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He's doing an altruistic duty..feeding ..The Children.
Chef Kevin Fonzo is greeted by students of the Orlando Junior Academy. Fonzo is a celebrated chef, but when he learned about a small private school that didn't have any cafeteria service this year, he volunteered to cook for the school and work with their small budget. Now the kids are eating butternut squash lasagna and Portobello mushroom burgers. (Ricardo Ramirez, Orlando Sentinel / February 23, 2010)
By Linda Shrieves, Orlando Sentinel
February 25, 2010
At most schools, lunch is the kids' favorite time of the day.
But at Orlando Junior Academy, lunch is everyone's favorite time of day now – including teachers, administrators and parents, who show up regularly hoping to get a taste of the school lunch.
And no wonder. The menus include portobello mushroom burgers, butternut squash lasagna, grilled eggplant sandwiches and whole-wheat quesadillas topped with caramelized onions, tomatoes, black beans and guacamole.
The reason? The man working the stove in the cafeteria is Kevin Fonzo, acclaimed chef behind two well-known College Park restaurants, K and Nonna Trattoria ed Enoteca.
"School lunch has become very popular," said principal Nicole Agbonkhese. "The hospital chaplain brought his staff to a lunch meeting here. The pastors come and volunteer now."
And the kids – who are usually most finicky - rave about the food.
"It's all great," said eighth-grader Wesley Jordan, 14, as a plate of spaghetti, served with a Caesar salad and baguette came out of the kitchen. "See that? Now that's just delicious!"
The story behind the marriage of the chef and the school of 220 kids is a tale of one man trying to create change – and a school that needed help.
"I'm a big believer that we shouldn't be feeding our kids crap," said Fonzo, 45. "I wanted the kids to eat real food, including as much organically grown food as possible – not just the empty carbs and sugars that kids get in most school lunches."
So when Fonzo learned from one of his customers – a parent at the school -- that the small Seventh Day Adventist school had a cafeteria, but no food service, he volunteered to help out.
The former cafeteria cook retired last year, leaving principal Agbonkhese with no hot food service – and parents who wanted healthier options for their kids. Even though Seventh Day Adventists follow a vegetarian diet, not all the lunches were healthy.
Brad Jones, one of Fonzo's regular customers and a school board member, and Agbonkhese asked Fonzo if he would help the school develop a healthy menu. Even better, perhaps he could teach a new employee how to make dishes like grilled eggplant sandwiches?
Instead, Fonzo volunteered to cook the food himself. Now he cooks most of the food in his restaurant kitchen and brings it to the school Monday through Thursday (Friday is pizza day – sacred even to these kids). Fonzo doesn't earn anything on the deal – the $4 that each student pays provides for the food and the cost of a dishwasher.
What he gets back, he says, is a break from the pressures of the restaurant business and a chance to hang out with kids, even the preschoolers who call him "Baldy."
"I love kids," said Fonzo. "I think that if I ever leave the restaurant business, I'd like to become a teacher."
From parents, the praise is effusive.
"Kevin is basically doing this out of the goodness of his heart," said parent and board member Denise Butler, who spent lunchtime on Wednesday dishing up Caesar salads and manning the window where students pick up their lunches. "Can you imagine having a James Beard-nominated chef cooking in your school cafeteria?"
But the best reviews come from the diners.
"One day I forgot to bring my lunch and I had to get a Chef Kevin lunch," said Jonathan Dobias, 11. "It was chili and all I can say is: It was good, awesome, delicious and scrumptious."
For Kahlil Josephs, 10, nothing compares to Chef K's interpretation of "haystacks," a vegetarian version of taco salad.
"It's a pile of wonder," said Kahlil. "That's the best way to describe it."
Linda Shrieves can be reached at lshrieves@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5433.
.
February 25, 2010
At most schools, lunch is the kids' favorite time of the day.
But at Orlando Junior Academy, lunch is everyone's favorite time of day now – including teachers, administrators and parents, who show up regularly hoping to get a taste of the school lunch.
And no wonder. The menus include portobello mushroom burgers, butternut squash lasagna, grilled eggplant sandwiches and whole-wheat quesadillas topped with caramelized onions, tomatoes, black beans and guacamole.
The reason? The man working the stove in the cafeteria is Kevin Fonzo, acclaimed chef behind two well-known College Park restaurants, K and Nonna Trattoria ed Enoteca.
"School lunch has become very popular," said principal Nicole Agbonkhese. "The hospital chaplain brought his staff to a lunch meeting here. The pastors come and volunteer now."
And the kids – who are usually most finicky - rave about the food.
"It's all great," said eighth-grader Wesley Jordan, 14, as a plate of spaghetti, served with a Caesar salad and baguette came out of the kitchen. "See that? Now that's just delicious!"
