Wesley Prep fourth graders have spent this school year brainstorming, taste-testing and tweaking recipes they have now accumulated into a cookbook.
The cookbook, “Our Common Table,” was created through a partnership with the school, Cafe Momentum and Bonton Farms. The project was led by Wesley Prep language arts and history teacher Lori Cousino.
“I’ve done an outreach project every year with my students, and we did things like raise money to build a well somewhere, hurricane relief,” Cousino told DFW Child. “But during the 2016 election when everyone felt so polarized, I wanted my kids to see that that’s not how it has to be.”
Cafe Momentum, in downtown Dallas, is a restaurant that employs teens recently released from juvenile detention center for a year-long paid internships. Bonton Farms, located in Bonton, is an urban farm providing fresh fruit and vegetables to a food desert area.
The project’s website explains the group focused on food because when people gather around tables and break bread, barriers are torn down.
In December, Cousino said her class surveyed various people about their favorite foods and submitted the list to Cafe Momentum. A chef at the cafe then combed through the list and provided recipes for each dish. Cousino and her class then altered the recipes to include ingredients from Bonton Farms, DFW Child reported.
The “Our Common Table,” cookbook is available online for $30, according to the project’s website. There will also be a dinner featuring recipes from the cookbook April 28 at Cafe Momentum.
