Students Troy, Amanda and Jabaar prepare dishes during a food demonstration project at Locavore Kids 2011

Cassadaga Job Corps Academy culinary students were an instrumental part of this year’s LOCAVORE Kids event at Barlow’s Mill Farm in Fredonia, NY.  A locavore is a person that prefers to buy and consume food grown locally and not moved a long way to the market place. LOCAVORE Kids is a farming event that teaches children about locally grown food.  The children in attendance were given the opportunity to spend time on the farm, seeing how food is grown, how food is harvested, and how it tastes.  Job Corps students assisted farm owners Jim and Kay in setting up the displays and assisted with the cooking demonstrations.  Culinary students prepared tasty creations such as bruschetta made from freshly grown tomatoes, cucumber salad, roasted potatoes and tzatziki.  Students worked with Barlow Mill owner Kay Barlow the week before to learn the recipes and become familiar with what they were making.  At Locavore students prepared the dishes and conducted short demonstrations providing a working example of how to prepare the dishes with an explanation of what they were doing.  All dishes were offered for sampling upon their completion for all of those in attendance.  Students also manned other stations to teach children about the importance of conservation and the differences between organically grown vegetables and those grown conventionally.  Some of the other activities and stations at the event included a composting demonstration and explanation of how worms assist in the process, the henhouse with fresh eggs, an apple press and a complete tour of Barlow Mills extensive vegetable garden.  This is the second year that the culinary students from Cassadaga have been involved with this event.