Archive for April, 2009

FRESH – The Movie

Posted in News links, Uncategorized on April 29, 2009 by bistrokids

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Story 

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision of our food and our planet’s future. FRESH addresses an ethos that has been sweeping the nation and is a call to action America has been waiting for.

Among several main characters, FRESH features:

Will Allen – 6ft 7” former will-allen2professional basketball player Will Allen is now one of the most influential leaders of the food security & urban farming movement. His farm and not-for-profit, Growing Power, have trained and inspired people in every corner of the US to start growing food sustainably. This man and his organization go beyond growing food. They provide a platform for people to share knowledge and form relationships in order to develop alternatives to the industrial food system.

 Joel Salatin- world-famous sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, made famous by Michael Pollan (also joel-salatinin the movie) – author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Joel Salatin writes in his website that he is “in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture.” By closely observing nature, Joel created a rotational grazing system that not only allows the land to heal but also allows the animals to behave the way the were meant to – as in expressing their “chicken-ness” or “pig-ness”, as Joel would say.

David Ball -and supermarket owner, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy. With the rise of david-ball1Wal-Mart and other big chains, David Ball saw his family-run supermarket dying, along with a once-thriving local farm community. So he reinvented his business, partnering with area farmers to sell locally-grown food and specialty food products at an affordable price. His plan has brought the local economy back to life.

Diana Endicott – farmer and founder of Good Natured Family Farms’ Alliance.  In additionDiana Endicott to farming 800 acres in Southeast Kansas, Diana started a local farmers’ alliance and created a partnership with Balls supermarket.  By banding together 150- local family farmers, Diana ensured that they could produce sufficient quantities to mee the needs of  large supermarkets, while providing small producers a market for their products.  And above all, the combination of the coalition and the partnership of Balls ensured Kansas City residents access to the best quality products at their local supermarkets.

Reason:

colorful1 FRESH recaptures our sense of agency and makes us believe that our individual actions in fact do matter. Throughout the film we encounter the most inspiring people, ideas, and initiatives around the US. And thus, FRESH showcases real people first and foremost, connecting audiences not with facts and figures or apocalyptic policy analysis, but with personal stories of change.

 

Producer

Ana Joanes is a swiss-born documentary filmmaker whose work addresses pressing social issues throughfilming1 character-driven narratives. After traveling internationally to study the environmental and cultural impacts of globalization, she graduated from Columbia Law School in May 2000, awarded as a Stone Scholar and Human Rights Fellow. Thereafter, Ana created Reel Youth, a video production program for youth coming out of detention. In 2003, Ana and her friend Andrew Unger produced Generation Meds, a documentary exploring our fears and misgivings about mental illness and medication. FRESH is Ana’s second feature documentary. 

For more information regarding this movie, visit the movies website at www.FRESHthemovie.com

Bistro Kids Cooking Camps

Posted in Bistro Kids with tags , , , , , , on April 28, 2009 by bistrokids

getattachment2We’ve just released the schedule for the Summer cooking camps.  You can see all the information at our Bistro Kids website, www.bistrokids.com, once you are on the home page,  click on services, where you will see a drop down box and click on camps.  You will find all the information regarding ages, where it’s held and the dates.  Make sure you sign up for the class you want as they will fill up fast.  And of course the classes will be taught by our own Chef Katy, who has been stirring up fun in the kitchen for the past year.  She is fun, enthusiastic and very creative.  Your kids will love the fun!

Update on the Mike Vachow interview on The Big 550 AM

Posted in Uncategorized on April 27, 2009 by bistrokids

Mike Vachow, Head of School for Forsyth will be interviewed Tuesday April 28th at 12:25 on The Big 550 AM.  You can also listen to the show online at www.ktrs.com and click on the LISTEN NOW buttons to tune in.  Good luck Mike!

Mike Vachow to be interviewed on St. Louis Radio

Posted in Uncategorized on April 27, 2009 by bistrokids

vachow-sMike Vachow, Head of School for Forsyth (our newest edition to the F2S lunch program) will be interviewed live Tuesday April 28th on KTRS 550, the flagship AM radio station of St. Louis.  He will be answering questions on a show called John Brown’s Mindset, which is designed to find the new, “new thing” that’s taking place in today’s times.  If you are in the St. Louis area be sure and tune into the BIG 550 on your AM dial or, you can stream the show by going to www.ktrs.com and clicking on the listen now button in the upper left of thier web page. 

The show runs from 11 am – 3 pm and I don’t have an exact time that Mr. Vachow will be on, but check back here later on today or in the morning and I should have a time that he will be on the show!

Forsyth School

Posted in Forsyth School with tags , , on April 27, 2009 by bistrokids

We are pleased to announce that we have added another school to our Farm 2 School Lunch Program….Forsyth School in St. Louis Missouri.  We are excited about this new venture and look forward to working with the Staff in serving their students beginning this fall! 

