Greens, Handmade Foods Draw Kids

DAYTON - How many of us recall fondly the hot lunches of our early school days?

Movies and television shows depicting lukewarm mystery meat and grayish slop dashed onto plastic trays might be a touch melodramatic, but the image is grounded in somebody's reality. Right?

Well, Dayton School District has hired a new chef who appears to be dispelling those lunchroom myths, and Superintendent Doug Johnson says the numbers prove it.

"Just today we served our highest lunch count of the year - 253 students," Johnson said last Thursday.

This chef isn't new to Dayton. She's been serving handmade soups, salads and meals at Dayton General Hospital for a decade. But this fall, Angie Monyak decided to take her love for nutritious and wholesome food to the youth of Dayton.

"Someone told me the position was open and thought I'd make a good fit," Monyak said. "I was a little worried though. It's scary to make a change, and I'd been with the hospital for 10 years."

At the panel interview, she wowed her interviewers with an unexpected four-course meal. "Oh it was fabulous," said Mikki Smith, who has worked in the district cafeteria for three years. "Pear tart, chicken Caesar roll ups, broccoli salad, and homemade cowboy chili."

Now Monyak is wowing the students and staff at the school with her handmade muffins and pancakes and her extremely popular full salad bar (for high schoolers and adults) and full mixed salad for elementary students.

"When I got here, they'd been using a lot of premade frozen foods, and I'm not a big fan of that," Monyak said.

The changes have been well received.

"Oh my gosh! Our lunches have vastly improved," said Kristina Mascall, a kindergarten through third grade paraprofessional who has been with the district for eight years. "They are more colorful. The children can serve themselves the salad. I actually eat lunches here now, and I didn't before. There's been a lot more interest in hot lunch this year."

Clairabelle Bowen, a 6-year-old first grader at Dayton, had three helpings of the mixed salad during lunch last Thursday. "It's really good," she said. And she'll eat it all, Mascall said.

But it's not just the young students who are excited about the new menu. "We actually have high school kids coming into the lunchroom now," Smith said.

Many high schoolers were familiar with Monyak's cooking from visiting the cafeteria at the hospital at lunch time and are now giving the lunchroom a try, Monyak said. An average number from the first part of the school year was five or so high schoolers. Now, some days, as many as 25 eat hot lunch, she said.

"And quite a few staff come in now-a-days, too. Probably five or six a day; there used to hardly be any," Smith said.

Becky Kessinger, who has worked in the Dayton School District lunchroom for 14 years, commented not only on the creative new menu but also the positive atmosphere in the cafeteria. "I think we're extremely fortunate to have Angie," she said. "She's not afraid to give the students something different that they might not like the first time."

After winter break, which begins this Friday, students and staff can expect a few more creative surprises in the cafeteria, Monyak said. She is planning to try out more homemade soups - such as her famous clam chowder (well known at the hospital café).

"I'm kind of excited to see how the kids like it," she said. "I like exposing them to foods they may have never had before."

It's not all creativity and fun, though. Superintendent Johnson said that Monyak and her staff are required to meet a challenging number of federal mandates related to food service. Monyak said she would come to work sometimes as early as 3:30 a.m. (instead of the usual 5:30 a.m.) to have time to learn the menu software and get everything ready to go.

"Our goal is to increase the number of entrees made from scratch," Johnson said. "This past week we served Brussel sprouts, and I was surprised at the high number of students who told me they liked them. Encouraging students to try new foods can be difficult."