I loved the magic that occurred in my mother’s kitchen. I wanted to see and stir the steaming pots on the stove long before I could reach them. Thankfully, my mother tuned in to that desire, and would often pull her kitchen stool up to the stove, stand behind me, and let me ‘help’ her fix dinner. The things I witnessed there, with my mother guiding my hand, changed how I understood the world. Right there, we had the power to transform things from the garden, the market, or the grocery store into dinner.

Now I know that Mom was witnessing yet another kind of magic. The power to make her son eat anything she wanted. If I helped her clean, cut, and cook it, there was no way that I wasn’t going to at least taste something I’d never had before.

I now know the magic, because I see it all the time. Working in schools, I get to watch the amazement and joy on young faces as a seed transforms into a plant, and that plant into food! The eagerness to participate in that process is so naturally human, but so removed now from our lives. As a chef, I am clearly and potently aware of just how separate people are from the food that they eat. As an educator, I am grateful for the opportunity to close that distance for so many students.

So, when a second grader marvels at a squash vine, and the plump hard fruits of its labors, I am overjoyed.  Their teacher even more so, when the connections are furthered, and her students really get what she meant when she discussed with them the ways that native Americans lived and ate here centuries ago, and they truly begin to understand what is different and what is the same, then and now. I love when we get to cut into that squash and reveal its secrets. The students are connecting to the same magic I knew at my mother’s stove when they see the squash simmering away in their classroom. They get so excited to taste the soup we’ve made, and then I see the magic that my mother saw, as every student in the class ‘mmmms’ and delights at how delicious the squash they grew and cooked tastes!

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