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Welcome Aboard Forsyth! 

To learn more about Forsyth School, visit their website at www.forsythonline.com

Oakhill Volunteers

Posted in Oakhill Day School, Uncategorized on April 19, 2009 by bistrokids

Everyday at Oakhill Day School, Mom’s help us in the lunchroom.  So the Bistro Kids Chefs and Oakhill Administration held a lunch to thank the mothers for helping.  All the students made them artfully decorated note cards with cute little messages like “thank you for showing me where the trash is.”  (How many of you out there wish your kids knew where the trash was at home?)

Then the Bistrokids Chefs had the moms split into teams for the First Annual Moms against Mom’s Bistrokids Do What We Tell You To Do Competition!  (If anyone can come up with a better name please email me at phil@bistrokids.com.  I couldn’t think of any other names prior to press release.  Sounds so big time doesn’t it?)  Anyway, back to the intense competition.  The mothers went through 3 stages

  1. Pour water into 10 cups without spilling a drop!
  2. Answer some Farm 2 School trivia questions that their children would know.  i.e. What was the feature food in March? 
  3. Stack lunch trays and wheel them to the kitchen.  (I had issues with my tray back in the day and they were stacking them)

The three lucky winners received Bistro Kids T-Shirts for their efforts.  We love having the Mom’s involved and thank them for volunteering to help us serve their kids!

Green Acres Market Tasting Fair Event

Posted in Uncategorized on April 8, 2009 by bistrokids

Saturday April 18th

11 a.m – 3 p.m.

Briarcliff Green Acres Market

Come celebrate with your friends and neighbors and enjoy flavorful and creative BBQ dishes prepared by your favorite Briarcliff restaurants and Northland BBQ houses,  Piropos, The Café at Briarcliff, Trezo Mare, Brodie’s Backyard BBQ will be on hand cooking up our exclusive Vintage Natural Beef for a good cause!  For a $5 ticket you can enjoy samplings from all the restaurants & then cast your vote for the favorite dish!  All proceeds go to benefit Bridging the Gap (www.bridgingthegap.org) and Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture (www.kccua.org). We’re also thrilled to partner with our local NPR station, KCUR, to promote the event!

It doesn’t stop there!  The Healthy BBQ Cook-Off is part of our third annual GreenAcres Market Tasting Fair that will last from 11 – 3pm on Saturday April 18th, which will include the following: 

  • Healthy BBQ Cook-Off from 12-2pm! 
  • Food Demos & Tastings          
  • Wine, Beer & Cheese Tastings
  • Health Screenings & Chair Massages               
  • Vendor Reps on site to answer questions
  • Buffalo Burgers on the Patio
  • Dog Wash for your favorite four-legged friend
  • Petting Zoo for the Kids
  • Meet Aspara“Gus”
  • Live Music & so much more!

Come help us make this year’s Tasting Fair & Healthy BBQ Cook-Off the best one yet!  Saturday April 18th from 11 – 3 pm!  (BBQ cook off from 12-2) log onto www.greenacres.com “calendar” for more information!

The effects of buying local

Posted in Uncategorized on April 6, 2009 by bistrokids

I wanted to share with you a letter that was sent to our friends at Good Natured, regarding a customers decision to buy organic eggs from Balls Price Chopper, that were produced locally from Stanberry Community Farms.

Sheral Kautz writes:

Hi,

Ive been feeling caught between the terrible economy and how much each item costs at the grocery stroe, and my growing personal ethics when it come to how food gets to my table.

I saw your free-range brown eggs at the Price Chopper at 75th and Metcalf, and as I stood there in front of all the white styrofoam boxes that I’d bought so my times before, and thought of the hens that were kept in pens to lay, and I looked at your nice sensible pink paper box, and the large smooth calm brown eggs, I thought of your hens getting to run around after bugs, that was it.

Then I made breakfast the next day and saw the little slip of paper with the message from the farmer describing spring out on the farm, how lovely!

Oh, BTW, the eggs were big and luscious.  Well worth the relatively small price differential.

Thank you, I will spread the word!

Sheral Kautz
Overland Park, Kansas
 It shows the effects of what buying local does for everyone. 
  1. The customer is……………………..LOCAL!
  2. The customer shops Balls Price Chopper (LOCAL), who bought the eggs…………..LOCAL!
  3. The eggs that Balls Price Chopper purchased were from Stanberry Community Farms which is…..LOCAL!
  4. The money that the customer (LOCAL) spent on the eggs purchased at Price Chopper (LOCAL) that bought the eggs from Stanberry Farms (LOCAL) stays…………….LOCAL!

It’s a  stimulus plan that benefits everyone involved and stays………….LOCAL!

Bistrokids is committed to buying local and serving only the freshest ingredients to our students in both the Kansas City and St. Louis area.