22 minute read
All the Right Ingredients
All the Right
With a diverse menu of innovative, fresh, delicious, and healthy food, HB’s Dining Services team has developed the recipe for satisfied students and faculty.by Douglas Trattner
Today’s lunch consists of Asian dumplings served with a spicy mango dipping sauce, bowls of piping-hot pho flush with tofu, rice noodles, bean sprouts and fresh basil, and a Buddha bowl brimming with bright greens, whole grains and roasted vegetables tossed in a bold maplelime-avocado glaze. While that might sound like the daily features at your favorite Asian bistro, it is just a typical Wednesday in the Dining Hall of Hathaway Brown. If your recollection of school cafeteria lunches is anything like mine, it likely consists of a depressing loop populated with gems like meatless moussaka, beef macaroni, corndogs, and, hello, Friday!, fish sticks, all washed down with half-pint cartons of chocolate milk.
HB does lunch differently. “We serve restaurant-quality food,” explains Torrey McMillan ’90, Director of the Center for Sustainability. “It doesn’t look like school food, it doesn’t taste like school food, and it’s not made with the ingredients of school food.”
Health and Wellness
As one of the valedictorians of his graduating class at Pennsylvania Institute of Culinary Arts, chef Nick Keck could be earning accolades at any number of four-star restaurants. Instead, as Director of Dining Services for HB, his daily customers consist of approximately 1,000 Primary, Middle and Upper School students, along with faculty and staff. With his team of 14, Keck oversees a scratch kitchen “where we are bound only by our imagination,” he says. It wasn’t always this way. A decade ago, students in this very cafeteria were loading up trays with the same types of premade convenience foods that have “nourished” growing boys and girls for decades. But about that time, a commitment was made to completely overhaul the school’s food philosophy to better align with the core principles of health and wellness, sustainability, culture and community, and lifelong learning. “The philosophy gives us a set of touch points to help direct our decision making around what food we serve on campus, and also to beautify all the different spaces that food comes into our community, so that we can all speak the same language and work toward the same goals,” McMillan adds.
Ingredients
This transformation was set in motion by a confluence of factors, not the least of which being requests from parents to address escalating food sensitivities and allergies. As diversity flourished within the student body, so too did concerns about accommodating disparate religious dietary restrictions. The best way to address this on many fronts, the school determined, was to endeavor to make as many foods as possible from scratch. By doing so, the kitchen can guarantee that dishes are properly labeled as vegan, vegetarian, pork-free, gluten-free, soyfree, nut-free, and dairy-free. “One student’s mother specifically told us that the reason they want to stay at Hathaway Brown—on top of the quality of everything else—is their trust in the food service, knowing that their daughter has special needs as they apply to allergies,” reports Keck. For example, a globally inspired feast recently included Indian butter chicken that could be ordered instead with paneer, a fresh cheese that is vegetarian. A colorful side dish of turmeric-scented roasted chickpeas and cauliflower is vegan. And while the pillowy naan bread contains wheat products, the steamed basmati rice is 100-percent allergen-free. Keck stocks an array of fresh fruit and vegetables that fill the salad bar, which accompanies daily staples like the soup of the day, create-your-own-deli, main entrée and allergy-limited “Pure” selection. Although there’s no way to eliminate the daily pizza station without inciting a school-wide walkout, both the dough and sauce are made in-house every single day. Each week, Keck and his team strive to inch closer to the goal of providing a 100-percent scratch-made menu built around “green-light” items, whole foods that are low in sugar, high in fiber and protein, and devoid of harmful additives and preservatives. “Black-light” items like high-fructose corn syrup, sodium nitrite, MSG and artificial sweeteners like aspartame are being completely eradicated. “Red-light” items consist of convenience items such as premade meatballs or chicken tenders that are utilized very sparingly. Items such as purchased
pierogi, ravioli and tortellini are considered “yellow-light” foods that, while not inherently unwholesome, are produced elsewhere. “Every day we ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing the best that we absolutely can with what we have,’” says Keck. “There is always room for improvement.”
Sustainability
Being a scratch kitchen provides the students with the freshest, most nutrient-dense foods, but it has the added benefit of reducing waste. As Keck explains it, when you bake a frozen casserole of turkey tetrazzini, the only way to reuse the leftovers is by serving day-old turkey tetrazzini (spoiler alert: the students will not be thrilled). In contrast, that tantalizing pho spread consisted of individual components such as vegetable stock, rice noodles, tofu, shredded chicken, and a selection of fresh vegetable toppers like sliced bell peppers, bean sprouts, scallions, and mint sprigs that not only allow students to customize their bowls, but that can easily be utilized in tomorrow’s dishes (with the students being none the wiser).
