A Final Taste Test

            On Tuesday, July 13^th, 2010 at Sugartree Ministries in Wilmington, Ohio the student chefs of the culinary class chopped their last vegetables, cooked their last meat dishes, and plated their last meals together as a culinary class.  Of course, this will only be the start of the culinary careers for each of the students and they will quite possibly cook many future meals together as friends and colleagues rather than students in the same class.  The eight student chefs involved with the culinary class include: Ashlie Cundiff, John Porter, Charlene McCoppin, Mike Rickman, Michelle Addison, David Hawthorne, Jessica Morris, and Chris Green from Sodexo.

Students final creations.

You're Invited!

Grow Food Grow Hope would like to invite you to our Second Annual Farm-to-Table Benefit Dinner on Friday, September 24th beginning at 5:30pm at Wilmington College Farm.  This event is sponsored by Sodexo Campus Services and hosted by Wilmington College.  If you are interested in attending please download a registration form below and return it to Wilmington College Advancement, Pyle Center 1307, 1870 Quaker Way, Wilmington, OH 45177.  If you have questions please feel free to contact either Frank Glazer at 937-382-6661 ext 273 or Grow Food Grow Hope at 937-382-6661 ext 321.

 Farm-to-Table Registration Form.

Junior Master Gardeners Learn to Grow

Last week (July 26-30)  we held our first ever Junior Master Gardener camp for kids between the ages of 7 and 12. There was a chance of thunderstorms everyday but that did not stop us from having fun at the camp. There was a total of 20 kids split into 3 groups known as the Rockin' Radishes, Super Squash, and Cool Carrots.

The groups had some friendly competition throughout the week working together as teams. Throughout the camp they learned about the importance bugs have in the garden, teamwork, the different soil types, performing in front of others, food safety, nutrition, and that food products can be used for much more than just eating.

In addition, the kids learned about what Grow Food Grow Hope is and how it exists to help those in need, and the importance of gardening as a whole.

By the end of the week, there were 20 Junior Master Gardener Graduates complete with caps and an award ceremony. Below are the group pictures from the graduation ceremony:

Rockin' Radishes

Super Squash

Cool Carrots

Last Summer Meeting at the Community Gardens

Last night at our weekly community garden night, our garden families gathered together for one last time. With the last vegetables of the gardens ripening, this was the last formal meeting of our garden families. The families are still welcome to come back at any time to continue maintaining and harvesting their gardens.

The Wilmington Fire Department was gracious enough to lend one of their ladder trucks which allowed for aerial pictures from 150 feet above the gardens.

Instead of a cooking demonstration, there was a smorgasbord of samples which included favorites from other weeks such as lemon sage dip, cucumber dip, garden fresh salsa, blueberry zucchini bread, green tomato cake, and more.

The night ended with a short slide-show of pictures from over the summer and a presentation of awards to the families and mentors involved in the program.

Thanks to everyone involved, including the Wilmington Fire Department, with the Community Gardens for making it a great summer!

This amazing picture was taken by Randy Sarvis

Gardening Fun at GFGH Day Camps!

This Summer, we'll be hosting two week-long day camps for kids aged 3-12, where they'll learn about gardening,  hands-on food science,  nature, crafts, cooking, and other outdoor learning topics.

The Junior Master Gardeners day camp will run from July 19-23 and will be for kids aged 7-12 while the Seed Seed Sprout day camp will run the week after from July 26-30 and will be for kids aged 3-6. Both camps will be held on the Wilmington College campus. Registration is now open, and for $20, all campers will receive admission to camp for a week, supplies for activities, snacks throughout the day, and a T-shirt.

We're excited to offer a unique summer activity for kids who might otherwise spend their time off from school indoors. Contact information for each  camp can be found on the registration forms below, and any other questions can be directed to Jennifer Kerschner at (937) 382-6661 ext. 596.

Tell your kids, and spread the word!

