MomOfLittleFoodies

Amen. 95% of the time, the only reason I'm eating at a place like McD's is because it's fast and convenient. The other 5% is either PMS or child related.

This is pretty Bay Area specific, but I really have a hard time wrapping my head around "locally grown" food in the Bay Area. For anything grown in the Bay Area, there is a lot of time spent on congested freeways just to get to Farmers Markets in San Francisco, Berkeley or Oakland. Is food from 100-200 miles away still considered local? AW's ideas are admirable, but not really reasonable for a lot of the public. Even if I did cut the cable TV, internet and cell phone, I still wouldn't have enough to eat the AW way. I really do love good food, but not to the point where I'm going to cut off all other things in my life that I find enjoyable.

Here's the deal though... BUSD has 40% of it's student population enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program. That's 40% of the student population whose families with incomes at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. 3,540 someodd students (total district enrollment is 8856 students). I'm going to venture to guess that the 40% of the school population aren't living in the $736,200 homes or have parents making $86k/year. The way that the free/reduced lunch program works is that the USDA reimburses schools for part of the cost of the lunches provided to students. For schools where less than 60% of the population receives free/reduced lunches, the reimbursement rate is as follows. $2.57 for each free lunch, $2.17 for each reduced price lunch (costs the student 40 cents), $0.24 for each full priced lunch. National School Lunch Program fact sheet It's a lot easier for a school district who has 40% participation in the program to break even than a school district with 10% participation, no matter what is being served. I live not far from Berkeley, and my little foodies attend public schools. I'm pretty happy with the school lunch program here. Plenty of fresh fruit and veggies offered daily (the kids can take as much as they like), whole grain breads, nothing deep fried. Both schools my kids attend have school gardens where veggies are grown, but not in enough of a volume to serve in the cafeteria. I'm a lunchroom monitor at the elementary school, and even though the school lunches aren't as "fabulous" as the ones BUSD serves, they are healthier than 60% of the stuff kids are bringing from home.

Here's some number crunching for Alice Water's neck o' the woods (SF Bay Area). Prices are the "not on sale" prices from the Safeway website. 1 dozen Grade A Large conventional eggs is $2.99 1 dozen Grade A Large cage free eggs is $3.99 1 dozen Grade A Large Organic eggs (store brand) is $4.49 1 dozen Grade A Large Organic Eggs (name brand) is $5.19 Keep in mind that conventional eggs frequently go on sale, whereas organic eggs rarely do. 1/2 gallon 2% reduced fat milk, Lucerne (store brand) $2.49 1/2 gallon 2% reduced fat milk, Horizon Organic $4.49 1 gallon 2% reduced fat milk, Lucerne $3.99 1 gallon 2% reduced fat milk, Horizon Organic $6.99 Safeway generally offers a sale price on their Lucerne gallons... 2 for $3.99/$4.98 or something like that. My kids go through 6 gallons of milk a month. What normally costs us $12-$15/ month would end up costing us $42/month if we went organic. I have 4 kids, 2 of whom have food allergies so we do have dietary restrictions. Buying organic everything is definitely not doable unless I want malnourished kids. The only things that I consistently buy organic is my daughter's soymilk and non-dairy "ice cream". Farmers Markets around here are not cheap sources of organic veggies either, nor would I consider much of it locally grown. Many of the farmers at the markets in my area are coming from 2-3 hours away.

I've had some darned good burgers from places that didn't have waiters, and I'd hardly call having to wait 15-20 minutes for those burgers "fast food".

Hmmm, that's kind of hard to articulate. I think the best way to say it would be to say that her food snobbery gets on my nerves.

I live in the Bay Area... and honestly I'm tired of hearing about Alice Waters.

I've used this product before. It's nice for those mornings that the kids want pancakes but I'm not in the mood to make them from scratch. They make for very good pancakes.

For the folks looking for real ginger ale made with cane sugar, check out the 365 Ginger Ale at Whole Foods Market, or the Hansens Cane Sugar Ginger Ale.

I've bought both fairly frequently... the Mandarin Orange Chicken is a family favorite. If you like that, you may also want to try the Tempura Chicken with Sweet and Sour sauce... that's yummy too. My most recent new find at TJ's are frozen Chicken and Cilantro Mini Wontons. They're pretty good.

If I recall correctly, it's a 10 minute presentation about Japan as a country and culture, so the food is just a small part of it. Strictly speaking, the food component isn't required, but most kids are doing it.

Hmmm... curry or yakisoba would work out well too. Yakisoba I could easy make as vegetarian. He (my son) says that they have access to a microwave in the staff room. I also already have everything I would need to make yakisoba.

My kiddo is the one with dietary restrictions, so obviously anything I send in needs to be safe for him to eat, which means no sesame, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts or coconut. Mochi is starting to sound like a good idea.

My 11 year old son is in a World Geography and Culture class at school this quarter, and he chose to do a report/presentation on Japan, and wants to bring in food as part of the presentation, and with a week to go, I'm scrambling for ideas. He wants to bring in sushi, which I said no to as sushi for 34 kids is a little too labor intensive for my tastes. I'm good at family style meals, but am struggling to come up with something that will work for this, including surviving the trip to school. Other ideas that have come up are edamame and onigiri, but he wants something more exciting and I'm stumped. I'd appreciate any ideas.

At the local Safeway, I found Iced Animal Cookies that look just like the Circus Animals. Similar coating, but the cookies inside are sweeter with a slightly lemony taste. Not exactly the same as Circus Animals, but close enough for me.

That's not too different from here in California. My 6 and 9 year olds are in elementary school, get a 45 minute lunch break, but only 20 minutes in which to eat their lunch... the other 25 minutes are for playground time, although slow eaters are allowed to stay in the cafeteria and finish their lunches. My 11 year old son is in middle school, and only gets a half hour lunch break. The local high school only has a 35 minute lunch break. 40 minutes isn't bad, especially for kids who have brought their lunches from home.

I'd venture to guess that Coca-Cola won't go retro, because Coca-Cola with sugar rather than HFCS is already available here in the US, albeit on a somewhat limited basis.

Unless I am at a buffet, I routinely tip about 17-18%... roughly double sales tax (an easy calculation for me). Only extraordinary service gets more than that.

Honestly, there isn't much flavor difference between the whole grain and regular ones.

peppermint candy, Tang, and fish.

Wow... I think I'll stop whining about my electricity bills now. That makes electricity in California look dirt cheap.

I don't live in Japan, but I wanted to toss in my 2 cents. As far as bread goes, for breakfast, quick breads, muffins and American style biscuits are pretty cheap to make. Pancakes/hot cakes, savory or sweet, can be used to make sandwiches as well. The nice thing about all of these is that you can bulk them up with mashed fruit (banana bread), pureed sweet potatoes or squash (pumpkin bread or muffins) and they typically call for oil or shortening rather than butter.

Honestly, I don't own particularly expensive pots or knives. I'd probably just stand outside and watch everything burn rather than go in after anything as long as my family was out and safe.

I have 4 children... the 3 that can eat cheese crackers prefer Goldfish. I bounce between the Costco sized boxes of the Cheddar ones, and the bags of the Whole Grain Cheddar ones.

I'm going to agree with Jaymes on this one. I don't know about everywhere else, but in California, the state that I most frequently dine out in, waitpeople are paid the state minimum wage (the same minimum wage that other types of employees get), and tips are extra. So the "poor me, my wages are mostly from tips" doesn't fly with me.