“But scratch cooking is so much more than just a costeffective measure,” reports Keck. “There is also a certain level of pride that team members can take knowing that we’re providing these fresh ingredients on a daily basis. By cooking this way instead of opening a box and throwing it in the oven, they appreciate it more and value
their time and efforts more.”
Other incremental changes, while less conspicuous, nudge the kitchen ever closer to its sustainability goals. “Convenient” single-serve breakfast bowls—those foiltopped, open-and-eat plastic-cupped inventions—have been replaced by bulk cereal dispensers and good, old-fashioned reusable tableware. Butter, jelly, and cream cheese, long served in IPCs (restaurant-speak for individual portion cups), are now presented in bowls on ice, which not only reduce plastic, but also waste by allowing diners to take just what they need.
Make Your Own Pho!
The Dining Services team shares their recipe for this piping hot dish of goodness
Yields 4 - 6 bowls of soup
Ingredients:
2 cinnamon sticks 3 whole garlic cloves 2 bulbs shallots, sliced in half 2 star anise 1 large white onion, peeled and quartered 4 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and halved lengthwise 4 cups vegetable stock or broth 4 cups water 2 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari or soy sauce 6 ounces (approximately one large handful) rice noodles
Garnishes:
• thinly sliced mushrooms • mung bean sprouts • sprigs of fresh basil (use Thai basil if you can find it) or cilantro • sprigs of fresh mint • sliced colorful baby sweet peppers • thinly sliced green onions (mostly green parts) • very thinly sliced fresh jalapeño (omit if sensitive to spice) • small wedges of lime • crumbled tofu • cooked shredded chicken • cooked shredded pork • cooked thinly sliced beef • cooked shrimp
Instructions:
1. Warm a medium soup pot on medium heat. Add the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and star anise and toast until fragrant, stirring occasionally, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the onion, shallots, ginger, vegetable stock, water and tamari. Raise the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat as necessary to maintain a gentle simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes to give the flavors time to meld. 2. In the meantime, prepare your rice noodles by cooking them according to package directions. Set them aside. 3. Once the broth is cooked, strain out the onions, ginger and spices (this is easiest with a small metal sieve, but you can also strain the mixture through a colander into another large bowl). Season it to taste with extra tamari and/or salt until the flavors of the spices really shine. 4. Ladle the broth into bowls, add cooked noodles and/or meats and fresh garnishes to your heart’s content. (Don’t forget the lime!) Serve immediately with chopsticks and soup spoons.
Additional Options
If you love spicy pho: Sriracha is a great spice addition but can overpower the delicate flavors in this soup, so if you’re looking for more spice, you can add a pinch of red pepper flakes to the broth as it cooks, and/or add extra sliced jalapeño to your bowls. Make it gluten free: Be sure to use gluten-free tamari or soy sauce (tamari is usually gluten-free, but check your bottle to be sure). We use tamari in HB’s recipe.
Yet to come is a more robust and comprehensive foodcomposting program, more direct purchasing from area farms and markets, and education efforts to channel these practices off campus and into student homes. “I think we’ve done a really good job of promoting the health and wellness and the culture and community pieces of the food philosophy,” says McMillan, who has the distinction of helping to launch the school’s recycling program when she was an 11th-grade student. “The sustainability piece we’ve been working on, but we feel like that’s our next big push.”
Culture and Community
As successive waves of Primary, Middle, and Upper School students make their way out of the cafeteria and into the Margery Stouffer Biggar ’47 and Family Dining Hall, they enter a voluminous, high-ceilinged space ringed by soaring windows that offer views of the surrounding landscape. More than simply “a place to eat,” this cheerful room is the social hub of campus life, a safe space where students, faculty, and staff can come together in a comfortable, stress-free environment. Like most school lunchrooms, this one absolutely percolates with youthful energy and enthusiasm, where the gossip of the day is spilled over plates of mushroom risotto and lasting friendships are forged over bowls of coconut curry. “In the Upper School, the groups become a lot bigger, the tables start to get longer by smashing them together, and your friend group expands,” explains Ally Mills ’23. “You definitely make new friends. There are people who come to your table who you never would have talked to.”
Mills knows just how green the grass is on this side of the fence. The school from which she transferred before
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the sixth grade specialized in “frozen salad,” she jokes.
But her food allergies are no laughing matter. Mills’ sensitivity to dairy, eggs, peanuts, and tree nuts meant packing a lunch at her old school to stay safe. “Having food allergies, I was always scared to reach out and try new things,” she explains. “But everything is labeled here, so why not try it? Before, I had a very regimented diet, but now I can expand to other areas and, when I see it on a restaurant menu, I’ll try it.”
