A Garden Party

Every night, I heat up some oil in a pan, add onion and garlic, then whatever other vegetables I bought at the market that week.  Spinach, bell pepper, tomatoes, broccoli, sometimes that one that looks like a cactus.  Once that’s going, I add the protein.  Usually an egg (from our duck if I’m lucky), or some chicken or alpaca if I was feeling fancy.  Then the seasoning.  Some salt, oregano, or maybe some of my closely guarded curry powder.  And that’s it.  I eat it out of the pan (because who am I putting on airs for?) with my only fork.  This is what it usually looks like. 

It’s a functional meal.  It tastes good enough and is the most meaningful amount of vegetables I encounter every day.  That particular duck egg was awesome.  But until last week, I had forgotten how wonderful it can be to cook when you invest time, money, and have more people to feed than your own self.  Let me back up. 

We have a successful little veggie garden at a primary school called Quilcacancha.  I recently wrote a post about our lettuce harvest.  That was a precursor to our big harvest party, which we had in the middle of September.  I wanted to celebrate that we were actually able to grow vegetables at 13,500 feet.  The plan was to make a bunch of food with the vegetables and invite the parents over to share the meal and learn about the garden.

After it took my students over an hour to put a salad together, I abandoned any ideas of us cooking together and made most of the food at home ahead of time.  When I got to the school the day of the party, we harvested a bunch of spinach and made a lovely salad with strawberries and cheese. 

When everything was set up, we played a little frisbee while we waited for parents to show up.

We had 9 moms come to the party.  I was happy since it’s a school of only 35 kids and it’s rare to have anybody show up for anything, whether or not there’ll be free food.  I had some time to sit and chat with them about recipes, why it’s good to cook with veggies, and growing them ourselves. 

I was happy with how all the food turned out.  We had garlic beets

Coleslaw

Our spinach salad.

Quinoa with veggies

And ginger carrot soup, which was my personal favorite. 

Everything was made from ingredients grown in our garden our bought in town, and the kids ate a surprising amount of food for being children who rarely encounter veggies.  The moms were more into it and were excited to try similar things at home. 

At the end of the meal, the principal of the school stood up and gave a nice talk about nutrition and the role of parents in feeding their children well.  She also said some really nice things about me and my work at the school.  A lot of times, I feel like people have no idea what I’m doing here or that I’m putting upon them to work with me.  It was wonderful to be thanked and appreciated for a little while. 

All in all, it was a big success.  Everyone ate and had a good time, which is all I could ask for.  The next time I go to the school, I’m going to send all the kids home with starts to plant at their houses and a list of recipes for all the dishes we ate.  Hooray for vegetables!