OVS Food Services

In the OVS Kitchens, Fresh and From Scratch Are a Way of Life

By Misty Hall

When it comes to cookies, Gina Fontana doesn’t mess around. And neither do her legions of fans — whether they be wide-eyed third graders in the lunch line, or fully grown adults bidding thousands of dollars at the Gala’s live auction, all for the chance to win a monthly platter of her confections.

Fontana has perfected her cookie recipes over 25 years as Ojai Valley School’s Director of Food Services. But it is the wholesome, fromscratch foods she and her team prepare and serve up daily that has the biggest impact. They feed more than 400 mouths, five days a week, across two campuses. And that’s just for lunch.

As it turns out, this is becoming increasingly rare in the world of education. According to a 2015 USDA study, 20% of school districts outsource their food services to large corporations. But in the days when more and more schools are shuttering their traditional kitchens, OVS has leaned in, expanding its food options to be more inclusive, constructing an outdoor servery at the Lower Campus, and building a new kitchen and servery as part of the $16.5 million Upper Campus rebuild.

And the reason for this is simple: Healthy food supports healthy bodies and minds. It also creates a sense of community at a boarding school where resident students in grades 3-12 gather like a big family for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Fontana strives to create menus that will appeal to boarding and day students across the grade levels, and please the palates of their adult educators, too. Picky kindergarteners, vegan teachers, international students — everyone finds plenty to fill their bellies, thanks to the folks in the OVS kitchens.

Meat and vegetarian entrées are complemented by the full salad bar, fresh fruits and vegetables, homemade soups, and plenty of sides. (And, yes, sometimes dessert!) The new food allergy key helps eaters avoid problematic ingredients. Menus change each week, and cater to the tastes and preferences at each campus. Kid favorites like mac ’n’ cheese and PB&Js are served alongside perennial favorites like chile Colorado burritos, tomato pesto pizza, Greek chicken pitas with tzatziki sauce, snapper Veracruz, chicken curry salad, fried chicken, egg drop soup and grilled teriyaki salmon.

And with remarkably few exceptions, it’s all made by hand, from scratch. “If we want watermelon for dessert, we’ll buy cases of watermelon and cut it up. Same for cantaloupe, strawberries, whatever,” said Fontana. “And the salad — we don’t buy pre-mixed salad. It’s not a bag we open. We wash, chop, and mix four kinds of lettuce, every single day.”

Gina's famous cookies, made from scratch

Holly Jones prepares fresh guac at the Lower Campus.

On any given day, incredible smells waft across the campuses as the staff hand-makes falafels from garbanzo beans, or rolls individual meatballs, or tops their droolworthy focaccia with fresh herbs from the garden. Walk into the Lower Campus kitchen on a Wednesday morning and you might find Holly Jones and Alicia Diaz prepping Mexican food. A variety of school-grown chiles, which Felipe Gonzalez lovingly tends and roasts himself, become the base for their salsas. Avocados — often local and courtesy of the Wayman-Dalo family — are combined with fresh-cut lemon, onion, tomato, cilantro and spices for the guacamole. At the Upper Campus, the staff might be making Chico Covarrubias’ secret homemade salsa recipes. Chico retired this summer after 40 years at OVS (see story on page 40), but his salsa remains the stuff of legend. Although Fontana’s crew has it all down to a science (you have to, when feeding this many people), she leaves room for creativity and innovation. “That’s one of my favorite parts of the job!” she said. “You can experiment, and you get instant feedback from the kids.”

Recently, the Upper Campus dining staff created a gourmet burger bar with brioche rolls, eggs, bacon, chipotle mayo, arugula, and loads of other toppings. At the Lower Campus, she teamed up with Jones to craft the ultimate homemade granola bars. “That was so fun!” Jones said of the process. “We started with, ‘What’s a pre-k kid and eighth grader going to like, what will the staff like, and what’s going to fill them up?’ Then, what do we need to cut for food allergies? And we went from there.” Pumpkin seeds replaced peanuts; golden raisins, honey and coconut replaced refined sugars; oats and rice cereal gave it weight and substance. The result was a Goldilocks story — light and crispy but not too crumbly, sweet but not full of sugar. (Bonus: they’re vegan and gluten free.) Sometimes, their culinary creativity is borne out of a need to speed up a process (as it turns out, cinnamon rolls made with biscuit dough actually taste amazing, and don’t require hours to rise). Sometimes, the challenge is to find replacements for allergy-causing foods, or to incorporate new ingredients inspired by evolving eating habits. They’ve begun offering things like overnight oats and nut milks, which have been especially popular at the high school. “We’re also trying to eliminate cream from our soups. And, we no longer use gluten in our soups,” Fontana said. “We’re using potato flour and rice flour instead.”

Chico Covarrubias checks the temperature of his teriyaki salmon in the new Upper Campus servery.

Fresh roasted veggies

Curried chicken with steamed broccoli

Local citrus, from Friend’s Ranches

Often, the kitchen’s creativity comes out of a desire to use up leftovers. Extra ground beef from tacos can be combined with sautéed onions and cheese for beef sliders; mini bagels from snack can be transformed into croutons for chef’s salad. Everything else tends to find its way to smorgasbord day.

