Chefs D’Aun Carrell and Bridget Kelly are part of a nationwide movement to make people more knowledgeable about the food they eat—how it’s grown or raised, how it’s processed (if at all) and how it contributes to their overall health (or not). Their respective backgrounds make it easy to understand why they’ve volunteered so much of their time and talents to teach basic nutrition to third graders at Mark Twain Elementary School in Brentwood.
Carrell grew up on a working ranch in Texas with about 350,000 head of cattle. “During the winter, we canned our fruits and vegetables, we butchered our own meats, we cured our own hams,” Carrell said.
Even as a 5-year-old, Carrell was doing her part in the kitchen. “There’s a picture of me standing on a chair…I’m laying bacon in a big pan…when the bacon came out (of the oven), the bacon was taken off and put on stale bread to drain. Then, the sourdough biscuits went in…and when I put them all in I had to turn them so they had the oil side up and that’s what would make them crunchy. They weren’t good for you, but man, were they good!”
Kelly (whom with her sister Margaret are TV celebrity chefs The Kelly Twins), were raised on a farm—the youngest of 11 children. “Both of our grandfathers were chefs. We were brought up in a culinary environment…harvesting our own meats…produce. Our Italian grandmother had dairy cattle…so we milked the cows, made cheeses, butter—you name it.”
Both Kelly and Carrell grew up connected to their food source. “Most children and many adults have lost that connection,” Kelly told me. “A real close chef friend of mine had asked children… ‘Where do apples come from?’ And the children said ‘From the store.’ That’s a…disconnect.”
Lessons learned by the third graders are reinforced by being integrated into other classroom subjects. Mark Twain principal Karen Smith gave me an example: “When you’re cutting things in half (like the celery kids cut to make Ants-On-A-Log appetizers with Chef D’Aun), we can look at fractions. Social studies, science—there are a lot of different areas.”
The chefs continue the nutrition education with fourth and fifth graders, but only the third graders get to host the annual dinner party for family and close friends. Smith said “I have fifth graders who still talk about the third grade dinner party project they did…They take very seriously the jobs they had…”.
-Ruth Ezell
1 Comment
April 17, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Just visited your blog and was excited to read about your 3rd grade chefs. We are also teaching the empowering message of having food knowledge through our character Charles The Chef. Take a look at our site and blog. I will keep visiting your blog for updates!
Great job!
http://charlesthechefinc.blogspot.com/