Lil' Debbie Gets Pwned

Gettin' the kids hooked.

I'm the pusher man. I teach culinary at a high school after school program in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I've been doing this for about three years now, about to start the fourth, it's a good gig while my main time is dominated with raising children. I do some recruiting in the cafeteria in September for an early October start. I set up a little table with the poster above, and present two trays of little brownie squares. One side is made by me, usually the day before, the other side is made by my evil counterpart, Lil' Debbie.

Bitch.

I have about 35 minutes while the student body eats a pre-packaged, pre-made, reheated, politically shaped,  and nutritionally regimented meal. They're shy at first, but once they've eaten and they see a few kids grab a few without paying, it rolls and all the brownies are gone before the end of the lunch period.

I sell them on the brownies to take the class. Taste them one after the other, and most either grunt "thanks!" and run away. Some linger, and give their opinions. Most prefer the home-made, but a few always say the Little Debbie is better, as it tastes like a brownie is supposed to taste - they've never had anything else. A few have a revelation -- they are tasting a real brownie for the first time, not an industrial simulacrum of the idea of a brownie, made with the cheapest possible ingredients and artificial additives and preservatives to deliver a brownie-like experience. It is those students that usually become my students. They usually have a predilection to be interested in food, but the brownie tweaks them.

Gimme chocolate NOW!

I also point to the cost vs. quality. Despite shelling out for top-of-the-line foo-foo organic ingredients for my brownies, it still actually comes out cheaper per brownie than Lil' Debdeb. I list my ingredients by what there is most of to least of, so the first ingredient is sugar. Lil Debbo has flour as first, but forms of sugar as #2, #4, #5 and #9. Who do you think has more sugar per bite? My brownie doesn't even have nine ingredients.

It's a cheap but efficient ploy -- most kids are already familiar with sweet, with chocolate, with moist and gooey. I teach 6 different sections of varying length and advancement during the whole school year, and only one of them actually gets a pastry class, where I teach various cookies, cakes, pies and tarts. However, the brownies usually come up when we cook a full meal for the whole school at Thanksgiving, or for the PTA, or for a once-a-year catering gig.

Speaking of pre-packaged, pre-made, reheated, politically shaped, and nutritionally regimented meals, the government of NYC recently tried to cancel a program that puts professional chefs in public schools to make from-scratch fresh food for the students instead of the trucked-in packaged crap from central commissaries. Why? Because the meals prepared might not meet new federal nutritional standards that are required to get certain federal lunch funds. Fortunately, the city reversed it's decision before school reconvened.

After Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, and other lawmakers urged the Education Department to figure out a way to keep Wellness in the Schools involved in devising and cooking meals, the department decided to allow the program to continue.

“We are working in collaboration with WITS on an alternative menu that will also meet the new U.S.D.A. regulations,” said Erin Hughes, a department spokeswoman. “The department always aims to work with our partners, and we value having an organization like WITS in our schools.”

It's sad that the level of bureaucracy is so thick that a major contender for mayor in the coming election has the opportunity to tweak the rank and file to make what should be simple matters work. I see the food the kids are eating at the high school in Red Hook, and it is god-awful. It might be nutritionally sound, but they are not eating a lot of it. It's not because there isn't enough sugar or candy coating or salt or frying to it -- it's because it's not fresh, it's been sitting around too long, and is made with crappy ingredients. Urgle burgle, I think I might have to spend a week blogging about school meals soon...

Urgle with side of burgle, steam gurgle, and a pint of durgle.

THE COUNT: 2360
The weekend was hard -- Greenport in the Northfork has become uncomfortably touristy, and after almost a decade of going their to visit every summer, I think this might have been the last time. A deciding factor is the wicked combination of an ice cream obsessed toddler and a one-block downtown with about five different flavors of ice cream shop. We justified feeding her ice cream every day with "being on vacation" and explained to her that eating ice cream more than once a day would make her "fat and sad", which she countered with "ice cream is yummy in my tummy!" -sigh- Then I said, "Girl, read my blog your just like your mother."

Pizza, lobster rolls, fries, a total lack of vegetables, it wasn't pretty. Saturday night we skipped the restaurants and I got a bag of baby carrots for dinner, as lunch was still weighing on me. Sunday I woke up to ride an organized century bike ride, and hungry me was met by a huge table of cakes and pastries at the start line. I gorged on a stupid amount, and while it gave me energy, I suspect it might have effected my mood for the worse. Who knows, there were a lot of other factors working. Something to keep in mind to pay attention to the next time I gorge on sugar.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, 7oz diet coke, 0 cal
Need to make green tea today, settled for a lesser eye opener.

BREAKFAST: 9am, fage full fat yogurt with honey, almonds, vanilla, 330 cal

LUNCH: 1:30pm, spicy beef patty, vegetable patty, 830 cal

DINNER: 7pm, broiled sole, steamed string beans, boiled corn, baby carrots, 14oz diet sprite, 730 cal
Tempted to cook up the potatoes that came from the CSA this evening, but had corn bought from a farm stand in the Northfork yesterday that had to be eaten. Nice problem to have.

EVENING SNACK: 9:15pm, watermelon, 150 cal

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, peanuts & chocolate chips, 320 cal