Not surprisingly, this all culminates in some pretty epic meals. “Through the course of a very satisfying 36-year career, working in nine different schools, I can unequivocally say that the food at OVS is head and shoulders above anything else that I have encountered in a school setting,” said Director of Development Brian Schlaak. “Gina and her team are miracle workers.” For these miracle workers, Fontana said, this is more than just a job. “They are incredibly dedicated. We’re really proud of our Food Services. We all love what we do.”

And that dedication doesn’t go unnoticed. “The best part about the food at OVS is the staff,” said Destani Cuccio (L13), now a Lower Campus dorm parent. “Attending this school as a student for over 10 years, then coming back as a staff member, the kitchen staff greeted me as though I had never left … I have so much appreciation for how hard they work.”

Head of Upper Campus Craig Floyd (U83) feels the same way. “They take such good care of us,” he said, “and they take such pride in what they do. It really shines through. They are absolutely part of our family.”

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Their job goes well beyond food preparation, carrying over into education, etiquette, and even sustainability. It’s not unusual to hear the kitchen staff gently encouraging students to try a new food. “I know who will just want two carrots, but we’ll say, ‘Hey, want to try a beet today?’” Jones said. All students are asked to have a fruit, a vegetable and a protein, but younger students might not know the difference. “We might look at a plate and say, ‘Well, you need a protein,’ but then you can explain that we have seeds, nuts, edamame, peanut butter, yogurt, or almond milk,” along with the entrée offerings, Fontana said.

The staff also knows that sometimes, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, so students are encouraged to take only what they’ll eat — and to scrape their plates into the compost bin when they’re through. “We’re teaching them early about conservation, recycling, not wasting,” Fontana said. Both campuses participate in composting programs, and steer clear of single-use items. They have even begun setting aside apple and carrot scraps for the equestrian program to make horse cookies.

The culmination of it all belies the term “Food Services,” Fontana said. “When you look at that term, Food Services, it sounds so industrial, so commercial, so automated. But what we do is so much more than that. This is really home cooking. It’s the comforts of home. It’s about connections, relationships. It’s about community.”

OVS Food: Fast Facts

15: Total kitchen staff on both campuses

406: Number of students and staff fed daily during the school year

10,720: Pounds of oranges, tangerines and apples consumed annually

13,500: Number of cage-free eggs consumed annually

17,760: Number of milk cartons kept out of the landfill, thanks to reusable cups and six-gallon milk dispensers

Gina’s Lemon Bars

A refreshing treat that celebrates Ojai’s most famous export: citrus!

CRUST

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 cup sifted powdered sugar 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour and powdered sugar to combine. Make a well in the center and pour in the melted butter and vanilla. Stir to combine well. Press this into a 13” x 9” pan and work the dough up the side of the pan about 1/2 inch and smooth the bottom. Bake the crust until set and slightly brown. Remove from oven and set aside while you prepare the filling.

FILLING

6 large eggs (at room temp.) 2 1/2 cups sugar 1 cup + 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (4 to 6 lemons) zest of 4 lemons 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Whisk the eggs and sugar until well combined and the sugar has slightly dissolved. Whisk in the vanilla to combine. 2. Stir in the zest and juice from the lemons. 3. Sift the flour onto the top of the lemon mixture. Blend until fully combined (no lumps). 4. Carefully pour this onto the crust base. Bake until set, approx. 30 to 40 minutes. 5. Garnish with powdered sugar (optional). Cool completely before cutting. Refrigerate leftovers.

MOROCCAN VEGETABLE SOUP

A hearty fall favorite sure to please vegans and carnivores alike.

1 small yellow onion, diced 2 teaspoons minced garlic 1 small butternut squash or 1/2 large squash 2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into thick quarters 2 potatoes, peeled and diced 2 to 3 zucchini diced 1 29-oz. can fire-roasted tomatoes, rough puree 2 cups garbanzo beans, rinsed 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon coriander, ground 1/2 teaspoon allspice, ground 1/2 cup olive oil Vegetable broth, 1 to 2 quarts 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped Salt and pepper to taste Optional: red pepper flakes

1. In a large soup pot on medium heat, add the olive oil and onions and sauté until softened. Lower the heat and stir in all the dried spices. Cook until fragrant. Add garlic and continue cooking 1 to 2 minutes. 2. Add the fire-roasted tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and squash. Pour in the vegetable stock to just cover the vegetables. Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Turn heat up to medium and bring to a low simmer for 20 minutes. 3. Add the zucchini and cook until all vegetables are tender. Add salt and pepper if needed, and red pepper flakes if you like it spicy (optional). Add cilantro just before serving.

CHICKEN CURRY SALAD

A fan favorite at both campuses, this salad is great on its own, in a wrap, or on a croissant.

2 bone-in chicken breasts, cooked and shredded 1/2 cup green onions, finely chopped 1/2 cup celery, finely chopped 1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped 1/2 cup dried cranberries 1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds Fresh-squeezed juice from 1 small orange 1/4 cup mango chutney, pureed 3/4 to 1 cup mayonnaise 1 tablespoon curry powder (or to taste) Salt and pepper to taste

1. Place the mayonnaise, curry powder, juice and chutney in a medium bowl and whisk until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. 2. Add chicken, onions, celery, and parsley. Stir to combine well. Add salt and pepper if needed. 4. Fold in cranberries and slivered almonds.

Serve on a bed of lettuce mix, in a croissant or sliced bread.