From Here, From Near

[caption id="attachment_22870" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Thayer Academy Window Garden"][/caption] From day one, SAGE has been committed to serving great tasting, made-from-scratch food that uses locally sourced ingredients whenever possible. In many instances, these locally grown ingredients come from our own gardens! From simple herb gardens, to full-size student-assisted vegetable gardens, we are using the freshest ingredients available and no space has proven too small. At Thayer Academy near Boston, where space is limited, our Food Service Director got creative and planted a window garden. In addition to rosemary and basil, he's grown corn, tomatoes and peppers! At Solomon Schechter School of Westchester in New York, they've had more space to grow. Food Service Director, and this week's Guest Blogger, Chef Avrohom Siegel gets very excited about what is growing. He writes about the food that is harvested and how it's become an integral part of the school's menu. "Whether it's zucchini blossoms in the spring, crooked neck squash in the summer or butternut squash in the fall and winter, there's always something to harvest from our SAGE garden! [caption id="attachment_22873" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Looking For Squash - Avrohom Siegel"][/caption] There's nothing that bursts more with flavor than a freshly picked piece of produce. A ripe butternut squash has so many more intricacies and nuances than a piece of meat. While squash makes great soup, it has many more uses; it can easily replace some of the flour in your pasta dough, and like pumpkin, you can roast its seeds and eat them as a snack. I also like to mix it into salads and oatmeal for a different take on classic recipes. For me, squash are like multi-rounded athletes. Every part of a squash can be utilized and every kind of squash gives you their all, including the shell. One of my favorite tricks is to hollow squash out, and use it as a serving vessel." Avrohom is a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America as well as Boston University. He has been with SAGE for nearly three years.