October 27, 2015 – Santa Cruz chef Mo L’Esperance is in Washington DC today with 40 fellow chefs lobbying Congress for better food in school lunches and re-authorization of the child nutrition act. L’Esperance—who runs the kitchen at Suda—was invited to the White House on Monday and took part in a star-studded roast of celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, founder of Food Policy Action. “It’s a real honor to be part of this group,” she said. “Kids are our future and we should be trying as hard as we can for them.”
L’Esperance, who has a four-year-old daughter, volunteers on weekends in the school garden at Live Oak Elementary. “Kids should have fresh, wholesome food from the farm next door or from the school garden, not scary things covered in cheese,” she says.
“I had Taco Bell in my school cafeteria and I don’t want my daughter to have that,” she adds.
The chefs met Monday at the White House with officials in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative. The evening was spent at a gala roast of Colicchio, featuring Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi and MSNBC’s Alex Wagner.
This morning, after a photo op on the steps of the Capitol, chefs were divided into small groups and fanned out to speak with more than 100 members of Congress about the importance of properly funding school lunches. “Some members of Congress are trying to roll back progress that was made in 2010 in adding more fruits, vegetables and whole grains,” said L’Esperance. “We’re fighting to maintain what we’ve got, we don’t want to go back to pizza sauce being considered a vegetable.”
The Santa Cruz chef—the sole representative from California—met with Central Coast Congressman Sam Farr, Lois Capps of Santa Barbara and three more representatives. L’Esperance was invited to join the Chef Action Network in 2013 after hosting and participating in a James Beard Foundation Chef’s Boot Camp at Costanoa Lodge, where she used to work. It’s her second visit to Washington DC with the group. The first lobbying day, last year, was in support of GMO labeling.
She just introduced a new Fall Menu at Suda and stresses that the Pleasure Point restaurant remains open despite a daytime remodeling project on the restaurant’s facade and patio.
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