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Daugherty’s initiative: Good nutrition for all
By Mike Mitchelson
Who needs accolades from food critics? The former Food & Wine top chef earned a major thumbs-up for his work helping improve school nutrition.
It’s not often a person earns acknowledgement from the First Lady of the United States. But there was Seth Bixby Daugherty, the acclaimed former chef of Cosmos and the Graves 601 Hotel in Minneapolis (and among Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs in 2005), sitting in the front row among a crowd of 1,500 chefs this past June as Michelle Obama kicked off her “Let’s Move” initiative to combat childhood obesity.
Toward the end of her speech, Mrs. Obama spoke about three chefs raising awareness about school nutrition. Her final example: “There’s also Chef Seth Bixby Daugherty from Minnesota who has worked with several schools across the country to design easy, healthy recipes that taste good and can be made with the equipment that schools already have.”
Nice.
“Nothing that I could think of, that I might have done in the industry, could have reached that pinnacle,” said Daugherty, who remains giddy from the experience. “I still can’t even believe it happened, truthfully.”
A journey to the White House wasn’t on Daugherty’s mind last October. Back then, he considered shutting down his Real Food Initiatives—the very thing that landed him on that exclusive lawn chair. “I wasn’t sure what the focus, the direction, was,” Daugherty said. “I was getting ready to just shut down the Web site.”
The reason was the reality of being a one-man consultancy with the ambitious charter to improve nutrition among school-age children and families. “I’m a real ‘non-profit,’” Daugherty said. “I don’t accept any funding. No money goes through my organization, nor will it ever. One of the reasons is occasionally I’ll do public speaking on America’s relationship with food, and I’m pretty honest and straightforward. It’s tough to be that way if you have somebody funding you—they might influence what you say.”
Daugherty’s major resource to donate was time. Since he resigned from Graves 601/Cosmos, he teaches two days per week at Art Institutes International in Minneapolis, and devotes the rest to Real Food Initiatives (and to his family, something he hadn’t done with his previous demanding schedule). He taught improved nutrition at schools and community centers. He’s met with school foodservice directors across the state, and, given his clout as a chef, brought considerable media attention to the school nutrition cause and RFI—including an appearance on the Rachel Ray Show in 2008.
Nevertheless, “I was thinking of just closing it up,” Daugherty said. But, funny things often happen when a dramatic decision is about to be made.
Phone call
Daugherty has a long history with Share Our Strength, the national charity that combats childhood hunger. While he was a restaurant chef, he helped bring that organization’s fund-raising dinner events, Taste of the Nation, to the Twin Cities.
On the verge of shutting down the RFI site, Daugherty received a phone call from SOS, which asked him to attend a conference as a panelist in Washington D.C., to discuss school lunches. During his stay, he spoke with SOS directors about shutting down RFI. “They basically said, ‘Keep your Web site up, because even if you do nothing (with it), you raise awareness of the issue,’” he said.
So, he did. And the result was a flurry of new activity.
March: Melissa Kappenman, the foodservice coordinator for the Minnesota Internship Center, a Minneapolis charter high school, contacted him. Almost every attending student needs the free- or reduced-lunch program, Daugherty said. “They need a ton of help, and we drew up a game plan of what we wanted to achieve at this high school.”
Two weeks later, Daugherty received another phone call from SOS and the First Lady’s office. He flew again to the capitol to consult on the Let’s Move initiative. That March meeting was with 10 other chefs, including the head of New York City’s public schools’ and White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass (Kass is a noted “Slow Food” supporter from his days at the acclaimed Avec in Chicago).
Back in the Twin Cities, Daugherty set about holding “pep rallies” at the Internship Center’s high school locations. Daugherty would arrive with a load of jicama slaw. Wearing his tie-died chef coat, students crowded the gym to learn about healthier food choices and sample the food. “The pep rallies went really good; I came in with a lot of energy, talked about nutrition and that I’m there to help Melissa,” Daugherty said. “One of the things I always talk about with school lunches is, the true heroes in this equation are the people working in (school) foodservice, trying to put a good meal on the plate for a buck—it is really difficult. My mission to help Melissa was not to overhaul her whole program there, but what could I do within her price structure to create new items that could excite the kids.”
April: Back to D.C., representing Art Institutes International and RFI for another White House “Let’s Move” launch meeting. The heads of the Culinary Institute of America, Le Cordon Bleu, and the American Culinary Federation were there—“even the Army chef,” Daugherty said. “All the people there that possibly could be involved with helping restructure the schools.”
Back at the Internship Center, a garden was approved at the school’s outreach at Sabathini Community Center in south Minneapolis, to be planted by students and staff. “The plan is to grow some simple stuff,” he said. “We know we’re not going to grow enough product to sustain the school—maybe a couple meals is all we’re looking for. Tomatoes and basil? We can make homemade pizza in the fall.”
June 4: D.C., the official launch of the “Let’s Move” program. The White house lawn was awash in white: 1,500 chefs from across the country, including big names like Daniel Bouloud and Mario Batali—the idea to get as many as possible signed on to the initiative. Daugherty had his front-row seat—“I was sitting in front of Rachel Ray and Tom Colicchio,” Daugherty recalled with glee. Floored after being mentioned by the First Lady, Daugherty kept his wits enough that when Mrs. Obama entered the crowd to shake hands, he reached out. “I looked at her and said, ‘Hi, I’m Seth Bixby Daugherty from Minnesota, and she looked at me and said, ‘Oh it’s you.’”
Moving forward
The timely recharge has Daugherty busy. There’s Operation Frontline, a SOS program through the University of Minnesota Extension Service. It’s a six-week nutrition course for low-income families, held at various community centers throughout the Twin Cities. The once-per-week class combines lessons on shopping for and cooking healthy ingredients. Daugherty taught this spring at the McKnight Center in south Minneapolis, classes start again in the fall.
He continues work with the Minnesota Internship Center, SOS and Let’s Move. If he can’t help with his RFI, Daugherty said he’s able to guide foodservice directors to Let’s Move and its Web site, which offers online tools such as “Healthy Schools Builder” to implement an overall student health program—including nutrition.
One thing Daugherty has learned during his involvement with school foodservice is that there is no single blueprint for success. “This will be a school-by-school fix, community by community,” he said. “It’ll be a grass-roots involvement of people like myself across the country—I’m not the only one doing this, there’s a lot of people doing some great stuff.”
For further information on Real Food Initiatives and Let’s Move, visit the Web sites: www.realfoodinitiatives.com and www.letsmove.gov.
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