By Monica Eng

meng@tribune.com
Just in time for the holidays, pastry queen Gale Gand
has come out with Brunch! 100 Fantastic Recipes for the
Weekends Best Meal (Clarkson Potter, $27.50), written
with Christie Matheson. Gand, executive pastry chef and
partner at Tru restaurant, hosted the cooking show Sweet
Dreams on the Food Network for eight years. In her new
cookbook, she offers recipes to dazzle guests and provides
primers on making brunch classics. Gand also serves up
her signature sweet surprises, with recipes such as ginger
scones with peaches and cream, orange-date muffins and
quick pear-streusel coffeecake. We recently caught up with
the mother of three to talk about why she thinks brunch is
the new dinner and how we can put together an impressive
holiday brunch.
Taste.
OCTOBER 1, 2015 FEATURES EDITOR: LAUREN CHAPMAN
Your guide to recipes, reviews and guides to your eating habits
Its National Grilled Cheese Day!
Inside, page 3
By Andrea Strong
astrong@foodnetwork.com
Lunch at many public schools across New York City
means chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks and mystery
meat sandwiches. But at P.S. 244, The Active Learning
Elementary School, in the Flushing neighborhood of
Queens, the menu sounds like this: Roasted Organic
Tofu with Sweet Curry Sauce, Braised Black Beans
with Plantains and Herbed Rice Pilaf, Chickpea
Falafel with Creamy Tofu Dressing, Lettuce
and Tomato and Loco Bread, and Mexican
Bean Chili. In April, it became the first public
school in the nation to become 100-percent
vegetarian. But theres more. To drink, theres
low-fat milk and water. No juice, no soda. And
the salad bar looks like something from a very
expensive day spa, not the 24-hour corner mart.
For Bob Groff, a co-founder and the principal
of P.S. 244, and the man who turned his menu
meatless, the need for better food was obvious. Kids
were drinking neon sugary drinks, eating cheese puffs,
losing focus and gaining weight. His students were not
alone. Nationwide, one in three children and adolescents is
obese or overweight, and childhood obesity has more than
doubled in the past 30 years. There is a strong correlation
between academic achievement and student health and
nutrition, said Groff. I wanted to prove that better nutri-
tion could make a difference to students lives.
The road from processed nuggets to homemade sesame
tofu was a long one. It began in 2008 when Groff, who has
a masters degree in public administration from Cornell and
was a corps member of Teach For America, engaged a non-
profit called Fan 4 Kids to provide a health and nutrition
class to grades kindergarten through three. For the first
couple of years, we felt like we needed to educate the kids
about health and nutrition, he says. The classes include
learning about food groups, information on exercise and
how to read nutrition labels.
Groff also created a school Wellness Counsel with staff,
parents and kids, and offered parent workshops on nutri-
tion as well. In one of the meetings, Groff says, a student
asked a question that truly put the ball in motion for bigger
change. The student said, chocolate milk has a lot of sugar
why are we drinking this? Groff remembers. I realized
that the kids had learned how to read nutrition labels. For
us, that was the real starting point to changing the menu.
To do so, Groff partnered with the New York Coalition
for Healthy School Food (NYCHSF), a nonprofit that works
with the New York City Office of School Foods to introduce
plant-based foods and nutrition education in schools.
After a few months of wrangling, chocolate milk was
a thing of the past. Next, NYCHSF received approval to
serve one vegetarian dish a week, and effectively turned
P.S. 244 into the test kitchen for vegetarian dishes across
the city. To involve the entire school community, Groff
and the NYCHSF started hosting annual family dinners to
show parents the kinds of foods they wanted to serve at the
school. Some parents were suspicious about what was being
served to their kids. But others came around. I had one
father come up to me and say, I send my daughter to school
with lunch every day, but now that I have tasted what you
are serving I will never send her with lunch again, Groff
remembers. Once kids started going home and requesting
brown rice instead of white, and actually asking for broc-
coli, Groff knew those seeds of change had taken root.
See LUNCH, Page 2A
the school lunch
Revolution
An experiment in all-vegetarian lunch-
es have students begging for their
vegetables and getting rid of sweets
I had one father come up to me and say, I send
my daughter to school with lunch every day, but
now that I have tasted what you are serving I
will never send her with lunch again.
Bob Groff,
P.S. 244, principal
Q&A:
Having
brunch
with Gale
Gand
DN PHOTO PHOTOGS NAME
Subject here in Scout bold 9pt/9pt rest of
caption here in scout light. Entire caption is 9/9.
Q.
Q.
Q.
Q.
Q.
A.
A.
A.
A.
A.
So why brunch?
What inspired these recipes?
I had twins four years ago, and I found I just couldnt
pull off a dinner party. It was too long, and it excluded
my kids too much. But with brunch I could have my kids
around, and the food is really flexible.
When Rick [Tramonto, her ex-husband and business
partner] and I were developing Osteria di Tramonto
and Gales Coffee Bar, neither of which is still there, we
cooked through tons of breakfast stuff, and we made a
lot of pastries for the coffee bar, so many of these recipes
come from there.
Is it also a more affordable way to have a festive meal?
What are some easy tips to impress people at brunch?
Do you have any tips for a holiday brunch?
It is more economical. Maybe the most expensive
ingredient will be your eggs, and you can use up bits of
leftover asparagus, leftover ham and leftover bread.
I had been doing a lot of colored and flavored ice
cubes on my show, and at Tru they are always a hit. You
can make cranberry juice ice cubes for lemonade that
makes it pink, or lemon ice cubes for hibiscus iced tea or
cinnamon ice cubes for iced coffee. My husband hates to
waste, so he always makes ice cubes with his leftover cof-
fee for iced coffee and it retains the richness.
I always recommend separating your shopping days
from your cooking days. And always choose something
that can be made ahead of time, like baked apple
French toast or a strata [think egg-based casserole]. I
think my favorite strata [in the book] is the chicken,
broccoli, corn, chilies and Jack strata. Make that with the
roasted pears with rhubarb and orange. You could also
go with The In-Laws are Coming! Brunch menu I have
in the book, which is orange-lime juice with grenadine,
baked eggs in ham cups and spiced apple-raisin turn-
overs, which are really easy.