Mexican Cooking

It is official. I am certifiably insane. Allow me to illustrate. With the help of a student teacher I agreed to do cooking with my students. All 315 of them. Can you imagine? Well I can imagine, and I agreed to do it. That's probably the first clue that my mental state is not what it should be. Not only that, in keeping with our theme from last term I thought we would do Mexican food. Which meant that we would prepare nachos with a number of side dishes including salsa, guacamole and a Mexican bean dip. Four items in 45 minutes with eleven classes. And there's more. There are many children with severe allergies (generally at least one per class) these allergies range in severity from having a mild reaction (requiring medication or antihistamine) after eating the offending food to children who become anaphalactic (requiring an ambulance and epipen) from merely touching the food. We also have children with celiac disease and diabetes. So you can imagine the permission slips I was getting back. Some kids were fine with everything, some could not eat wheat, gluten, eggs, dairy, nuts or seeds some were allergic to tomatoes or lemon juice, artificial colors or chemical additives (there's a surprise) and some were combinations of the above. Just keeping permission slips straight was a logistical nightmare, especially because we were using dairy, for some of the dishes at least and because the corn chip packages contained warnings that they may contain traces of seeds and nuts. Sheesh!

Anyway the shopping was done, the supplies carried in and the staff room prepped for a cooking marathon that would put any Iron chef professional to shame. Non-stop from 8:30 to 3:30 (2 days in a row) we were cleaning surfaces, scouring dishes and pans, checking, double checking and triple checking permission slips, going through safety measures with the kids and getting the students to do cooking jobs like grating cheese, slicing onions, mincing garlic, juicing lemons, mashing avocados, mixing salsa, draining and mashing kidney beans, stirring frijoles, sprinkling cheese and baking nachos to name but a few of the jobs. My student teacher T. and I were the ones dishing out the food as we didn't want to risk any cross contamination with allergy riddled kids. As soon as one class was ended it was time for the next. Some classes were super fussy and would only eat the nachos with salsa and sour cream not wanting to try the guacamole or bean dip. Some classes polished everything off with students coming back for thirds. That says something. But what I am most proud of is that there were no health related incidents. (I was a bit worried about one child for a minute but he turned out to be fine.) No one got sick or had seizures from touching the corn chips. The only casualty was a child who scraped her finger on the grater (occupational hazard) and the only culinary mishap was when one group, who have notoriously poor listening skills, did not follow directions and added all the garlic to the guacamole. On the bright side each kid who tried it (and ironically many wanted to because it was so abnormally strong) could vanquish an entire vampire army in a single breath. So, I guess that's a good thing. As was the cooking, though I am in no hurry to do it again.