The story behind the marriage of the chef and the school of 220 kids is a tale of one man trying to create change – and a school that needed help.
"I'm a big believer that we shouldn't be feeding our kids crap," said Fonzo, 45. "I wanted the kids to eat real food, including as much organically grown food as possible – not just the empty carbs and sugars that kids get in most school lunches."
So when Fonzo learned from one of his customers – a parent at the school -- that the small Seventh Day Adventist school had a cafeteria, but no food service, he volunteered to help out.
The former cafeteria cook retired last year, leaving principal Agbonkhese with no hot food service – and parents who wanted healthier options for their kids. Even though Seventh Day Adventists follow a vegetarian diet, not all the lunches were healthy.
Brad Jones, one of Fonzo's regular customers and a school board member, and Agbonkhese asked Fonzo if he would help the school develop a healthy menu. Even better, perhaps he could teach a new employee how to make dishes like grilled eggplant sandwiches?
Instead, Fonzo volunteered to cook the food himself. Now he cooks most of the food in his restaurant kitchen and brings it to the school Monday through Thursday (Friday is pizza day – sacred even to these kids). Fonzo doesn't earn anything on the deal – the $4 that each student pays provides for the food and the cost of a dishwasher.
What he gets back, he says, is a break from the pressures of the restaurant business and a chance to hang out with kids, even the preschoolers who call him "Baldy."
"I love kids," said Fonzo. "I think that if I ever leave the restaurant business, I'd like to become a teacher."
From parents, the praise is effusive.
"Kevin is basically doing this out of the goodness of his heart," said parent and board member Denise Butler, who spent lunchtime on Wednesday dishing up Caesar salads and manning the window where students pick up their lunches. "Can you imagine having a James Beard-nominated chef cooking in your school cafeteria?"
But the best reviews come from the diners.
"One day I forgot to bring my lunch and I had to get a Chef Kevin lunch," said Jonathan Dobias, 11. "It was chili and all I can say is: It was good, awesome, delicious and scrumptious."
For Kahlil Josephs, 10, nothing compares to Chef K's interpretation of "haystacks," a vegetarian version of taco salad.
"It's a pile of wonder," said Kahlil. "That's the best way to describe it."
Linda Shrieves can be reached at lshrieves@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5433.
.
My opinion on Chef Kevin Fonzo's menu:
Chef Kevin Fonzo is doing a formidable job; But, "Portobello Mushroom" burgers? Does Chef Fonzo know that a mushroom is a fungus, and has no notable nutritional value? Sure, for the trained epicurean palate that enjoys such things as Sushi (raw fish) or escargot (snails), it might be a treat; However, growing children need not be exposed to such creature comforts or whims. By the way (as stated in article) most Seventh day Adventists are vegetarians, some are specifically 'vegans'. Why would the chef offer pizza on Friday? Cheese is a product of cow's milk that possesses all types of hormones and diseases that humans, or their young would be better off not consuming.
If a lactating woman were to offer you a cup of her own (human) milk; Would you drink it? Yet, you drink the milk intended for a cow's calf?
Chef Fonzo reminds me of the saying: "Beware of strangers bearing gifts".
Chef Kevin Fonzo is doing a formidable job; But, "Portobello Mushroom" burgers? Does Chef Fonzo know that a mushroom is a fungus, and has no notable nutritional value? Sure, for the trained epicurean palate that enjoys such things as Sushi (raw fish) or escargot (snails), it might be a treat; However, growing children need not be exposed to such creature comforts or whims. By the way (as stated in article) most Seventh day Adventists are vegetarians, some are specifically 'vegans'. Why would the chef offer pizza on Friday? Cheese is a product of cow's milk that possesses all types of hormones and diseases that humans, or their young would be better off not consuming.
If a lactating woman were to offer you a cup of her own (human) milk; Would you drink it? Yet, you drink the milk intended for a cow's calf?
Chef Fonzo reminds me of the saying: "Beware of strangers bearing gifts".
He's doing an altruistic duty..feeding ..The Children.
But, at what cost?
Could he be perverting the Health Reform that the parents of many of these youngsters instill in them; Or, that the SDA movement has as one of its fundamental pillars: Health Reform.
You are what you eat! Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; Therefore, keep it holy (wholly).
You are what you eat! Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; Therefore, keep it holy (wholly).
Arsenio.
..
Milk is approved by GOD as human food.
ReplyDeletePeople who promote veganism for religious reasons are ANTICHRIST:
1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
Forbidding to marry, [and commanding] to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
Humans are the only species on the planet who actually go out of their way to feed their children crap. All other animals instinctly seek out the best nutrition they can find. Birds find grubs, worms and insects to feed their young, honeybees painstakingly collect pollen and create a nutrient-rich superfood that gives rise to a living queen bee, and even dogs, cats and cows try to find the most nutrient-rich foods to offer their offspring.