Junior Master Gardener registration form:
http://growfoodgrowhope.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/jmg-2010-registration.pdf

Seed Seed Sprout registration form:
http://growfoodgrowhope.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/registration.pdf

A Fresh Taste

This post is written by one of our Grow Food Grow Hope Summer Associates, Amy Petzold, about her experience during the Culinary Job Training Class.

I have always been interested in food from a very young age.  I would invent my own recipes when I was seven and eight no matter how disgusting and odd they looked.  Just imagine what a seven or eight year old would make when left to their own devices.  As I have grown up, food network television shows slowly replaced cartoons in my free time.  I constantly gain ideas from shows that I watch and adapt them in my head making a culinary feast that would rival any top chef…if only in my mind.  I enjoy finding whatever leftovers are in my refrigerator and making new concoctions with foods that are new to me.  I love to eat, I love to cook, and I love to create.  I am forever a foodie through my heart and soul.

            With this blooming love of food and cooking, it is with great excitement that I observed Chef Tom’s Culinary Class held at Sugartree Ministries.  Tom and his group of around ten chefs come together in order to learn new techniques, create food, and share meals.  This lesson that I observed involved learning American Regional Cooking.  Chef Tom explained that each region of American has its own unique style of cooking derived from many different cultures around the world.  Except for Native American cooking, which has been influenced by early settlers, no food is essentially American.  Like our people, American cuisine is a melting pot of cultures and races all coming together to influence one another in unique and surprising ways.  On the menu for this week’s lesson is: smoked pork loin prepared four ways, homemade barbeque sauce, three stuffed chicken recipes, mashed garlic potatoes, roasted herb red potatoes, southern style cole slaw, and a salad with a homemade vinaigrette.  With such an ambitious meal to prepare in four hours, including prep, tasting, and washing, the chefs began dividing tasks immediately and started work.

Students prepare southern style Coleslaw for their American meal.

Local Business Assists Larger Area

Every donation makes an impact but sometimes, they can make a huge difference.  This was the case with a recent donation of tomato plants from Buckley Brothers Inc.  The Buckley staff delivered several flats of surplus tomato plants to their neighbor, Sugartree Ministries, last Wednesday afternoon.  With little room in the vegetable beds at the Verizon Telecommunications building, the Sugartree Staff turned to Grow Food Grow Hope Food Distribution Coordinator, Jessica Braun, to share the abundance.

Not only was Braun and a group of garden-loving Summer Associates able to place several of the plants at Sugartree's gardens, but they also shared them with area organizations, such as the New Vienna United Methodist Church and Hope Emergency Program-a food pantry in the Lynchburg, OH area.  Braun shares that, "With this donation, Buckley's not only affected Sugartree Ministries and Wilmington, but they affected the entire surrounding area."

Summer Associate, Taylor Money-Worthy, digs holes
for tomato plants at Hope Emergency Program

With the average yield of a tomato plant being between 35 and 40 pounds of fruit, these plants will allow Hope Emergency Program, New Vienna United Methodist Church, and Sugartree Ministries to distribute a huge amount of produce to their clients this growing season.  Carmen Sparks, a volunteer at New Vienna UMC's food pantry, was excited not only for the tomato plants but also for the land that a local farmer was donating to plant them on.  Sparks states, "we are just so blessed to be able to receive these things and share them with people."  The plants were additionally given to community members who have pledged to share their bounty with the greater Clinton County community.

A spindly plant is staked in expectation of its growth
at the Verizon Telecommunications building

Bring the family out to our 'Walk-In' movie

In honor of National Pollinators Week and our very under-appreciated winged friends, we will be hosting a free 'walk-in' movie on the Wilmington College mall on June 22. We will be screening DreamWorks' animated feature "Bee Movie," and we will have games and snacks for kids and parents alike.

Click here or above to download a flyer of the event.

For more information, contact Mariah Fulton at 382-6661 ext. 321.

