All of a sudden lunch is a lot more complicated at Brewster school

Moms have heard it a million times at home, and the cooks at Brewster school heard it a million times at school:

We had that yesterday, or last week. And that's it? Nothing else to choose from? Boooring.

Brewster School District officials, facing an anticipated drop in enrollment, were looking for ways to cut costs. In addition, the district's health and nutrition committee recommended providing more healthy choices at lunchtime. Out of all that came a new lunch and breakfast program.

And with the new program came a kind of hip look to Brewster High School's commons.

Who knew lunch could do that?

District superintendent Aaron Chavez said the driving force behind the changes, which included hiring an outside company to manage the program, was the desire to cut costs and at the same time expand healthy alternatives. Last spring district officials signed a contract with Chartwell's, a company that manages food service programs around the state (including Bridgeport). At first glance there's not much change; the longtime kitchen crew still does a lot of food preparation and all the cooking. But the menu looks a lot different, at least at the high school.

The menu is still limited at the grade school (hey, it doesn't happen at home), but a salad bar has been added. There's also a salad bar at the high school. And there are sandwiches, burgers, pizza, pasta, various other options. Students have their choice. And that's turned out to be pretty popular. "The kids like the options," Chavez said.

Apparently they do. "The kids are just loving it. They really are," said head cook Elaine Munson. There's even proof-the kitchen crew is serving more lunches per day. (The managers from Chartwell's predicted an increase, Chavez said, which led district officials to invest in that sidewalk café-bistro-vibey look in the commons.)

But it owes its success to the kitchen crew. "I just can't thank Elaine's team enough," Chavez said. Going from one option to five meant a lot more work for the kitchen crew; "It's a lot more of a challenge, I believe," said Jo Crossland, the assistant cook.

"Much more of a challenge," Munson said. Chartwell's managers write the menus. The rest is pretty much up to the kitchen crew.

Some of the food comes frozen and the cooks heat it up; the rest they make onsite. That's 100 or so sandwiches or whatever, every day. Everything is cooked in the high school kitchen; breakfast for everyone is served in the high school commons. (For breakfast kids also have choices, something hot like pancakes or bagels or something cold like cereal.) But once it's cooked, lunch for the grade school kids is loaded into the van and hauled across the street.

Back at the high school, the cooks make the sandwiches-there's a sandwich every day-and whatever else they're making onsite, and set it all up; it's all color-coded, sandwiches and burgers and whatever all wrapped in different papers.

"It's definitely teamwork. You have to be a team, or you're out of luck," Elaine said.

The kitchen crew consists of Munson, Crossland, Linda Allen and Rene Shaw. Groundskeeper Mike Webster technically isn't part of the crew, but don't tell the cooks that. "He's one of our team also. We couldn't do it without Mike," Munson said.

It's been a learning experience in the kitchen. "Oh, yeah," Crossland said.

"A lot," Munson said.

Actually it's been a learning experience for the kids. Just ask Elaine Munson, when they served a chicken cordon bleu sandwich last week. Every single teen through the lunch line, she said, had to ask what it was. Some of them even tried it and liked it, "after I told every single one of them what they were," she said. (That's not true for everything. "There are some things we find out are not great hits with the kids," Jo said.)

About 25 more students per day are coming through the lunch line. Or maybe it's just the tables. The commons is studded with bistro tables, elevated, black and stainless steel, and they're definitely more hip than the cafeteria tables. Chavez said district officials considered buying more cafeteria tables, but didn't really have a place to set them up or store them. So they went for the bistro look, "kind of a mall courtyard feel-or Starbuck's. I call them Starbuck's tables," Chavez said.

So far, there's only one problem with the revamped lunch program-Munson said that kids used to complain lunch was boring, and now they complain there are too many choices.