Marc Del Pietro, the chef-owner of Luciano’s Trattoria, Del Pietro’s and Kilkenny’s Pub, is now whipping up healthy, gourmet meals for all the kids at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic elementary school in University City. For our 5 Questions interview in our October issue, Sauce contributor Byron Kerman talked with Del Pietro about the program.
How’s the Our Lady of Lourdes school lunch program going? Before I came along, they averaged 12 to 20 kids buying school lunches a day, and today I did 160 kids. The school holds 258, so I’m over 50 percent. I don’t know how many parents said things to me like, “My kids don’t eat grapes.” Well, now they eat grapes. I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I know how to hide things and make them taste really good. The point is that this is real, fresh food, not processed.
We changed from plasticware to silverware, too, and the kids are like, “This is awesome!” The administration said, “They’re gonna throw their forks in the garbage.” And I said, “They don’t throw them away at home, do they?” They’re not aliens or monkeys – they’re great kids. Give them a little credit. One of the kids came up to me and said, “Mr. Del Pietro, was that basil or mint in the fruit salad yesterday?” And I said, “That was mint,” and the kid turned to his friend and said, “See, I was right!”
It’s really cute to see these kids come in and get pumped about food. That’s my world. They want the recipes. Their moms want the recipes. It’s amazing. Today they had turkey burgers and they didn’t know it, and they loved them. I just called it Burger Bar, and they could choose condiments like cheese slices and pickles.
What kinds of foods did you eat for lunch when you were at school? My mom packed my lunch a lot, and you know I’m from a very Italian family. I grew up in the restaurant business, so I would bring a full order of ravioli or lasagna to school, and all the non-Italian kids were just mystified by our lunches.
For the rest of our interview with Del Pietro, pick up the October issue of Sauce Magazine.
This article appears in Oct 1-31, 2010.