Rockland private school goes veggie

By Randi Weiner
The Journal News
September 19, 2005

Cooking for a crowd

Executive chef Richard LaCossade created
this Cheery Cherry Compote as a dessert
or side dish. It is served at Rockland
Country Day School. The dish serves 24.

2 packages kosher vegetarian cherry gelatin
2 cups boiling water
10 oz. strawberries
11 oz. cherries
20 oz. pineapple
15 oz. pear halves
3 firm bananas
2 navel oranges, peeled and separated
2 tart apples
1 cup fresh blackberries

In a large bowl, dissolve the gelatin in the
water. Stir in the other ingredients. Transfer
to a 4-quart serving bowl, cover and refrigerate
for three to four hours before serving.

CONGERS - Monday's deli special features meatless hot
dogs and soy-based pork; Friday's specialty cuisine lunch
can involve veggie burgers and egg-free pasta.

The cafeteria at Rockland Country Day School has gone
vegetarian.

"I'm a vegetarian and I had lunch today. It was pretty
good. Last year, I didn't eat lunch at all. I'm really
happy that they're there," Matt Zeltzer, 14, of Nyack, a
ninth-grader at the 165-student private school, said of
the menu options. "It's so much better than last year."

For the first time in more than a decade, Rockland
Country Day has changed lunch vendors from a commercial
organization to a local restaurant. After a year of
committee meetings, taste tests and student and parent
comment, the school signed a one-year contract with Main
Essentials, a Haverstraw vegetarian restaurant that
caters to vegans — vegetarians who also don't eat dairy
or other animal products.

"We know there's an obesity crisis and a crisis of
disease in this country, and a lot of it stems from the
kind of foods and the fast foods that people ingest,"
said Martha Roth, a parent and member of the committee
that selected Main Essentials as the school's food
vendor. "If you start early, if you teach children to eat
well at an early age, it won't be an issue when they get
older."

Local public schools usually offer a meatless option for
students and have tried to cut down on sugar and salt in
other foods, but none has done what Rockland Country Day
has — hired a vegetarian restaurant to provide school
lunches.

Two years ago, parents and students approached James
Handlin, the headmaster of Rockland Country Day, about
the school's food. Research showed that many children
nationwide were eating high-sugar, high-fat foods that
contributed to health problems such as asthma and
diabetes. There had been concern among organic-foods
activists for years about chemical fertilizers,
genetically engineered foodstuffs and commercial feed
lots.

"We did two things: We took a hard look at all of the
snack foods we were offering in all our machines and
decided to get rid of what wasn't healthy, mainly those
with corn sweeteners. We put in a lot more juices and so-
called natural sodas," Handlin said.

"We're really concerned about the obesity and lack of
nutritional awareness that so many families seem to have.
Because we're a school that goes from 3-year-olds to
12th-graders, we would have kids on these sort of sugar
highs. We took a long look at what we were going to put
into those machines."

Beginning in the spring, granola, pretzels and soy-based
cookies replaced candy bars, chips and Pop-Tarts in the
snack machines. Water, juice and seltzer-based sodas
ousted Coke and Pepsi products. The food, provided by
Kristo Beverage, costs 75 cents to $1.50.

The change was not made effortlessly. Students and staff
complained they didn't like the options in the snack and
soda machines. Handlin said the complainers agreed to
live with healthy snacks for the rest of the school year,
and no one has complained about the machine offerings
since school started last week.

Handlin said the organic chips were selling better than
regular chips used to and the school wasn't selling as
much soda.

As for student behavior — it's too soon to tell, he said.
But the younger children now have access to the machines,
which they weren't permitted with the former snack
offerings.

With that project completed, the school launched its
second initiative. Earlier in the summer, parents and
students fenced in a 100-foot-by-100-foot lot and began
an organic garden. Roth and local greenhouse owner Ron
Breland plotted a simple vegetable garden as a start and
asked students and parents to help. Eventually, the
garden will be used with the curriculum and for some of
the school's mandated community-service projects.

Adam Darer, 15, of Chestnut Ridge, a 10th-grader at the
school, was drafted by his mother to come help, but it
wasn't a hardship, he said. His grandmother got him
hooked on growing things, and he already had had a garden
at home for four years.

"I came to a meeting one day and it sounded interesting,"
he said. "It's been a lot of fun coming here in the
summer. It seems weird to come here in the summer, but
when you have a lot of students working toward a goal,
it's really nice."

While the garden project was getting started, the same
committee began looking at food vendors for the
cafeteria. Because the school receives little public
money, students now pay about $4.50 for lunch each day,
compared with about $1.75 for an average public-school
hot lunch.

Richard LaCossade, 27, is the executive chef in charge of
Rockland Country Day School's cafeteria. He worked in the
kitchen of the Manhattan Woods Golf Course and a Marriott
Inn before joining Main Essentials. He takes standard
cafeteria fare and makes it meatless.

"I just try to keep it healthy. This is a school," he
said. "But we'll use soy cheese for the quesadillas, and
soy-based products for the ham and cheese omelets. The
kids that still eat ham will still taste the difference,
but the rest don't seem to notice."

Unlike at Main Essentials, the school cafeteria has a
meat option: turkey hot dogs. LaCossade will use real
cheese in his sandwiches, he said, although soy-based
cheeses are available.

The vegetables and fruits are from local farmers markets,
and once the school garden starts producing in bulk, that
food will be part of the menu. Scraps from the lunchroom
will go to the school compost heap.

Eliza Martin Simpson, 15, of Wesley Hills, a 10th-grader,
said she just appreciated the ability to eat a school
lunch.

"It's really made it a lot easier for me to be a
vegetarian, and the food is really interesting," she
said. "I really like to eat, so it's been a highlight of
the year coming here."

Nonvegetarians such as ninth-graders Norma Kuhling, 14,
of Valley Cottage; Hailey Fyfe, also 14, of Piermont; and
10th-grader Katie Crispi, 15, of New City said they found
the school lunches infinitely better than last year.

"You just sort of feel good," Fyfe said, "after eating a
healthy meal."

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