Hungry market goers
were scoffing up baba ghanouj
and hummus, scooped up with handmade crackers,
as fast as the students could fill the plates.

Monte del Sol:
A Vision of Food Competency

attended my son's college graduation ceremonies over Memorial Day weekend. He just finished four years at one of those pricey northeastern schools that are distinguished for their anything-goes approach to higher education. In addition to receiving credit for classes in pilates and drumming, he also earned a portion of his diploma from this prestigious institution by working part time on an organic farm, where, among other farm chores, he learned how to slaughter and butcher a pig. When I asked him if this was some form of experiential learning linked perhaps to the writings of Homer or the 1960s cult classic Lord of the Flies, he said, no, "It was just about killing a pig."

Given that I, his mother and the college financial aid office had just paid more in each of the last four years for his education than the annual median income of the American family, I found myself wondering if the school's academic standards may have slipped a bit. I consoled myself, however, with the words of Jim Hightower, the former Texas commissioner of agriculture, who once said that "kids are growing up thinking that chickens have six legs because that's how many come in a package."

My son's newfound knife skills, albeit purchased at a premium price, will more than likely keep him from this pitfall that finds too many young people lacking life's most basic skill set: the ability to produce, select and prepare their own food. Although there are probably worse things in life to be ignorant of — brushing your teeth comes to mind — the lack of food competency is increasingly responsible for obesity, diabetes and our blithe disregard for the environmental havoc that our industrial food system is raining down on us.

If things go as planned at Santa Fe's seven-year-old Monte del Sol charter school, food competency should take a great leap forward over the next two years. Plans are now under way to turn portions of the school's grounds and buildings, south of Rodeo Road in the Nava Ade community, into food-production and food-preparation spaces. Fruits trees have been planted around the school's perimeter and are irrigated by rainwater channeled from the school's roof. Work is under way to establish vegetable gardens in all available nooks and crannies. An existing 10-by-20-foot greenhouse should soon be brimming with seedlings and year-round plants. And the pi èce de résistance — a brand-new, fully equipped teaching kitchen — should, when completed, make Monte del Sol the capital of food-competency education in Santa Fe.

According to Tony Gerlicz, the school's founder and principal (a position known as "head learner" at Monte del Sol), these food and garden projects are a fundamental part of their educational mission. He explained to me one day, "The questions we ask are, Where do I fit in? and What's the point of education?" He suggested that part of the reason these questions are difficult to answer is because "disconnection is the number one disease in this country and pervades our relationship to communities, schools, land and each other." Presumably, by "reconnecting" children to these people and places through food-related activities, we might reverse the course of this disease. Hands in the garden's soil, hands on a vegetable cutting knife, hands on platters of food passed with grace around the table, we hope, may yet stave off the alienation that feasts on our too-modern souls.

Some of this hope was on display early this May at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, where four Monte del Sol students were demonstrating their newfound food skills. Attired in the white uniforms of the culinary trade, James Archibald, 15, Jessica Muniz, 14, Desirey Guranich, 15, and Livie Lown, 15, were serving up beautiful, fresh-picked greens (bought from David Fresquez, one of the nearby farmers) that were dressed in a tasty raspberry vinaigrette. Hungry market goers were scoffing up baba ghanouj and hummus, scooped up with handmade crackers, as fast as the students could fill the plates. Smiling eaters, beaming teachers and parents, and proud students gave this little corner of the market's hot blacktop a distinctive sense of achievement and, yes, connection .

One thread that ran through each of these young, would-be-chef's food stories was a parent, relative or other significant person who had inspired their interest in food. For James, it was his father, with whom he prepares meals together every night. Desirey's mother loves to cook, and for Jessica, it was her grandmother who first tickled her love for food. With this as a foundation, Monte Del Sol's mentorship program connects students to the community. These students were fortunate to receive special guidance from two Santa Fe chefs: Tanya Story, who mentored James, and Stephanie Riggs, who mentored Desirey, Jessica and Livie.

