Pizza, hamburgers, nachos, and chicken tenders remain the kids' go-to food choices, but Kim Leung is on a mission to change that at Goleta schools. Clocking in to her second year as the district's food services director, Leung (pronounced lee·ung) is a registered dietician who grew up in Oregon. She spent hours at a very young age chopping green beans for her mother's restaurant, and it took a while before she could bear to eat them. This could explain how she intuits so well the tasty sauces that kids love — as on the chipotle bean salsa salad she introduced last year and a kale salad whose honey-sesame dressing was a hit: "The 5th graders were competing to see who could eat the most!" she said in wonderment.
With new equipment — two gigantic cooking pots, a huge tilting frying pan, and a refrigerator-sized oven — purchased by the school board this year, Leung just needs a head chef to keep her scratch-cooking program growing. "Nowhere else in the food industry can you have a job that lets you off at 2:30 in the afternoon," she exclaimed, "and you never have to work nights or holidays!"
Leung's kitchen also won grants of more than $300,000 for state-grown foods, equipment, and nutrition education. Another grant kick-starts the district's "cooked from scratch" program for its nine schools. Visiting the main kitchen on Fairview Avenue is an annual field trip for several classes, which gives the kids a chance to learn about foods and Leung a chance to try out recipes or new vegetables. "We do fun things, like using our senses: What does it smell like, feel like?" she said. "Are you brave enough to lick it?"
