Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program

Wednesday was our first day of cooking and gardening without Tom, a sad day, but also full of happy memories. If ever I worried that Tom didn’t get much out of our kitchen and garden classes, I only had to think of the lovely comment that his mum sent in last term – it went something like this:

“Yeah it’s Wednesday, one of Tom’s favourite days. He loves to be outside in the garden, feeling the breeze, watching his classmates and enjoying all scents of the herbs and flowers. In the kitchen he loves the smell of the food cooking, listening to the music and of course all of the socialising.”

And for me in particular I will miss the way that Tom smiled so beautifully when I sang to him (not many people smile when I sing!!). When Louise told me of Tom’s death I asked “who can I sing to now?”.

We miss you already Tom and valued the time that you spent with us.

It was really fitting that Wednesday should be the day that Terry brought her new baby, Isla, in the meet us. What a beautiful baby, and how lovely to meet Terry’s mum too.

It was a short week this week – no cooking on Monday, our first day back and two garden classes cancelled due to staff shortages. We did manage to get to the garden on Wednesday and were delighted to see how much everything had grown during the holidays and also to see our chickens who were cared for by Daniel’s grandad, Craig and Michael.

We cooked:

Salami and Leafy Green Pizza
Pasta with a Herb and Tomato Sauce
Coleslaw
Soup of the Season
Mini Frittatas

Memorable moments :

Thomaz unpacked our new food processor, found the ingredients for pasta making, counted out, measured and added ingredients to the food processor, operated the food processor and used the pasta machine to make fettuccine – and all with very little assistance. He did, of course, enjoy eating the raw and the cooked pasta too!