In addition to inspirational relatives and mentors, these students also shared a desire to grow and cook their own food, which, if I recall correctly, pulled me through a tough period of estrangement during my twentysomethings. "Whenever I'm bored," announced James during a mandatory mentorship presentation before his peers and teachers at El Museo Cultural, "I like to make something in the kitchen." In fact, the only act of antisocial behavior that I could detect was his refusal to eat at fast-food joints. When I wondered if this show of gastronomic independence had adversely affected his relationship with his peers, he said no, his friends seemed to enjoy his cooking instead.

Desirey's presentation consisted of a video she had prepared of the food-prep activities for the farmers market tasting. The clip showed the students intently observing every detail of Tanya Story's instructions, including the correct use of a knife and the precise measurement of ingredients. After the video was completed, Desirey echoed Hightower's chicken warning when she admitted to the audience that she was shocked to learn that live shrimp have legs. "You don't see them like that when you order them at a restaurant," she added.

Although it is important to learn that our food has a life before it appears on our plate, the impact that food learning has on our health is even more profound. In what has to be music to the ears of those who are worried about the dietary health of our young people, Desirey told her peers that the culinary mentorship had a "big impact on what I eat. I used to eat chips when I was hungry; now I make a meal that's better for me." Wow ! If we could bottle that medicine, this country could save a few trillion dollars on diet-related health costs over the next 50 years.

A few days later, I was chatting with Lynn Walters in the spacious, landscaped courtyard of Monte del Sol. While publicly known for her work as the codirector of the nationally recognized Cooking With Kids program, Lynn is also the mother of two Monte del Sol students, one of whom is going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the fall. To say that she is passionate about food education is a little like saying Julia Childs occasionally enjoys French cuisine. "The distance between us and our food is huge, and it's shocking that food is not integrated into school life," she declared.

The immediate focus of her ardor — one way she hopes to achieve integration — is the development of a model teaching kitchen at Monte del Sol, the cost of which is likely to reach $75,000. By retrofitting an existing large room that currently sports some inadequate kitchen accessories and appliances, Lynn hopes to realize a three-year dream to make food — from garden to table — a fundamental part of the school's experience. With a commitment of $30,000 from the Ronald M. Simon Family Foundation awaiting an additional $30,000 match that Lynn and others are in the process of raising, one can easily visualize Monte del Sol churning out a significant cadre of food-competent young adults. When gardens are finally installed and the teachers are incorporating lessons about food economics, sustainability and health into the curriculum, Monte del Sol just might have a big part of the answer to the obesity, environmental and hunger problems that plague this country.

But in spite of all that the school is doing to advance the cause of food competency, there is one basic thing lacking from this otherwise idyllic picture: there is no lunch program or cafeteria. In fact, there is simply no place to eat. According to Walters and Gretchen Gordon, the school's nurse, various school clubs will often order in as many as 40 pizzas at lunchtime to sell to the kids for various fundraising projects. Kids with cars, or those who have friends with cars, will go off — whether defiantly or sheepishly, given the school's implied health goals — to dine at McDonald's. In an attempt to restore some nutritional balance to this otherwise chaotic scene, Gordon has at least succeeded in "banning" pepperoni from the pizzas, but more important, she instituted a modest fruit-and-vegetable snack program assembled from New Mexico –grown products. With some funding from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, she buys lots of greens for salads from farmers and uses fruits and nuts (apples from Velarde, pistachios from Alamogordo).

As committed as Gordon and Walters are to the health and well-being of Monte del Sol's students, they recognize that these small efforts are only a partial solution. Walters estimates that as many as 30 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced meals under the USDA's National School Lunch program, an eligibility that is tied to a family's lower income status. But that need can't be met if in fact there's no lunch program. And the need is there, Gordon admits, as she recounts how she has handed out PowerBars and other ready-to-eat snacks to children coming to her office complaining of hunger pains.

