Artichokes and alligators

Our last full day in New Orleans was spent at the Samuel J. Green Charter School in the Edible Schoolyard. The Edible Schoolyard concept was originally founded by Alice Waters in California – the program in New Orleans is the second in the country. Through gardening and cooking, ESY reinforces classroom lessons like science, social studies, language and math while teaching students an appreciation of food and community.


For our day at ESY, we split into six groups to take fifty third-graders to the Crescent City Farmer’s Market to shop for ingredients and then prepare lunch. My partner and I had six students and $25 to make an entrée for 65 people (students, teachers and volunteers).

The kids were excited (sometimes a little too excited for my sanity…I was more exhausted after 2.5 hours with the third-graders than the 15 hours of cooking, prepping and serving at Liberty’s Kitchen). For most of the students, this was their first trip to a farmer’s market and their first time seeing much of the produce and meat offered.

The kids were fearless. They wanted to try everything – pesto, artichokes, feta cheese, goat’s milk, olives, mizuna…nothing was too “out there” for these kids (my first olive that wasn’t a “pitted black” was eaten at 22 years of age). Much of our time was spent chasing kids who would inevitably get sidetracked by the different vendors and their goods (after all, there was a praline vendor). The farmers were incredibly tolerant – talking with the students about the food and giving samples (even after my group knocked a bin of squash all over the ground in their excitement about the rainbow chard).

My partner and I originally planned to make some type of vegetarian sandwich with goat cheese (after all, we only had $25), but that quickly changed when we encountered the market vendor with alligator sausage. No one (including myself and my partner) had tried this before, so we quickly conferred with our group and with their approval, switched gears. Back at the school, the students got busy cutting the olives, artichokes, and tomatoes with plastic knives (although they REALLY wanted to use our chef knives), snipping chives and mizuna with little scissors, and squeezing the alligator sausage out of the casings. We created a tasty alligator sausage-muffaletta-po’boy hybrid with a marinated olive and artichoke spread.

The menu for the day included the following (no small feat considering we were working with portable burners and folding tables in a converted girl’s locker room, plastic knives for the students and no running water):

• Whole wheat penne with caramelized cauliflower
• Squash and smoked chicken tacos with fresh salsa
• Alligator sausage sandwiches with mizuna, tomatoes and marinated olive and artichoke salad
• Strawberry and fresh herb salad with citrus vinaigrette
• Creamy whole wheat penne with tasso and edible flowers
• Fresh strawberry and mint soda
• Louisiana strawberry shortcake with Smith's creamery cream

While I was completely mentally tapped out after lunch was finished, this day was one of the most rewarding experiences of the week. The enthusiasm of the students, while exhausting, was infectious. Teaching people who are fully engaged and want to learn is truly exciting...even if they can only use plastic knives...