Operation Frontline Hits “The Bowl” with Kitchen on Fire

Now entering it’s final week with its first Operation Frontline group, Kitchen on Fire has been gearing up to graduate it’s students from the program and although we are all getting teary eyed already, fun things have been happening and it’s not over yet.

Last week Chefs Olive and Gilad  along with Operation Frontline’s own team, Sarah from PCFMA and their volunteer Chef Ross, took their group to Berkeley Bowl West on a shopping extravaganza. The mission – to teach students about shopping healthy and for the maximum amount of value. The result – each student walked out with a bounty of tasty goodies, all healthy, for under ten dollars.

Why Berkeley Bowl you may ask? Luckily for us East Bay Residents, Berkeley Bowl truly makes shopping for healthy food an easy task. With a huge selection of local produce and affordable bulk foods, Kitchen on Fire loves to shop at Berkeley Bowl. In fact, the deciding factor in moving to Berkeley for Chef MikeC. was because of Berkeley Bowl. I mean, who can resist an entire aisle of citrus?

How did they learn to do this in a single day? As part-time residents of the Berkeley Bowl, there are few people who know the ins and outs of shopping for food at Berkeley Bowl like the chefs at Kitchen on Fire. Students met the chefs and were given a personal tour of the dairy, meat, produce and bulk sections of the store. You know, those areas of a grocery store known as the “perimeter”. It’s also called, “the last place grocery stores want you to shop”.

Grocery stores are designed so that you buy more things than you intend from the beginning, which is why these departments are on the exterior, so that you walk through the interior and buy all the fancy goodies you don’t really need and will likely use once because you bought it on a whim. I know, we’ve all bought that damn tamarind paste by the curry paste thinking what a cool tropical treat. Well, one year later and it’s still unopened in the cupboard – and I cook for a living.

Point being, after the tour students were each given a $10 card and were challenged to see who could buy enough food for one or more meals for four people with this money. To our surprise, the students were able to buy more than enough and most didn’t spend more than $7 dollars! A testament to the power of wise shopping.

Perhaps the biggest lesson learned that day was the value of buying bulk and how to spot processed foods. Students learned that if it comes in a box and you can’t read any of the ingredients, odds are it’s not a good buy. All in all, another fantastic day of food with a marvelous group of students. Next week is our final party and the menu is looking might tasty, so stay tuned for updates!