According to Tony Gerlicz, none of New Mexico's 65 charter schools have their own in-school lunch program. The state law that enabled the development of these independent institutions did not mandate athletics, bus transportation or lunch. "And wisely so," he said, "because it is too hard to establish a full-blown lunch-preparation kitchen." Raising money for buildings and programs, especially during a charter school's founding years, is a backbreaking job. When state law regards something like a lunch program as a nonessential amenity, the founders are inclined to cut that corner. The charter school legislation "is a trade-off," Gerlicz concedes. "You get a degree of academic independence and autonomy in return for giving up other things like lunch."

Gerlicz hopes it won't always be this way. He knows that there are kids in his school who could use a little extra help with their nutritional needs, and he would like to find a solution to this ethical dilemma. At one point, Monte del Sol had made arrangements for a sandwich truck to stop by the school at lunchtime, but that didn't last for long. At another time, they tried to work out a deal with the Santa Fe School District to pick up prepared food at a nearby middle school, but the logistics were too cumbersome. Gerlicz hasn't given up: "My dream is to have a facility that can feed our entire student body of 360 kids."

As Walters was showing me around the future home of the much-hoped-for teaching kitchen, I noticed three posters on the wall. One was a print of a well-known Edward Hopper painting titled Nighthawks, which depicts five lonely people sitting around a barren lunch counter late at night on a desolate city street; it almost oozes despair. The second poster was of a giant Hostess Twinkie. If I had a quarter for each one of these I ate before the age of 20, I'd have enough money to pay for the medical treatment that my overconsumption will one day necessitate. The last image was a huge blowup of a photo by Clay Ellis of Dixon farmer Fred Martinez standing in his orchard amidst a gorgeous display of apples bound for Santa Fe's public schools. Agricultural abundance, pride in one's work, and a willingness to share are the values this image projects.

Perhaps these three images, hanging in the same place, were meant to reflect food and society's contradictions: food as a symbol of scarcity and social isolation; food as a commercial symbol of perverse pleasure; and food as a symbol of connection to land, people and community. If Monte del Sol is ultimately successful in achieving its vision of an integrated food-and-garden program, of feeding healthy food to all of its students, and of shaping food-competent citizens, we might expect that food as a symbol of human connection will one day dominate. Let's wish them well because we all have a stake in their success.





