Author Archives: cecarrol

Update on Chrissy’s Practicum!

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I’ve been working on my practicum since May. As I described in my initial post, May and June were filled with lots of logistical issues to tackle regarding food safety, scheduling, and selecting recipes.

We started attending the markets in late June, and had several “kick-off” events that we completed with key members of the community. We were lucky enough to work with the Mayor’s office to coordinate a joint kick-off event with the Mayor, the Department of Agriculture, WIC, and the Department of Transitional Assistance. The photo below is from the South Station farmers market in downtown Boston, and shows my coworker and I with Mayor Menino doing a food demo for “veggie salsa”. Here is a link to the news write-up about it on UMass Extension’s website! – http://www.umassextension.org/index.php/component/content/article/49/703-mayor-menino

For 6 weeks, we did awesome food demos at the markets. We provided samples for people which were prepared in a licensed kitchen ahead of time and kept under mechanical refrigeration, and provided copies of the recipe for people to take home. People were very receptive to this, and we ended up giving out between 60 and 112 samples & recipes at each market (we stayed 2-4 hours at each and 112 was the max our fridge held).

However, at the 6 week mark, our fridges started to fail and weren’t maintaining proper temperature. We have since been working with Inspectional Services on a new plan. Unfortunately, it has been really tough to find models that do keep temperature outside on hot summer days that are also light enough for staff to carry and small enough to fit in our cars.

We are still working to come up with a solution to this issue. However, in the meantime, we have been giving out healthy recipes which I selected from UMass Extension’s website (check out the recipe database here – http://www.umassextension.org/nutrition/index.php/publications/recipes/recipes), as well as handouts on nutrition education.

I’ve currently been working on developing/conducting evaluation, and will hopefully have some good information to share soon!

Intro to Chrissy’s Practicum – Farmers Market Education and Demos

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Hi All!

For my practicum, I am working on a brand new partnership between UMass Extension, the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, and WIC.  This is a state level partnership which is being piloted in Boston with the potential to be expanded in future years.

Over the past 2 months, I’ve been working a lot on the logistics of our project.  I’ve completed our application to Inspectional Services (which was approved – success!), developed and coordinated a market schedule that works for our educators and market masters, selected recipes to prepare at the markets, completed my ServSafe training, and more.

One thing I’ve learned so far is how much work goes into creating and executing a project like this!  There are so many food safety regulations relating to providing samples of food at the markets.  I recently attended a meeting with the city’s Inspectional Services department to learn more about the regulations, meet the inspectors, and learn everything that I’ll need to be on top of throughout the summer.  Some examples:

  • Any samples we provide at the market must be prepared ahead of time in a licensed kitchen.  This meant that we could not use our office’s kitchen, so I’ve had to work with a local school district to obtain permission to use their licensed kitchen throughout the week.
  • We can demo recipes at the market, but the food we demo cannot actually be provided for consumption.  Only the samples prepared at the licensed facility can be provided for consumption.  This creates additional budgetary concerns, as we want to show and educate people how to make healthy foods – so we will need to purchase additional food to demo that can’t actually be eaten.
  • All samples have to be under mechanical refrigeration – no coolers!  Another issue we weren’t expecting, which is causing us to purchase refrigerators as well as verify that there will be electricity at markets.

Overall, it’s been a great learning process thus far and has certainly brought me up to speed with food safety issues!  Next on the agenda is developing/selecting education materials for the markets, continuing to coordinate schedules, speaking to staff about the importance of fruit/vegetable consumption at our next staff meeting, and starting to  attend the actual markets on June 21st!  We’re hoping to have the Mayor do a food demo with us during the first week or two – I’ll keep you posted!