by VERONICA A. CLARK
IAIA’s first Food Day held in late October was a success, according to Guido Lambelet, general manager of Bon Appetit and JoAnn Bishop, fitness and wellness director.
“I think the most successful thing was the food,” Bishop said.
She said all the students, faculty, staff, and even some members of the community were able to sit together and enjoy an appetizing and healthy meal. “The quality and the selection was just delicious.”
Making Connections
Not only did everyone have the opportunity of enjoying a good meal, but it gave Lambelet the opportunity to connect with more providers of fresh food.
“I met the people from Santa Ana Pueblo,” he said. “We get all our produce from La Montonita CoOp, but the people I met said we could start getting it directly from them.”
Lambelet explained that the corn meals, which are used for making gluten-free pancakes, breading, muffins, bread and some pizza dough, as well as the blue corn porridge for blue corn mornings, all come from Santa Ana Pueblo.
“Santa Ana meal has quality products,” Bishop said. “So we’re really happy to partner with them.”
Lambelet had the opportunity to meet the people from Cooking With Kids at food day and connected with them as well. “They’re always wanting chefs,” he said. “We’re going to start working with them.”
The café will start serving produce from IAIA’s garden, Lambelet said. He met with Ken Kuhne, owner of Grow Y’own, the company that makes the above-ground gardens at IAIA. Kuhne is willing to teach Lambelet how to harvest the produce.
“We’ll have an expo station [in the café] and feature everything that we’ve harvested,” Lambelet said.
Talk of More to Come
“If anyone has questions, comments, or suggestions on future events, I’m very happy to hear about it,” Bishop said. “There’s been talk about having another [food day] next year.”
(Featured photo: Carol Reed carries away a plate of healthy food. Guido Lambelet serves fresh food to a long line of students. Photo by Veronica A. Clark)
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Guido as the head chef needs to be replaced. The menu needs to be revised and the specialty food and dishes are not working. Overly spiced and never no meat. This weekend there was no milk. Last month no beverages due to no CO2 tanks. Leftover food is what we are being served and I pay over 1700.00 dollars every semester. Some days there are no clean dishes or spoons and forks.