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	Hungry market goers were scoffing up baba ghanouj and hummus, scooped up with handmade crackers, as fast as the students could fill the plates. Monte del Sol: A Vision of Food Competency attended my son's college graduation ceremonies over Memorial Day weekend. He just finished four years at one of those pricey northeastern schools that are distinguished for their anything-goes approach to higher education. In addition to receiving credit for classes in pilates and drumming, he also earned a portion of his diploma from this prestigious institution by working part time on an organic farm, where, among other farm chores, he learned how to slaughter and butcher a pig. When I asked him if this was some form of experiential learning linked perhaps to the writings of Homer or the 1960s cult classic Lord of the Flies, he said, no, "It was just about killing a pig." Given that I, his mother and the college financial aid office had just paid more in each of the last four years for his education than the annual median income of the American family, I found myself wondering if the school's academic standards may have slipped a bit. I consoled myself, however, with the words of Jim Hightower, the former Texas commissioner of agriculture, who once said that "kids are growing up thinking that chickens have six legs because that's how many come in a package." My son's newfound knife skills, albeit purchased at a premium price, will more than likely keep him from this pitfall that finds too many young people lacking life's most basic skill set: the ability to produce, select and prepare their own food. Although there are probably worse things in life to be ignorant of — brushing your teeth comes to mind — the lack of food competency is increasingly responsible for obesity, diabetes and our blithe disregard for the environmental havoc that our industrial food system is raining down on us. If things go as planned at Santa Fe's seven-year-old Monte del Sol charter school, food competency should take a great leap forward over the next two years. Plans are now under way to turn portions of the school's grounds and buildings, south of Rodeo Road in the Nava Ade community, into food-production and food-preparation spaces. Fruits trees have been planted around the school's perimeter and are irrigated by rainwater channeled from the school's roof. Work is under way to establish vegetable gardens in all available nooks and crannies. An existing 10-by-20-foot greenhouse should soon be brimming with seedlings and year-round plants. And the pi èce de résistance — a brand-new, fully equipped teaching kitchen — should, when completed, make Monte del Sol the capital of food-competency education in Santa Fe. According to Tony Gerlicz, the school's founder and principal (a position known as "head learner" at Monte del Sol), these food and garden projects are a fundamental part of their educational mission. He explained to me one day, "The questions we ask are, Where do I fit in? and What's the point of education?" He suggested that part of the reason these questions are difficult to answer is because "disconnection is the number one disease in this country and pervades our relationship to communities, schools, land and each other." Presumably, by "reconnecting" children to these people and places through food-related activities, we might reverse the course of this disease. Hands in the garden's soil, hands on a vegetable cutting knife, hands on platters of food passed with grace around the table, we hope, may yet stave off the alienation that feasts on our too-modern souls. Some of this hope was on display early this May at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, where four Monte del Sol students were demonstrating their newfound food skills. Attired in the white uniforms of the culinary trade, James Archibald, 15, Jessica Muniz, 14, Desirey Guranich, 15, and Livie Lown, 15, were serving up beautiful, fresh-picked greens (bought from David Fresquez, one of the nearby farmers) that were dressed in a tasty raspberry vinaigrette. Hungry market goers were scoffing up baba ghanouj and hummus, scooped up with handmade crackers, as fast as the students could fill the plates. Smiling eaters, beaming teachers and parents, and proud students gave this little corner of the market's hot blacktop a distinctive sense of achievement and, yes, connection . One thread that ran through each of these young, would-be-chef's food stories was a parent, relative or other significant person who had inspired their interest in food. For James, it was his father, with whom he prepares meals together every night. Desirey's mother loves to cook, and for Jessica, it was her grandmother who first tickled her love for food. With this as a foundation, Monte Del Sol's mentorship program connects students to the community. These students were fortunate to receive special guidance from two Santa Fe chefs: Tanya Story, who mentored James, and Stephanie Riggs, who mentored Desirey, Jessica and Livie. In addition to inspirational relatives and mentors, these students also shared a desire to grow and cook their own food, which, if I recall correctly, pulled me through a tough period of estrangement during my twentysomethings. "Whenever I'm bored," announced James during a mandatory mentorship presentation before his peers and teachers at El Museo Cultural, "I like to make something in the kitchen." In fact, the only act of antisocial behavior that I could detect was his refusal to eat at fast-food joints. When I wondered if this show of gastronomic independence had adversely affected his relationship with his peers, he said no, his friends seemed to enjoy his cooking instead. Desirey's presentation consisted of a video she had prepared of the food-prep activities for the farmers market tasting. The clip showed the students intently observing every detail of Tanya Story's instructions, including the correct use of a knife and the precise measurement of ingredients. After the video was completed, Desirey echoed Hightower's chicken warning when she admitted to the audience that she was shocked to learn that live shrimp have legs. "You don't see them like that when you order them at a restaurant," she added. Although it is important to learn that our food has a life before it appears on our plate, the impact that food learning has on our health is even more profound. In what has to be music to the