Santa Cruz County is fortunate to have Jamie Smith as the school food service director……..talk about someone who lives and breathes healthy, from scratch cooking! He prides himself on sourcing as much locally grown food as possible for the Santa Cruz school district meals and always cooking from scratch.
His name may sound familiar to you since I have blogged about him before. Recently he came to Nevada County to assess our school and community kitchens to see which one is most viable for a scratch cooking program.
Before coming to school food, Jamie started out cooking in gourmet resturants across America, notably, New York’s famed Union Square Café and he once owned Santa Cruz’s popular Sestri restaurant. Thanks to celebrity chefs, food advocates and authors like the UK’s Jamie Oliver, talented chefs all over are taking a second glance at industrial food systems and realizing that there is a great deal of potential
I find myself continually checking his Facebook page and website for updates on what new and innovative things he is doing for his students.
I found this in-depth article about Jamie via the Edible Monterey magazine.
Here is one of the recipes that the Santa Cruz students love, Chicken Pot Pies from scratch.