Feeding Yourself: Meal Planning & Cooking Basics

My last post before leaving for Summer Break concerns the basics of how to feed yourself: meal planning and preparation. Cooking can be immensely rewarding, and at a minimum cooking for yourself will save you money, support healthy nutrition, and minimize your reliance on highly processed foods. Hot Pockets are fine once in a while, but it's no replacement for whole foods that you prepare yourself. Even if you're heading off to college and plan to live on campus with a meal plan, knowing a few go-to dishes will put you miles ahead when you decide to cook dinner for your date, bring something to a department potluck, or just break the monotony of dining hall pizza.

Food writer Michael Pollan has an excellent list of Food Rules that you would do well to internalize. It all boils down to this: Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.

Meal Planning and Prep
The Beginners Guide to Meal Planning
The Best Way to Use a Weekend for Meal Planning Success
10 Best Tips for Meal Planning for One
5 Things Expert Meal Planners Do Before Going to the Grocery Store

Cooking Basics
12 Cooking Basics Everyone Should Know
Gordon Ramsey: How To Master 5 Basic Cooking Skills -- knife skills! Stay out of the ER!
How To Cook For Beginners - The Essentials
https://watch.tastemade.com/adulting
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/cooking-for-yourself

What to cook?
Tools and techniques are great, but you still need to know what to cook. Leanne Brown's free 'Good & Cheap' cookbook is a great place to start. The recipes are delicious, the techniques are basic, and it's oriented around eating well on the cheap. Great for starting out!
Leanne Brown's Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4 a Day

Want to take your cooking to the next level? Check out Stephane's 'French Cooking Academy' on YouTube. It's the complete Auguste Escoffier method of French cooking, from soup to nuts, and you can learn it all for free. Here is his Online Cooking Course for Beginners.

Food is the world on a plate: history, culture, language, travel... it's literally endless. If you just want to learn how to make tasty food for yourself and your friends, it's all that too. Dig in!

OSPI News Release: Find a Summer Meal Site Near You!

OLYMPIA — June 16, 2020 — The number of locations that students can receive free meals from has grown, thanks to new locations offering meals through the annual Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).

SFSP provides children with nutritious meals during the summer. Sponsors may operate the program in areas where 50% or more of the children in the area are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.

Summer meal programs help children aged 18 and under get the nutrition they need to learn, play, and grow during the summer. This federally-funded program is sponsored by many organizations throughout our state, including schools, nonprofit organizations, local governments, tribes, and more.

SFSP is separate from meal programs operated by the school district during school closures, which may be continuing to providing meals over the summer. Contact your district for more information.

To find a Summer Meals site near you, please use a Summer Meals Locator: Text “food” or “comida” to 877–877, or you can also find summer meal sites online.

For more information, please contact the Child Nutrition Services department within the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction at 360–725–6200.

UW drops the SAT/ACT for admission PERMANENTLY

Big news today from the University of Washington. The UW will no longer require standardized test scores for freshman admissions beginning with the class of 2021, making permanent a change that was made due to the lack of testing sites because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The UW is dedicated to creating opportunities for the most promising students to learn and discover how they can make an impact,” UW President Ana Mari Cauce said. “Careful analysis and research showed that standardized testing did not add meaningfully to the prediction of student success that our holistic admission process already provides.”

You can read more here:
 UW removes standardized testing requirement for incoming students beyond fall 2021

Go Dawgs!

Gibson Ek Staff Statement on Current Events

All across this nation people are protesting unequal treatment under the law. Our goal is to help all of our students with their academic achievements and their social emotional health. As a part of this, we acknowledge systemic racism exists and are committed to ending these practices as we examine our own structures, institutions and practices. As a staff, we want students and parents to know we are committed to doing all that we can to support our students who experience racism either overtly, or implicitly. 
This is not intended to disregard others who experience oppression in other forms. We have been and will continue to support them. However, we believe a specific commentary on supporting our students of color is necessary.

Design Thinking in a Nutshell

Gibson Ek's own Jade Lawless has made a terrific video of her shoe customization enterprise that is a great case study in Design Thinking. Posted with permission...

RESOURCES FOR FAMILIES TO DISCUSS RACE, RACISM, AND INJUSTICE

The following was sent to subscribers of the Issaquah School District's eNews platform. It is reiterated here for those who might not be signed up for eNews.

Dear Issaquah School District community,

In a follow up to our message regarding the racism and violence we are seeing towards our black community, we wanted to let you know that we are continuing to compile resources for parents and students to have discussions around racism, injustice, protests, privilege, and trauma. Resources have been provided to meet the diverse needs of our families. Those resources are available on our website:

Resources for Black Families
Talking to Kids about Race

We will continue to update our resources, as this work is ongoing and not tied to a timeline. We also encourage you to look for resources that best meet the needs of your family and to continue to do your own learning and growing. As a district, we are also continuing our own work around racism, equity, diversity, and inclusion through professional development and listening sessions.

Thank you,
Alaina Sivadasan
Executive Director of Equity