When Chef Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe offered a potential collaborative idea with other restaurants in the Chicagoland area we saw all forms of possibility with this opportunity. Supporting local, promoting seasonality and sustainability as environmental and biological necessities to lean into was important, but we believe these concepts offer so much more.

Through this worksheet we offer that the experience of creating a dish with local and seasonal ingredients provides all sorts of educational and therapeutic possibilities beyond environment and biology. We believe just engaging in this exercise at the dinner table at one of our partnered restaurants could offer, add to, or initiate opportunities for exploration. Exploration of the power of choice, diversity, creativity, and connection even with finite options. Thinking of local and sustainability under the lens of simply environment and biology diminish their beauty and all this messaging offers for our kids and their communities. We believe this activity enlightens in multiple directions and more importantly creates curiosity, draws out uniqueness, and their possibilities. By being in community with those that feed and nurture us we can engage a movement of togetherness focused on cultivation of our kids that ignites their thoughtfulness, curiosities, and uniqueness.