Food for Thought Ojai would like to recognize and honor Suzanne Lugotoff for 10 years of skillful leadership for our OUSD Nutrition Services Department. Suzanne arrived with her family in September 2006 ready to face the challenges of a small district with a much smaller Nutrition Services budget than her previous district. Suzanne was given the directive to eliminate the …
School Lunch Confidential September 2016 (formerly the Ojai Lunch Monitor)
An update from the blogger… Welcome to the 2016-17 school year! As I ease back into my alter ego as eater and reviewer of school food in Ojai, I would like to announce some (hopefully) exciting changes and updates. This blog did indeed start off as something of a spying expedition to see what, exactly, my kid and her peers …
Food For Thought is an Opal Apples grant winner!
Thank you to everyone who voted for us in the Opal Apples initiative! We are a grant award winner and we will be out in the school gardens come Fall helping youth to make a difference! The Opal® Apple Youth Make a Difference initiative awards funding to youth-based initiatives serving their communities in the U.S. where youth, ages 6 – 25, …
Ojai School Lunch Monitor 2015-16 #6
I ate my last Ojai school lunch of the year at Topa Topa Elementary School on Tuesday, May 24th. Those of you who have been reading this blog might recall that all year I have been hoping to get a burrito of some kind. Per my Ojai school lunch calendar, today was the day to get a home-made pork, cheese …
Ojai School Lunch Monitor 2015-16 #5
Hello and welcome back to the Ojai School Lunch Monitor! April 22nd was Earth Day and OUSD nutrition services was offering a special lunch at Mira Monte School, so my friend Christina and I went to check it out. First off, I would like to share a photo of some very sweet artwork of Woodsy the Owl next to a …
Opal Apples! Vote for Garden Clubs and Food Forests!
Opal Apples! Vote for Garden Clubs and Food Forests! We are Semi-finalists for a lovely grant from Opal Apples and we would love your support! Follow the link below and select ‘garden clubs and food forests’ to cast your vote. Thank you! http://www.opalapples.com/voting/garden-clubs-and-food-forests.aspx
Ojai School Lunch Monitor 2015-16 #4
Hello and welcome back to the Ojai School Lunch Monitor! For my latest foray into the world of school lunch, I was joined by my friends and fellow Food for Thought Ojai board members Rico and Christina. We ate at Mira Monte School on March 29th. We met up at the office and headed out to the cafeteria. What a …
Broccoli is the Harvest of the Month for March
Broccoli is the Harvest of the Month for March as part of our Farm to School program. Broccoli will be featured in the cafeteria and also will be sampled at some local schools on Thursday the 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, the perfect day for celebrating our love of green veggies. Broccoli is a member of the cabbage family and the part we eat is actually the flower head. …
Ojai School Lunch Monitor 2015-16 #3
Hello and welcome back to the Ojai School Lunch Monitor! Since my last post, I have become aware of the existence of a valuable resource for anyone who is interested in eating lunch at the OUSD school cafeterias: the OUSD Elementary School Lunch Calendar: These debuted this school year and were produced by Food for Thought Ojai in conjunction with OUSD Nutrition Services and an organization down …
Oranges, Harvest of the Month for February
The Harvest of the Month for February is Oranges. We are so very lucky to live in Ojai and to be surrounded by so much delicious citrus. We use the term Orange rather loosely to describe many different citrus types including sweet oranges, sour oranges, Seville, Mandarin and Tangerine. The most popular orange is the Naval, but Cara Cara and Bloods oranges are being seen on menus …