Homemade Goodness
Even during remote learning this spring, Chef Nick Keck and members of his team continued to connect with students, parents, and faculty members, encouraging them to eat healthy and try new things. Chef Keck also launched a video series with his 4-year-old daughter, Leah, lending him a helping hand in the kitchen. Search HB’s YouTube channel to learn his tips and tricks for how to make HB’s famous apple crisp, mix up a glass of Leah’s lemonade, prepare a perfect piece of salmon, slice a variety of melons, sous vide a rack of lamb, toss your own pizza dough, and much more.
In the summer months, Chef Nick offered free cooking classes for HB families over Zoom. You can find all of his delicious recipes posted at HB.edu/DiningServices.
One of the perks of being a member of the faculty and staff at Hathaway Brown, says Kathleen Osborne, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, is the free and unfettered access to the same high-quality food enjoyed by the student body. And though it is standard operating procedure at most schools for the faculty to take refuge in the teachers’ lounge, this ebullient cafeteria eliminates those student-teacher borders.
Lifelong Learning
Despite the range of ages that exists from K through 12, Chef Keck says that he is mindful about not catering too much to any specific grouping. Rather than prepare and serve radically different meals and menus for the Primary, Middle, and Upper School students, Keck adheres to a single blueprint as much as possible. Yes, that practice reduces labor strain on the kitchen, but more importantly, he notes, it encourages healthy and mindful eating habits. “Not only is it easier to manage fewer menus, but this is an opportunity to expand and educate the minds and palates of Primary students, getting them to learn better food habits,” Keck explains. “This is the first generation where our children are expected to have a shorter life expectancy; we’re actually trending down because of how unhealthy we are. It starts with our youngest kids: what they are eating, what they are learning. By educating them about the foods they eat every single day.” That holistic food philosophy makes its way out of the dining room and into all corners of the 16-acre campus. In addition to preparing the day’s main meal, Keck and his indefatigable team cater events for 40 to 400 people that can range from after-concert cookies and lemonade to black-tie affairs with fancy passed hors d’oeuvres. The final frontier, so to speak, is the home. To truly impact and improve a young person’s food choices and lay the groundwork for a lifetime of healthy choices, HB will need to break down the metaphorical fourth wall. “It’s a little harder to reach into the home,” McMillan admits, “But we hope through communication and education, some of what we say here will start to trickle back and forth.”
Douglas Trattner is a freelance writer based in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Hathaway Brown’s
Food Philosophy
Hathaway Brown honors the powerful relationships between the food we serve, nutrition, wellness, sustainability, community and culture.
Health & Wellness: We prioritize serving nutrient-rich, high fiber,
whole foods, prepared in-house.
Sustainability: Our food service operations reflect awareness of our
impact on communities, the environment, and the economy.
Culture & Community: Food is an expression of culture and identity,
and dining together fosters joyful connections between people.
Lifelong Learning: We will continue to research the impacts of our food
choices and implement best practices as they evolve over time.
Kitchen Chronicles
Chef Nick Keck describes a typical day in the life of the HB Dining Services team.
It takes a small army of passionate and dedicated team members to feed 1,000 meals each and every day. Each team member’s contribution to the overall success of the Dining Hall is crucial and
I cannot say enough about them and how lucky I am to manage such a great team.
All of us love working with the faculty and students at Hathaway Brown, which is why we do the work we do. Here’s a rundown of how we spend our time.
5:30-5:45 a.m. – I arrive to work and fire up the steamer, ovens, dish utility, and unlock the coolers.
6 a.m. – Chef Anthony arrives and begins prep for the day’s entrée and sides. Both entrees and sides are diverse and scratch-made, ranging from Indian butter chicken, createyour-own fajita and stir-fry bowls, macaroni and cheese, pho, and even house-smoked meats from his very own homemade smoker. Each day he prepares enough food to feed approximately 600-800 students plus faculty and staff. Other areas of responsibility include menu development, caterings and the overall management of the entire kitchen.
6:30–9 a.m. – Daily produce delivery arrives. Remaining team (Alice, Felicia, Shelby, Theresa, Hallie, Monica, Stephanie, Cory, Robert, Tyler, Dennis, Evette, and Claudia) arrive.
7–10:50 a.m. – Main production for the school’s lunch takes place.