ReplyDeleteBut humans? Most of them "reward" their children with junk food, sugary sodas, candy laced with petrochemical coloring additives and refined sugars that promote obesity and diabetes. Most parents don't even make any real effort to follow nutritional discipline at home -- they simply buy whatever their children saw advertised on television, caving in to the all-powerful "nag factor" that junk food companies fully exploit when marketing to children.
As a result, human children are the least healthy youngsters of any species on the planet. Baby dolphins are healthier than baby humans, for example, and they are born with healthier nervous systems, fewer toxins and a lot more common sense.
Hey, let's go suck on a cow
Speaking of common sense, nearly all mammals have the common sense to feed their children their own mother's milk. A kitten, for example, will drink cat's milk from its mother. A puppy will drink dog's milk from its mother. A baby horse will drink horse's milk from its mother. But humans? We're sorta stupid. We mostly drink cow's milk. (And the dairy industry insisted for decades it was better for infants than human milk!)
Of all the mammals on planet Earth, only humans are dumb enough to seek out the mammary gland juice of another species while shunning the breast milk of their own species. And did we choose the milk of a species SMARTER than us that might have more brain-boosting nutrients? Nope. We get our milk from a low-IQ species well suited to pulling a plow. Cow's milk ain't exactly brain nutrition, folks. Some people have a hard time understanding that because they've been drinking too much of the stuff and those mushy neurons crammed into their thick skulls are firing a bit on the slow side. (A lack of DHA does wonders for boosting stupidity scores.)
Links between diet and health should be obvious
Humans, by the way, are not only so collectively short-sighted that they feed their children crap foods and beverages, they actually still haven't figured out why so many of their children are obese and diabetic! It's like beating yourself on the hand with a hammer and wondering why your fingers hurt. Gee, the evidence isn't that difficult to figure out, folks. If you feed your kids sugar, white flour, toxic chemical additives, mind-altering pharmaceuticals and toxic shampoos, lotions and toothpaste, you're gonna end up with mutant children who aren't exactly Nobel Prize material.
This isn't rocket science. The real mystery is how the food companies keep getting away with all the denial of the evidence linking processed foods and beverages to childrens' health problems. I guess it helps that they influence the government regulators and practically own the mainstream media. They also buy all the prime shelf space at grocery stores, sponsor the big sporting events, and have successfully infiltrated schools and hospitals with junk food restaurants and vending machines. Heck, there's still a McDonald's restaurant in the Cleveland Clinic where they perform heart surgery!
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ReplyDeleteIf the birds and the bees have figured out how to raise healthy offspring, you'd think that humans might have the brain power to raise their own healthy children, too. And some parents are. There are lots of great parents out there raising kids on a macrobiotic diet, a vegetarian diet or a zero-processed-foods diet. Many of those parents are home schoolers, by the way. Good job to all the parents who actually teach their children healthful eating habits! Keep up the goog work!
Unfortunately, those parents are rare. Most parents just buy whatever crap is being peddled on TV these days. And they feed their kids cancer-causing processed meats, hyperactivity-causing food additives and obesity-promoting refined sugars. They load 'em up on high-fructose corn syrup and then wonder why little Johnny weighs 150 pounds. (Must be the genes, they think. Cause daddy's overweight, too.)
Poor health is an enormous burden for society
Even though some individuals and corporations may get financially rich by selling this junk to families, the bottom line is that we're all worse off when we raise unhealthy children in society. Why? Because the future cost of treating disease -- not to mention the loss of lifetime productivity -- is jaw-droppingly HUGE. It's enough to bankrupt our nation, which is, coincidentally, what seems likely to happen in due course. No democracy has ever survived its citizens losing their health.
We could learn a lot by listening to nature on the subject of nutrition. Most animals eat a raw foods, vegetarian diet. Even the birds and the bees have something important to teach us about nutrition: feed your children right, and your species will survive and thrive. But feed your children crap and your family tree becomes a dead stump in the dirt.
If you're a parent, I urge you to make an effort to introduce your children to a diet of unprocessed, natural foods. If they've been on a sugared-up diet of processed foods so far, they will of course whine about it. But your job as the parent is to give your children what's best for their health, not what they really really want because their taste buds tell them so.
Always breastfeed newborns and don't believe the B.S. about infant formula being just as good as mother's milk (nothing's as good for infants as the real thing). Don't bring sugar and soda into your house, and don't reward kids with junk food. That only trains them to associate pleasure with unhealthful foods, and that's a curse that could haunt them for the rest of their adult life.
Feed them right and you'll give them the best gift any parent could hope to offer: a healthful, self-aware future, free from chemicals and disease.
http://www.naturalnews.com/021778.html
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