Meet Brooke Ratje: Our Healthy Universal School Meals Recipe Competition Winner!
Julia Hettiger
Brooke Ratje, Food Services Director at J. Paul Taylor Academy
Brooke Ratje’s recipe for Elote a la Cruceña – a dish inspired by the casseroles she was raised on as a child – wowed judges at this year’s Cultivo Colectivo, the Paso del Norte Edible Education Conference, which took place on Saturday, March 29th. The recipe incorporated nixtamalized corn, a requisite for the competition that embraces local culture and indigenous food practices, and was accompanied by a side of asparagus salsa fresca. As the kitchen director for J. Paul Taylor Academy in Las Cruces, New Mexico, her recipe was built upon her experience in school cafeterias and the newly implemented initiative for healthier school lunches in New Mexico.
Healthy Universal School Meals Legislation and Recipe Competition
New Mexico’s Healthy Universal School Meals Legislation went into effect in 2023 and is being implemented at both the state and local level. La Semilla’s Edible Education team organized the competition in partnership with Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) Nutrition Services and the New Mexico Public Education Department (NM PED), requiring that recipes be practical for school cafeterias and celebrate the core tenets of this legislation: scratch cooking, locally grown produce, student voice and choice, and culturally relevant foods. Each team was supplied with weekly boxes of locally grown vegetables to experiment with and asked to include a special ingredient– Mexican June Corn, grown locally in Berino, NM, at Big Moon Farms by the Lara Family. Centering the dry corn required each team to practice nixtamalization, an Indigenous practice that changes the texture, flavor and nutrient availability in corn– and consider how this practice could occur in busy school cafeterias. In order to incorporate student voice and choice, each team prepared their recipe and hosted taste tests with students at their schools. Contest Judges included LCPS Superintendent, Ignacio Ruiz; Mexican June Corn Growers, Ryan Duran and Al Na’ir Lara; LCPS Director of Nutrition Services, Maria Guerra; Local Chef Aldo Mora; and NM PED’s Culinary Specialist, Amanda Hermosillo.
Practicing Nixtamalization and Designing Elote a la Cruceña
Ratje worked hard to learn the process of nixtamalization and incorporated – her favorite – Full Circle Mushrooms to create something unique.
“I originally wanted to make a pupusa, and I’d never made a pupusa before,” Ratje said. “I was doing a lot of research into what you can do with corn. I thought about making a soup or a stew, but I thought, what if I just make a hominy casserole?” And the rest is history.
A Family Affair in the Day of the Life of a School Cafeteria Director
While Ratje didn’t consider working in a school cafeteria growing up, she can safely say she’s working her dream job. “Being a lunch lady is the most rewarding,” Ratje said. “I used to be the kitchen assistant, and this is my first year as the Food Services Director here. It’s a lot of work, but I feel like if I were to go back in time as a kid and know what a food service director was, I’d want to be that. I feel like I’m in the right spot for me.”
Her day begins early at 7:15 AM when she and her two daughters arrive at the school kitchen to begin preparing breakfast and the afternoon snack before Ratje preps the kitchen for lunch. Her two daughters also attend J. Paul Taylor Academy, one a first grader and the second a middle schooler, and both support her in prepping the kitchen for the day with a routine they’ve perfected over the past year.
“We have a really good system,” Ratje said. “My eighth grader helps me with breakfast, and my other daughter hauls out the trash cans because they do breakfast in the classroom. So we take a bin for each class.”
The work for planning breakfast starts before the school year begins, when surveys are sent out to assess which of the students want or need school-provided breakfasts. From there, Ratje is able to prepare meals for the students as well as healthy afternoon snacks.
Recipes for the Future
Though Ratje is vegan, she tries everything she makes. When it comes to lunch, the students’ favorite of Ratje’s recipes is her chicken burritos and cilantro lime rice, a meal that embraces New Mexico’s new health meals legislation.
“There’s chicken and beans and cheese and salsa, so it’s a good burrito,” Ratje said. “We’re trying a lot of new recipes that we didn’t initially have in our collection. But there’s a lot that goes into planning the menu and accommodating our children, including those with allergies and special diets. And there’s a lot of governing from the USDA. A lot of people are surprised that we have so much paperwork, but we have to [complete] a production record for every meal.”
Growing up, Ratje’s favorite school lunch was “Mexican pizza” or “taco pizza,” which incorporated both Italian and Mexican staples. As an adult, she’s worked to recreate the recipe for dinners for her family and added her rendition to the school menu this year, highlighting not only her love but her skill for creating fun and healthy recipes.
Doing It for the Kids
When asked about her favorite part of the job, Ratje wholeheartedly says it is the children, whose smiles at the food she serves and quirky personalities make her job all the better.
“You gotta love what you do,” Ratje said. “I have this intrinsic feeling that this is where I’m supposed to be.”