Episode Details

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Anthony Godfrey;
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Some call them short order cooks working in a school cafeteria that is like no other.

On this episode of the Supercast, we celebrate Thanksgiving at the Kauri Sue Hamilton School, where cafeteria staff make sure the holiday is celebrated in fun and festive ways for students with special needs. Find out how these incredible food service workers use a unique set of cooking skills to make sure every meal is custom made to meet the varied needs of the many students they serve.

We're here in the cafeteria of Kauri Sue Hamilton School with Katie Bastian to talk about what happens for Thanksgiving dinner today.

Katie Bastian:
We do a full feast.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the feast that is laid before the students here at Kauri Sue Hamilton School.

Katie Bastian:
It's a pretty typical Thanksgiving dinner. You've got your turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, yams, stuffing, pumpkin pie.

Anthony Godfrey:
And a lot of it is made from scratch, which is really the signature move of the Nutrition Services Department. As director, you've explained before that this really cuts down on our reliance on outside companies to prepare food in advance and makes for a better meal.

Katie Bastian:
It does, yeah, where we have fully staffed kitchens with labor, all of our kitchens are fully operational with equipment. We make all of our food here, you know, onsite. It's not reheated and served. It's all made onsite. We do make a lot of things from scratch and it lets us have control of the quality.

Anthony Godfrey:
And is this the same type of meal that will be prepared in schools throughout the district?

Katie Bastian:
Yes, yes. During this week, there are a couple of them on different days, but yes, every student during the school district will have access to a Thanksgiving feast. And then, Kauri Sue has a lot of dietary modifications. So we're doing some special things here, just like they do in the other schools, but there's more here. Like, we'll do gluten-free gravy, gluten-free roll, you know, things along those lines. So with some small modifications, most students should be able to eat it.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's wonderful that you customize the meals to the extent that you do so that even students with those dietary restrictions here at Kauri Sue Hamilton School, where our students with the most severe disabilities receive an education, it's just wonderful that you still make those traditional meals available to students in the same way.

Katie Bastian:
Yeah, the staff goes above and beyond at this school. They do extra texture modifications and dietary modifications that most of the other schools don't see. So, again, they're in it for the kids. They go above and beyond. We're lucky to have a registered dietitian on staff to make sure all the students within our district are taken care of and have what they need. So if they want to eat with us, they can.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now tell me about the texture modifications as well.

Katie Bastian:
So purees, different textures, ground, that type of modification. So if a student can't–

Anthony Godfrey:
So that something's more finely ground so that it's easier for the