New York Times: Harlem Pupils Meet Swiss Chard

"Eating at the Promise Academy is about more than just the food. Children learn to respect where it comes from and who serves it, as well as whom they eat with. They must use tongs to pick up their morning bagels. They may not bang their trays down on the cloth-covered cafeteria tables. No one is allowed to toss out whole peaches or to cut in line.

To make it all work, Mr. Canada relies on Andrew Benson, a young chef with a culinary degree from Johnson and Wales University. Mr. Benson, a veteran of three public school cafeterias in Harlem, said he was defeated by the city's school food bureaucracy. (Actual cooking from scratch is done in less than half of the city's 1,356 schools.) "

This is what I've been wanting for America for a long time now, ever since coming to france almost 15 years ago. I said to everyone "If back in the US they could imagine this kind of life, where the school and work cafeterias are good and you go to the "market" and not to the "supermarket" to buy food, then I think that they would prefer it. And I think that Americans deserve it!"

I'll be watching to see the outcome of "Promise Academy" and their experiment.