This week, Bon Appétit Chef Mayet Cristobal joined me at St. Patrick School in North Hollywood, California to teach the 3rd through 8th graders how to make a crisp mizuna and kale salad with tart apples, pears, oranges, and parmesan and a from-scratch lemon herb vinaigrette.
Chef Mayet featured 6 crops growing in the St. Patrick School garden – mizuna, kale, oranges, thyme, rosemary, and parsley so the kids could see how easy it is to harvest ingredients straight from the garden and make something healthy and delicious. During one demonstration, she even topped the salad with white and purple pansies growing alongside her demonstration table.
Students learned about the vast variety of jobs in the food industry. Mayet shared that her trajectory began around the age of 7 or 8 cooking alongside her grandma in the Philippines. “Food is what brings people together and I’ve always loved spending time in the kitchen.” When the kids heard that Mayet had cooked for Former First Lady, Michelle Obama, they could hardly wait to taste her food.
While talking about the flavor profiles of kale and mizuna, Chef Mayet demonstrated how to pull the leaves off the stem and tear them into small pieces. “It’s easy, right?” she said encouragingly. She sliced apples and pears, segmented oranges (making sure to squeeze all the juice from any remaining fruit), tossed in parmesan cheese, and prepared vinaigrette in a mason jar so students could see all the action. “Have you ever tried to mix oil and vinegar?” she asked. The students agreed that it was nearly impossible, so Chef Mayet taught them an insider trick: using an emulsifier, like Dijon mustard, helps the oil and vinegar (or lemon juice, in our case) bind and blend together. She combined 1 part lemon juice to 3 parts olive oil and added mustard, thyme, rosemary, parsley, salt, and pepper and gave the jar a vigorous shake – voila, a homemade garden vinaigrette! For nearly all the students, this was their first time trying a from-scratch vinaigrette, rather than a dressing from a store-bought bottle.
The students devoured their plates of salads asking for seconds and thirds. In response to the deliciousness, we heard comments like:
“This is the first time I’m eating something healthy that actually tastes GOOD!”
“This is my first time eating salad.”
“Now I love kale!”
“Will you come back and teach us another recipe?”
Click here for the recipe!