November 26, 2024
By Alison Lorenz, WSG Communications Project Coordinator
For Julia Richfield, 2022 was a year of new things. She moved to a new place–Chehalis, Washington–and got a new job in a new field. With some front-of-house experience in restaurants and zero professional cooking experience, Richfield became the food service director at Boistford School. She went from having never cooked professionally to doing all of the ingredient ordering, menu writing, cooking and serving for the school’s 90 students, preparing breakfast and lunch five days a week.
“It’s been a learning experience, and I’ve learned a lot,” Richfield says.
Richfield’s baked salmon with citrus prepared for school lunches. Photo courtesy of Julia Richfield.
At Boistford School, it’s just Richfield in the kitchen. Being a one-woman operation means she has a lot of flexibility when it comes to what to serve students each week. Her new role gives her the opportunity to put one of her own passions on the menu: seafood.
Richfield grew up on Bainbridge Island with a father who was a seafood broker and recreational fisherman. As a result, her family ate all kinds of fish. Richfield says she liked it all. One particularly fond memory is going squid fishing with her dad at night, when the squid were bioluminescing during mating season. She and her dad cooked their catch as soon as they got home.
Of course, not everyone grows up with these experiences, and Richfield acknowledges the cost of a sea-sourced meal can be high.
“It made me realize that even if people want to serve their kids seafood, it might not always be reasonable for them to do financially,” she explains. “So [I thought]: wouldn’t it be great if they could experience it in school for free?” Whatever Richfield serves at Boistford School, the cost to parents is the same. So she set out to bring more seafood to her students’ plates.
Salmon chowder and healthy sides for a school lunch. Photo courtesy of Julia Richfield.
Her first year on the job, Richfield’s students sampled baked salmon, salmon chowder, teriyaki salmon steaks, and salmon burgers. Teriyaki salmon was by far the fan favorite. “What I really like to see is kids come back for seconds when they don’t know what it is they ate,” Richfield says. “It’s like–can I have more of that stuff? They really liked it, not just the idea of it.” The kids don’t always go for flavors that may be unfamiliar to them. But to Richfield, just getting them to try it is a win too: “You can’t make them like it, but they can have an experience with it in a positive atmosphere.” She has plans to expand her seafood offerings this school year to options like crab and shrimp. Both can be prepared in simple, delicious ways–like crab cakes or shrimp pasta–and both, like salmon, can be bought in Washington.
A key way Richfield has been able to bring seafood into her school is through a United States Department of Agriculture grant Boistford received last year. The awarded money needed to be spent on locally-produced food, so Richfield loaded up on fish–specifically, Washington-caught salmon. She notes that the grant helped simplify a process that can seem very complicated. Schools have strict food safety and preparation rules and regulations, and limited budgets. In a tangle of unknowns–is the food approved? Will it break the bank? Is it difficult to cook?–Richfield knew that if she wanted Pacific Northwest salmon, she could have it.
That kind of ease is “the key to open the door,” she says. “You already know it’s approved, it’s paid for, you see photos on the websites–you know it’s something you can do automatically.”
More grants or other types of incentives could continue to make it easier for schools like Boistford to source fresh, local and healthy food for students. Richfield also says that input from parents and community members is important. When trying something new, like procuring or preparing fish in school, regulations and inertia can make it tough to get the ball rolling. But knowing something is important to parents and the community can provide a helpful nudge.
“It’s important to me to use local products,” Richfield says, noting that food that comes from farther away is both not as fresh and worse on the planet. At Boistford School, students benefit from her attention to quality ingredients–including Washington seafood.
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Washington Sea Grant, based at the University of Washington, helps people and marine life thrive through research, technical expertise and education supporting the responsible use and conservation of coastal ecosystems. Washington Sea Grant is one of 34 Sea Grant programs supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in coastal and Great Lakes states that encourage the wise stewardship of our marine resources through research, education, outreach and technology transfer.
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NOV
2024