Childhood Hunger

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Summary:

Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline helps area residents.

August 31

Cooking course offers ingredients for cheap & healthy food

Star-Telegram
Alex Branch
August 27, 2009

FORT WORTH, TEXAS — It sounded like a busy restaurant, with the clacking of knives on cutting boards, sizzling skillets and clanging cooking sheets.

The aromas wafting from the kitchen suggested a fancy meal.

But these cooks used nothing but common and cheap ingredients to create tasty concoctions.

“We’re doing a nice vegetable medley with cilantro over brown rice,” said Shirley Gardner, a resident at the Amelia Parc Senior Apartments in Fort Worth. “Nothing too complicated, but it should taste good.”

Gardner and about a dozen other apartment residents were cooking Tuesday as part of the Tarrant Area Food Bank’s Operation Frontline, a program for people with hardships and fixed or low incomes. The program teaches adults, teenagers and children how to prepare healthy meals with affordable ingredients.

And at a time when family budgets have tightened, the classes are soaring in popularity. The demand has led the food bank to expand the program with extra classes next month.

Relying on volunteer nutritionists, dietitians and professional chefs, the six-class course teaches everything from baking to kitchen knife skills to food budgeting.

“When money is tight, fast food can feel like the most convenient way to eat,” said Annamarie Saavedra, Operation Frontline coordinator. “We’re showing people that it is possible to eat healthy without spending a lot of money.”

[continued at star-telegram.com]

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