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Top to bottom: Ray Lynn Showalter
supplies lettuce to DCCK from his
hydroponic greenhouse in the
Shenandoah Valley; Jeff Bridges, Share
Our Strength’s national spokesman,
visits a school during the group’s No
Kid Hungry campaign; Top Chef Tom
Colicchio teaches student volunteers
how to cut squash during a recent visit
to DCCK.
the Kitchen Door’s classes. Today, the
program collaborates with government
agencies and other nonprofits, counts
Whole Foods Market as a corporate
partner and hosts several workshops
a year. For instance, Teens Get Cooking: Preventing Obesity by Eating is
currently taught in several D.C.-area
schools. In the workshop, students learn
simple substitutions for healthier eating
(such as yogurt in lieu of mayonnaise in
a chicken salad) as well as the many benefits that come from families dining as a
unit. For example, statistics show lower
rates of drug and alcohol abuse when
families eat together.
Nachtigal’s team has pulled off some
seemingly impossible feats, such as getting 12-year-olds to gobble down good-for-you dishes like “salad, salad, salad,”
and he jokes about providing education
through flavor. Nachtigal hopes to soon
offer these courses free of charge in public schools across the country.
Course materials change depending
on the ethnic makeup of the class. For
example, African-Americans might not
learn how to make empanadas but instead
may focus on foods available at their local
supermarkets. Many of today’s students
are political refugees from Bhutan, Nepal,
North Korea or Palestine. As one Camer-oonian student said, “Good food knows
no borders.” Every course concludes with
a celebration.
“We grab them with the food,”
Nachtigal recalls his wife saying. “We
keep them with how good we make them
feel about themselves.” kitchendoor.org
atlanticstars.com
Conscious Cuisine
Thanks to the movie Casablanca, as a
kid Robert Egger dreamed of opening
a nightclub. He followed his passion,
working his way up in the nightlife
industry to book bands at D.C. clubs.
Then, one evening while he was reluctantly tagging along with his wife and a
church group to feed the homeless, he
experienced an “aha” moment. He saw
that merely handing out sandwiches
