At Hunt Library: Growing and cooking perfect stir-fry

FALLS VILLAGE — On Wednesday, Aug. 19, at 3 p.m., the quest for the perfect vegetable stir-fry began in the Stone Soup Garden — a small enclosure located between and shared by the D.M. Hunt Library and the Lee H. Kellogg School.

Hunt Children’s Librarian Rita Delgado and a group of youngsters poked about in the garden and found, among other things, some rather impressive cucumbers.

Then it was back to the library, where Jenny Schwartz, who does education and outreach programs for the Berkshire Co-Op in Great Barrington, Mass., was waiting.

With a wok.

Schwartz was there to promote the idea of eating what is in season, so the vegetable and egg stir-fry on the menu contained things that are consistent with the summer growing season — squash, scallions, peppers, garlic.

She chose eggs as the protein, and brought along precooked brown rice.

She explained the co-op concept to the children, asking the group of eight or nine what they thought the co-op stocks in the summer.

“Soup,” said one.

“Vegetables,” said another.

A third said in a voice barely above a whisper, “Ice cream.”

“Oh yes, we totally have ice cream,” Schwartz said with a big grin. “We have chocolate ice cream that is sooo good … but not today.”

“Awww,” said the children.

“It’s an intereseting time with food,” Schwartz told the group. “It’s important for you to know how to cook, and how to make decisions about food.”

She said many small farms in the area offer either organic produce or use what are known as “sustainable” farming practices.

She asked the children to imagine what would happen if they left a summer product, such as a peach, and a carrot, associated with winter vegetables, on the table for a week.

“Which would change the most?”

The children knew the answer to that.

“The peach would be all squishy,” said a girl.

“The carrot would be pretty much the same,” said a boy, authoritatively.

Schwartz had the children pick from a sheaf of laminated cards that had job descriptions on them — head chef, vegetable chopper, server, clean-up person and so on.

And the group got busy, chopping and dicing and prepping until it was time to turn on the electric wok and start cooking.

After about a minute of that, the Hunt Library should have been nominated as the Best-Smelling Library in Connecticut.

The cooking process went well, with only one minor mishap with the salt.

Then the stir-fry, accompanied by a salad of fresh cucumber and lettuce from the Stone Soup Garden, was served.

The children waited, forks at the ready, for the signal:

“Bon appetit!”

They dug in, as did a handful of adults observing.

One young man approached his serving of stir-fry with an expression that bespoke great suspicion.

The boy’s grandmother whispered, “He won’t eat anything but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

The moment of truth had arrived. The boy applied his fork to his plate, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly.

He looked up and nodded, in the affirmative.

“I can’t believe it,” said the grandmother.