IN THE KITCHEN

Kids love what's in Patricia's lunchbox, and it's good for growing bodies, too

By Kitty Crider
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FOOD EDITOR
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Patricia Bauer-Slate, co-founder of Sweetish Hill Bakery, the first artisan bakery in Austin, recently made two drastic changes in her life: She sold her share of the 33-year-old bakery to her longtime business partner, Jim Murphy; and she cut her waist-length hair bob-short for the first time since the eighth grade.

"I decided I didn't want to die with the same hairdo that I had had for 50 years," Bauer-Slate says of her famous braid that she wore either Princess Leia style or in one long braid to the side.

Pigtail was a perfect style for a restaurant kitchen, she adds, because it controlled the hair (a requirement for food safety in a commercial kitchen.) It needed no styling. And it looked as good at the end of the day as the beginning.

But in late 2007, she decided it was time for a new 'do. She gave the hairdresser the nod, and 10 minutes later, she was braidless. Maybe a little breathless, too. Then, to her surprise, she discovered she had curls.

Now the bobbed baker-caterer who had a makeover is remaking lunch. Patricia's Lunchbox, a school lunch program, provides from-scratch, healthful food for kids at four local schools, with more on the horizon. Some of the meals are designed for kids with special dietary needs. "I'm starting over like a brand-new person, only I'm 61," Bauer-Slate says. "I want to wake up every day and do school lunch."

Call this artisan bakery founder the lady who lunches.

As a mother and now a grandmother, she has a passion for what kids eat. She believes kids should get natural chicken, organic milk and eggs, whole grains, Bandera or Coleman beef, and a lot of fruits and vegetables, preferably organic and grown by local farmers.

She knows what she is taking on. Five years ago, she began preparing school lunches for All Saints' Episcopal School, and she continues to feed students there. She added Trinity Episcopal School, St. Martin's Lutheran School and The Girls School of Austin (only two days a week for the latter school).

Bauer-Slate says she did not intend for the program to be a full-time job, but it's going to be. She has already hired a staff of two full-timers and one half-timer, plus herself, and thinks it will expand to five or six by fall.

She adapts the meals most of the kids get for students with special allergies who need gluten-freeor dairy-free diets. One day last week, she rolled fresh pieces of natural chicken in crushed Fritos for homemade chicken tenders for students with celiac disease. For the other students, the chicken was crumbed in Sweetish Hill bread.

"It's a lot of work to do it from scratch, but we know it's done right," Bauer-Slate says.

She reads labels carefully. "We have to look at the soy sauce, vinegars and ketchups we use, because gluten is in so many of them.

"We have peanut-free campuses. We don't use peanut butter or any nuts."

The parents, especially those of children with special dietary needs, are ever so grateful, she says.

On a recent Tuesday, her menu at St. Martin's was homemade chicken tenders (with protein so unprocessed you could see the muscle fibers), fresh hand-cut, oven-roasted sweet-potato fries, a mixture of peas and cauliflower, cubes of cantaloupe, watermelon and honeydew, a thin slice of baguette and organic milk.

Most of the young students reach for the chicken tenders first, dipping them in a squirt of ketchup. They eat the bread. A few of the 2-year-olds go for the fruits and vegetables; most do not. But with the 3-year-olds, it is a different story.

"We have very good eaters. They like the food," says assistant teacher Harika Ozsaracodlu, as Ryan Medel, 4, gobbles up his peas and cauliflower. At the next table, Gweneth Groose, 3, cleans her tray so well it could have been mistaken as unused. Then she walks over to the counter in her cute, little red boots and gets seconds. Her diversified eating habits are every parent's dream.

The kids might not be able to tell the difference between from-scratch and frozen foods. The children were not unhappy with the previous meals, says Alice Godinez, kitchen manager of six years.

But the parents like the change well enough to pay $3.50 to $5 a day for meals. "I want to show that you can do this and make it affordable," Bauer-Slate says.

Meanwhile, she maintains friendly ties with Sweetish Hill, where she gets her breads and where some of the school lunch cooking is still done. She says she will miss the day-to-day relationships at the bakery, but Murphy, the new, sole owner, "gave me a gift certificate for breakfast pastries and coffee for 10 years.

Murphy is making changes, too. "I am looking at building a plant to do wholesale cookies; maybe a new retail store, too." He definitely is not leaving Austin's West Sixth Street baking fixture. "I'm a baker. I want to be Austin's best breadmaker."

But he's happy for Patricia's Lunchbox. "I think it is a great fit for her. She is such a good cook. She cares so much about the quality of food served to children."

And she looks 20 years younger with her new hairstyle. Who knows what's next?

kcrider@statesman.com; 445-3656