ears of those who are worried about the dietary health of our young people, Desirey told her peers that the culinary mentorship had a "big impact on what I eat. I used to eat chips when I was hungry; now I make a meal that's better for me." Wow ! If we could bottle that medicine, this country could save a few trillion dollars on diet-related health costs over the next 50 years. A few days later, I was chatting with Lynn Walters in the spacious, landscaped courtyard of Monte del Sol. While publicly known for her work as the codirector of the nationally recognized Cooking With Kids program, Lynn is also the mother of two Monte del Sol students, one of whom is going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the fall. To say that she is passionate about food education is a little like saying Julia Childs occasionally enjoys French cuisine. "The distance between us and our food is huge, and it's shocking that food is not integrated into school life," she declared. The immediate focus of her ardor — one way she hopes to achieve integration — is the development of a model teaching kitchen at Monte del Sol, the cost of which is likely to reach $75,000. By retrofitting an existing large room that currently sports some inadequate kitchen accessories and appliances, Lynn hopes to realize a three-year dream to make food — from garden to table — a fundamental part of the school's experience. With a commitment of $30,000 from the Ronald M. Simon Family Foundation awaiting an additional $30,000 match that Lynn and others are in the process of raising, one can easily visualize Monte del Sol churning out a significant cadre of food-competent young adults. When gardens are finally installed and the teachers are incorporating lessons about food economics, sustainability and health into the curriculum, Monte del Sol just might have a big part of the answer to the obesity, environmental and hunger problems that plague this country. But in spite of all that the school is doing to advance the cause of food competency, there is one basic thing lacking from this otherwise idyllic picture: there is no lunch program or cafeteria. In fact, there is simply no place to eat. According to Walters and Gretchen Gordon, the school's nurse, various school clubs will often order in as many as 40 pizzas at lunchtime to sell to the kids for various fundraising projects. Kids with cars, or those who have friends with cars, will go off — whether defiantly or sheepishly, given the school's implied health goals — to dine at McDonald's. In an attempt to restore some nutritional balance to this otherwise chaotic scene, Gordon has at least succeeded in "banning" pepperoni from the pizzas, but more important, she instituted a modest fruit-and-vegetable snack program assembled from New Mexico –grown products. With some funding from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, she buys lots of greens for salads from farmers and uses fruits and nuts (apples from Velarde, pistachios from Alamogordo). As committed as Gordon and Walters are to the health and well-being of Monte del Sol's students, they recognize that these small efforts are only a partial solution. Walters estimates that as many as 30 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced meals under the USDA's National School Lunch program, an eligibility that is tied to a family's lower income status. But that need can't be met if in fact there's no lunch program. And the need is there, Gordon admits, as she recounts how she has handed out PowerBars and other ready-to-eat snacks to children coming to her office complaining of hunger pains. According to Tony Gerlicz, none of New Mexico's 65 charter schools have their own in-school lunch program. The state law that enabled the development of these independent institutions did not mandate athletics, bus transportation or lunch. "And wisely so," he said, "because it is too hard to establish a full-blown lunch-preparation kitchen." Raising money for buildings and programs, especially during a charter school's founding years, is a backbreaking job. When state law regards something like a lunch program as a nonessential amenity, the founders are inclined to cut that corner. The charter school legislation "is a trade-off," Gerlicz concedes. "You get a degree of academic independence and autonomy in return for giving up other things like lunch." Gerlicz hopes it won't always be this way. He knows that there are kids in his school who could use a little extra help with their nutritional needs, and he would like to find a solution to this ethical dilemma. At one point, Monte del Sol had made arrangements for a sandwich truck to stop by the school at lunchtime, but that didn't last for long. At another time, they tried to work out a deal with the Santa Fe School District to pick up prepared food at a nearby middle school, but the logistics were too cumbersome. Gerlicz hasn't given up: "My dream is to have a facility that can feed our entire student body of 360 kids." As Walters was showing me around the future home of the much-hoped-for teaching kitchen, I noticed three posters on the wall. One was a print of a well-known Edward Hopper painting titled Nighthawks, which depicts five lonely people sitting around a barren lunch counter late at night on a desolate city street; it almost oozes despair. The second poster was of a giant Hostess Twinkie. If I had a quarter for each one of these I ate before the age of 20, I'd have enough money to pay for the medical treatment that my overconsumption will one day necessitate. The last image was a huge blowup of a photo by Clay Ellis of Dixon farmer Fred Martinez standing in his orchard amidst a gorgeous display of apples bound for Santa Fe's public schools. Agricultural abundance, pride in one's work, and a willingness to share are the values this image projects. Perhaps these three images, hanging in the same place, were meant to reflect food and society's contradictions: food as a symbol of scarcity and social isolation; food as a commercial symbol of perverse pleasure; and food as a symbol of connection to land, people and community. If Monte del Sol is ultimately successful in achieving its vision of an integrated food-and-garden program, of feeding healthy food to all of its students, and of shaping food-competent citizens, we might expect that food as a symbol of human connection will one day dominate. Let's wish them well because we all have a stake in their success.