Monica (HB’s sous chef) begins to prep the day’s side bar items that are always fresh, and include hummus, fresh veggies and dips, and various other composed salads. In addition to creating the side bar, Chef Monica also executes the day’s PURE feature menu item, which has a focus on fresh, protein-driven, allergy-sensitive menu items that range from (but are not limited to) potato cakes, vegan chili and even Bombay aloo matar. Other areas of focus include preparing specialty catering menu items as well as menu development and managing the kitchen when needed.
Alice prepares the day’s homemade soups that are both vegan and non-vegan, fresh deli bar with homemade sauces and condiments, and a freshly made daily feature salad. From fresh wraps, steamed vegetable dumplings, French dips, BBQ
Shelby Felicia
Robert Evette
Stephanie Monica
pulled pork sliders, falafel and even homemade empanadas, Alice prepares up to 300 portions of the feature deli item each and every day.
Felicia prepares the Early Childhood dining room with fresh sandwiches, fruits and Tyler vegetables, along with the day’s feature menu (prepared by Chef Anthony) for the EC students who come each day excited to see her. While setting up her dining room, she also prepares and delivers multiple special catering events that take place for that day, which is no small task, given that the school averages over 500 special catering events every year.
Shelby prepares HB’s famous salad bar. From scratch-made dressings and vinaigrettes, fresh-cut greens, both roasted and fresh vegetables, roasted smashed redskin and sweet potatoes, to an array of other assorted vegan and vegetarian options, there’s something for every salad lover. Also featured center stage is her daily Buddha Bowl feature, which has
Theresa
Cory Dennis
Alice
Claudia Hallie
become famous at HB. It’s always prepared with a variety of ancient grains combined with fresh produce finished with some sort of amazing house-made dressing.
Anthony Theresa (HB’s resident baker) begins her day preparing her signature fresh whole-wheat pizza dough from scratch. Once complete, she tackles the task of cutting 80–100 pounds of fruit for Prime students every single day. Another key focus for the day is preparing cookie doughs for fresh-baked cookies, a variety of homemade dessert bars and energy bites and even homemade granola bars that have become a staple at many EC special events. Above and beyond the bakery department, you can often find her assisting in many special events and functions throughout the year and helping out wherever needed.
Hallie can be found out in the dining servery working the fresh dough from Theresa and preparing the delicious daily pizza and stromboli features. On most Tuesdays, she prepares at least eight sheet pizzas just for Prime students. Hallie also created the recipe for HB’s homemade granola that can be found at the morning’s fruit and yogurt bar. Other parts of the morning include creating unique overnight oats recipes, cutting additional fruit for the side bar and preparing scratch-made smoothies along with helping out wherever needed.
Stephanie arrives each morning and begins to set up the continental breakfast displays for the day with the side bar full of fresh cut and whole fruits and assorted cereals along with assorted breads, bagels and spreads found by the toaster area. Stephanie also helps set up the Prime salad bar each day with various fresh greens, fruits, vegetables, grains and even prepared salads for young students to enjoy. She also takes on the task of preparing various displays for the many catering events that take place throughout the year.
Cory takes on the task of preparing and delivering most of the Middle School, Prime, EC and ITC snacks and milk each day. He also prepares the day’s tasty fruit waters, iced tea and iced water as well as swapping out the heavy (and often awkward) fivegallon bags of milk. Once lunches are ready, he cuts, portions, and delivers them to the ITC and First Step students located on the other side of the school, keeping him in excellent shape.
Evette (our newest team member) arrives by 9:30 a.m. and begins to set up the hot line for the day’s service. With years of previous school food service experience, she is also willing and able to jump in where needed in order to get ready for service, ready to greet the students and faculty with a smile.
Robert, Tyler, Dennis, and Claudia comprise the dish utility team. All three have crucial roles in the success of the operation. Robert can be found getting the machine ready for the day and maintaining the area for the morning with all of the dirty dishes created by the team. Tyler, Dennis, and Claudia can be found out in the dining hall getting tables ready for Prime with cups and silverware as well as double checking tables and windows for cleanliness.
10:50 a.m.– 1:30 p.m. – Each team member is at their respective areas ready to go and awaiting hungry students. Prime arrives first, followed by the massive wave of Middle School students who always bring a healthy appetite. Once the dust settles from Middle School, the team has a 10-minute window between 12:35–12:45 p.m. to reset and replenish, getting ready for the final arrivals of Upper School students.
1:30–2:15 p.m. – The team has a chance to sit and enjoy lunch themselves!
2:15–3:30 p.m. – Everybody works to get their areas cleaned up and do any additional prep that is needed for the following day. Quite often, this time is also spent getting ready for additional special events that take place after normal school hours.
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