Common Threads' World Festival

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Alice Water's Op-Ed in the New York Times on Sunday, February 24, urged the country to move towards the model she has developed in the Edible Schoolyard at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley: "The study of food, and school lunch, should become part of the core curriculum for all students from kindergarten through high school." What does that mean practically? Money to support good programs across the country. One of these is the Chicago-based Common Threads: The mission of Common Threads is to provide a sanctuary for children to find the common threads that embrace our diversity and differences. With food and other arts as our vehicle for change, our children will teach, learn, share, and embrace their own and each others common threads. For these threads will promote understanding of our shared interests and will enhance our appreciation for our cultural diversity. The organization founded in 2003 by Art Smith, personal chef to Oprah Winfrey, is really focused on teaching needy kids about food through learning about other cultures. Linda Novick, Executive Director, explained Common Threads to Superchefblog: We teach children through cooking and food the values that are important to us all. Common Threads started a World Garden with vegetable varieties from around the globe where children can learn about how things grow. In the winter children can take classes like Indian food followed by yoga, or Chinese cuisine followed by tai chi. Combining hand-on-experience with food from other cultures with exercise tackles both nutrition and obesity. Common Threads will host the first annual "World Festival" event, on Monday, March 13, 2006, 6:00-9:00 p.m. at the Chicago Cultural Center. The World Festival will celebrate the food, drinks, music and instruments, arts, crafts, artifacts, customs and national costume dresses from countries around the world. Food will be provided by celebrity chefs including Govind Armstrong, Ming Tsai, Cat Cora, Tyler Florence, Gale Gand, Paul Kahan, Rocco DiSpirito, and Suvir Saran -- all of whom serve on the Common Threads Chefs Advisory Committee. Previous articles: Sustainable Seafood Day Cooking For Life: Vikas Khanna Jamie Oliver: School Lunch Alice Waters: Ms. Smith Goes to Washington Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, charity, philanthropy, education --> back to superchefblog