PPS Cooks+Gardens

Making personal pizzas with Chef Michelle Fuerst

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Fresh-picked sorrel from the JW-PPS gardens was among the toppings available for home-made pizzas during a recent food literacy session.
Fresh-picked sorrel from the JW-PPS gardens was among the toppings available for home-made pizzas during a recent food literacy session.
Pizza dough, mid-process, is yeasty and slightly sticky.
Pizza dough, mid-process, is yeasty and slightly sticky.
Chef demonstrates kneading the dough at the mirrored work station.
Chef demonstrates kneading the dough at the mirrored work station.
Start with crust, and then, anything goes with personal pizzas.
Start with crust, and then, anything goes with personal pizzas.
After the dough had risen slowly overnight to develop flavor and texture, the students began shaping portions of it into pizza shells.
After the dough had risen slowly overnight to develop flavor and texture, the students began shaping portions of it into pizza shells.
Potato, gorgonzola, sorrel and red onion pizza, fresh from the oven.
Potato, gorgonzola, sorrel and red onion pizza, fresh from the oven.

New kitchen sinks and faucets from a new partner

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BEFORE: Janet Gaudino, 8th grade science teacher and advisor to JW Cooks, at the small double-basin sinks that date the Teaching Kitchens to a time when very little food was made from whole ingredients. Check back soon for the AFTER picture!
BEFORE: Janet Gaudino, 8th grade science teacher and advisor to JW Cooks, at the small double-basin sinks that date the Teaching Kitchens to a time when very little food was made from whole ingredients. Check back soon for the AFTER picture!

We are delighted to announce a new partnership with Debbie Schaefer and Mrs G’s Appliances for the benefit of food literacy efforts at Princeton Public Schools.

Debbie, granddaughter of the original Mrs G (Beatrice Greenberg) is donating 5 new single-basin stainless steel sinks and high-rise faucets from Mrs G’s for updating the JW Teaching Kitchens. Gary Weisman, Director of Plant Operations at PPS, will supervise the renovations under the director of Jason Burr, principal at the John Witherspoon Middle School.

The kitchens, once used for Home Economics classes, and more recently for Modern Living classes, are now home to JW Cooks, a seed-to-table after-school program our nonprofit created for middle schoolers four years ago and, in a long-time goal realized, will be added to the school day as a class in January 2016!

Thank you, Debbie. We look forward to sharing stories, food, produce and more as your gardens grow at your shiny new store (2720 U.S. Route 1 North). And we look forward to visits from you and your chef, Nirit Yadin! And we look forward to seeing the students maneuvering their stockpots and big saute pans into the new sinks for sudsing – with ease!

Read more about Debbie’s story and Mrs G’s here. And read her blog, where you can find posts on good deals at the store and snippets about her life and thoughts. Here’s a recent favorite on how the new logo (see it on our home page) for the store came into being.