Before our first kitchen class this week, we visited Ms. Webb’s and Ms. Francis’s classrooms to read Norah Dooley’s book Everybody Cooks Rice and started to explore with the first graders how many different people make one nation. This week, we read The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin about a young girl and her mother, who, unlike the neighbors who grow beautiful flowers in their yards, grows Chinese vegetables in her garden. She cooks the vegetables into a delicious soup, which is then enjoyed by everyone in the neighborhood. The neighbors trade bouquets of flowers for bowls of the delicious soup, and the next season finds all the families on the block growing both Chinese vegetables and colorful flowers.
In celebration of the Chinese and Chinese-American food tradition covered in the book, we made fried rice featuring local, seasonal, not-at-all-ugly watermelon radish, bok choy, romanesco, carrots, purple cabbage, cilantro, and green onions. The first graders attacked their prep jobs with gusto, chopping vegetables, cracking eggs, and taking turns at the wok. Many had seconds and made us promise we’d send the recipe home. We hope you all make it, with whatever vegetables you like best!
