RootDown LA

The nasty broccoli

What can we say.

They hate it.

Then we cook it.

Then they eat it.

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Thanks so much to everyone who showed up for our Midsummer Night’s Urban Food Feast! For two days before the event, our young chefs joined professional chefs, Aram Scorza, and Isaiah Frizzell, to create a fanTABulous fundraising feast for forty.

On the menu were a mock margarita, made with lemongrass infused simple syrup, and pureed apples and cucumbers, served in a glass rimmed with salt, lemon, and chiles from our garden.
A first, plated course, was ceviche with watermelon balls, a cornhusk stock gelled with a cucumber and orange juice gel, pea tendril puree, purple cauliflower and radish slices.

The main course  was grilled herbed chicken and garden squash, sauteed peppers in homemade pastry, and a bell pepper coulis.

FINALLY – two desserts went out – homemade creme caramel with mounds of seasonal berries, and a Genoise cake topped with vanilla whipped cream, roasted beet puree, candied orange peel, cantalope paper (spiced secretly),vinegar candied almonds, corn pickled with dried ancho and arbol chiles 3 vinegars, chilled chocolate ganache.  For real!
So many thanks to our chefs, Aram and Isaiah, who brought new life to our menus, to the RootDown LA staff who oversaw planning and facilitation of this feast, to Camille Cimino who donated and arranged flowers for the tables, and to Jennie Cook, who loaned us some fancier cups, tablecloths and flatware. (Jennie’s Plant Based Parties, btw, are all the rage!)  Oh, and thanks to Ron Finley for bringing his sister and MOM along. 

RootDown LA on Facebook…

Our stories tend to get up there more quickly lately!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/RootDown-LA/125870417444952

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Today was our last day of the semester, working in the Jefferson garden with Ms. Kelley’s art class.  Surveying the scene, you might not have thought much of our progress this spring.  Several beds are barely sprouting seeds, new trellises have JUST become upright, and the thirty plus kids (you know about those super-sized LAUSD classes?) to some observers, might not seem super engaged; they drag their feet at the start of each new day, mumbling about getting their shoes dirty, complaining they aren’t getting paid. They say unkind things about the worms.

For those of us who have been out with these kids for the past three months, THIS is what we see: Continue reading ‘What is success? Three little tomatoes, twenty kids’ names.’

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Thanks to the enthusiastic support of our new programs intern, Shara Prophet, and for funding from the Network for a Healthy California, RootDown LA is rapidly rolling out more four-week cooking, nutrition and food systems classes.  These fun, high energy classes give folks simple techniques to make healthy food taste better, and help drive home the importance of eating more nutrient rich whole foods, and fewer calorie and additive/sugar/sodium dense processed foods. Continue reading ‘New 4-week classes make more folks wanna eat their veggies!’