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lay each squash, cut side down, on the cookie sheet.

4. Bake in the oven until soft to the touch/develop blisters on outer skin

5. Remove the squash from the oven and allow to cool (helps to turn them cut side up for cooling)

6. Place canned/prepared apple sauce in a mixing bowl. Once the squash have cooled, use your fingers to separate the orange flesh from the peel and place the flesh in the bowl with the applesauce. Another option is to just tear the squash, with the flesh, into chunks and place that in the bowl. After roasting, the flesh is soft enough to eat. (Extra fiber! Good for digestion!)

7. Add cinnamon (amount is to your preference, but 1 teaspoon (tsp) per 4 cups ought to cover it).

7. Blend all ingredients until smooth! You may use a blender or food processor, pouring the mixture into the device in batches that the device can handle. Or, use an immersion blender (a $30 tool I use OFTEN at work, pictured below).

This snack can be served immediately, but may be preferred either warmed (so comforting in cold weather) or chilled (ideal for the other 11 months here in Austin...).

Butternut Squash Applesauce is just one way all of you can incorporate more vegetables into your diet at home- whether you have children or not! Applesauce is perfectly acceptable adult food. Even more acceptable than most of the things you can get from a drive-thru...

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I am really loving this job, especially because I get to interact with such sweet, bright kids every day. Check out this letter I received one morning from the Shining Star room (4 & 5 year-olds). It is PROUDLY displayed on my kitchen wall.

Averi dictated the note to her teacher, Ms. Marisa (a very gifted educator), then signed and illustrated it herself. And I think that is a portrait of me.


I am thrilled to embark on the journey that is the "glass walls" of blogging.

Here's to all the light you'll shine through these walls simply by joining me as a caring reader.

Hazzah!,
Ms. Rachel