Local Businesses Help Out

Everyone in the Wilmington and Clinton County community has been such great supporters of Grow Food, Grow Hope and all of the different projects we do.  This post highlights two of the most recent examples of support from local businesses. 

Weathervane Dry Cleaning generously donated their time to clean all of the Chef's jackets and hats for our Culinary Job Training Class.  We are now halfway through the class and the students have really appreciated having the chef uniform to wear each week.  Volunteers have also noticed the students as they come and go to Sugartree Ministries before and after class, noting how official the students look in their industry-specific uniforms.

Culinary Students pose with members of the Weathervane team.

Local bookstore and music shop, For a Song and a Story, has recently taken interest in our gardening efforts.  Upon meeting several of Grow Food, Grow Hope's new Summer Associates, owner Cindy Shivers asked about the gardens across from Sugartree Ministries located at 215 E. Main Street in front of the Verizon Telecommunications building.  After several minutes of discussion and the mention of some tomato plants in need of stakes Ms. Shivers sent the group with enough stakes to ensure happy tomato plants. 

Newly staked tomato plants at 215 E Main.

Grow Food Grow Hope is so grateful to every business and community member in Wilmington and the Clinton County area who have volunteered, donated, and/or supported our initiative.  We couldn't have done it without you!

Another Night at the Community Garden

Last night at our weekly community garden night, our garden families gathered to harvest spinach, lettuce and the rest of any remaining radishes. The incoming thunderstorms held out and we were lucky to stay dry for the hour we were outside.

For the cooking demonstration, we used our harvested spinach to prepare a strawberry spinach salad, and a fresh spinach dip.

The recipes for the spinach salad and fresh spinach dip can be found at our cooking demonstration page.

Breakfast Served All Day

Halfway through our Culinary Job Training Class and the students have now learned Egg Cookery.  Several dozen eggs and Chef Tom's expertise allowed the students to create and try not only the basics of eggs over-easy or over-hard but also eggs shirred and eggs poached. 

Three consistencies of egg: over-easy, over-medium, and over-hard

The first task the students needed to master was the art of cooking an egg to the perfect consistency.  Chef Tom instructed each student to pan fry three eggs.  A pan fried egg does not have to be over-easy as most people think, eggs with a slightly firmer yolk are called over-medium and pan fried eggs that have a completely solid yolk are called over-hard. 

Chef Tom judges a student's pan fried eggs.

Of course, pan frying eggs also takes a bit of practice not only to create the desired consistencies but also to learn how to flip the egg as to cook both sides evenly without a huge mess or a broken yolk.  Students spent extra time on this, one of the most stressful moments in cooking. 

Chef Tom explains the proper way to flip an egg.

Using dry heat to cook the next type of egg the students learned was eggs shirred.  Eggs shirred are eggs that are baked in individual ramekins with heavy whipping cream and flavored to taste: savory or sweet.  Shirred eggs are much creamier than a normal egg however eating one plain without any spices tastes similar to a hard-boiled egg.  The sweetened eggs shirred were also quite delicious and reminded many of a creme brulee dessert with their round form and golden brown tops. 

Shirred eggs about to enter the oven.

The final type of egg the students cooked were poached.  A poached egg is fairly simple requiring only a pan of boiling water with a little white vineagar to help eggs cling to themselves.  The egg is poured gently from a bowl into the boiling water and the egg white should wrap around the yolk and cook until removed.  Poached eggs, like any other type of egg, may be cooked easy or soft leaving the yolk more liquid or hard creating a hard yolk and a final product that looks similar to a hard boiled egg. 

Students discuss their favorite types of eggs.

With some time to taste test the students left with new favorite types of eggs and plans for breakfast the next morning.  Next week's class will focus on Meat Fabrication techniques and how to properly handle all types of raw meat. 

June / July Newsletter now available

Our June / July newsletter is now available to download and print. In it, you can read all of the latest updates on our garden sites and our various projects around the community.

Click the thumbnail above to open it, or click here. If you would like to download the PDF, click here.