Hello St. Louis, and welcome to our first newsletter, powered by Table for Lou! Our goal is to keep you In the Lou’p about the incredible work we are doing through our programs. We are going to do our best to keep you informed on all things St. Louis! We have some very talented contributors who are supporting our cause!

Table for Lou
(Like Table for Two.. Get it? )

Who are we and what are we doing?

Table for Lou is a Nonprofit that builds community through culinary experiences! We operate under two programs.

Our first program consists of Table for Lou teaching the kids at The Core Collective, at St. Vincent’s Home for Children how to cook. Every Monday night, the founder and a volunteer or two bring the ingredients to make a meal usually consisting of a main course, a side, a salad and dessert. Class sizes range, but typically have 10 kids, though we make enough for all the kids onsite. We typically feed 20 kids on any given week. Our class feels more like a team sport than anything you’d find during school hours. Kids all work together, and sometimes teach each other, with the goal of feeding their peers a meal they are proud of! Kids are usually here to have fun, hang out with their friends, and learn a skill, though we do occasionally get hungry kids. We do our best to make sure any kid who wants to take food home can take as much as they want. This program has been running successfully since 2018, you know, when dragons roamed TV, and kids flossed more.

Our newest program, which started at the beginning of June 2023, takes place each Wednesday night at BJC Children’s Hospital. Table for Lou caters for the families at BJC Children’s Hospital. We have been lucky enough to have some local restaurants provide meals for the parents, but most weeks, we prepare the food ourselves. The hospital population varies. We feed anywhere from 40-100 people each week, some with pretty restrictive diets. Like with our other program, we try to encourage folks to take leftovers.

This all takes a lot of time and energy to orchestrate and operate. We are fortunate to have a small pool of dedicated volunteers!

July Program Highlights

I have a constant internal debate about which season has the best food. It’s hard to beat summer’s BBQs, fresh produce and those deli sandwiches your responsible friend packed you before a day on the water! (thanks mom!)
With that spirit mind, we taught our kids how to make Nachos with Street Corn, Cajun Shrimp / Crab Pasta, Summer Harvest Rice Bowls, Chicken Parmesan Pasta and of course, Hot Dogs! Desserts spanned from cookies, cakes and rice crispy treats. Surprisingly, the big winner of the month was the Rice Bowls.

Our class has always been very popular, but I can’t remember a time when kids were this excited. In years past, we’d see new kids every week. Now, we have a core group of kids who come weekly! Their excitement makes the class much more enjoyable for everyone! Lately the kids have been skewing younger. Preteens bring a fun energy to class and usually make the older kids less rambunctious, though the younglings do have a lot more questions than their teenage cohorts. The maturity of these kids is entertaining to me. Most prefer to complete tasks their own way, until they get stuck. On the other hand, any time someone asks for a bandage, I’ll give them one and they look confused until I put the band aid on for them. (It warms my heart)

I always ask the kids what they want next week, and every once in awhile, someone will ask for Indian food. I was afraid to commit, since I didn’t think picky eaters would try it. Boy was I wrong! Not only do kids love curries, they ate so many vegetables! This meal will likely go down as one of our healthiest, and the kids were raving about it! One secret to combat picky eaters is to keep the rice and veggies sauceless, and let the kids add as much of whichever sauce they want! Some ate red curry, some chose teriyaki, but they all ate a ton of veggies!

In the exact opposite world, I would not have guessed the spaghetti accompanying the Chicken Parmesan would be so contentious. Not to brag, but I bought the expensive (Rao) noodles and expensive (Victoria’s) pasta sauce. While it couldn’t hold a cannoli to my bolognese, it was better than your average weeknight sghetti. Wow. Kids wanted sugar (which I knew to expect, but we ran out), hot sauce, butter, you name it. I know to expect kids to be picky about burger toppings, but I always forget about red pasta!

All in all, the summer has been a huge success! We’ve been slowly building up our bench of amazing volunteers. We recruited 4 helpers for St. Vincent’s, (1 moved and 1 just started). We’ve had at least 6 people start helping at BJC Children’s, 2 of which help just about every week! We’ve also had 2 restaurants cater for us and have had a few local bakers make us desserts! I am so happy for the help and the progress we are making! And (of course) the volunteers all tell me they are having a blast!

What's in Season in August!?

By Susanne Quinlan, owner and founder of North County Marketplace

Just when you thought it couldn't get hotter, the month of August comes in and beats down your door. While the air conditioner in my house is working hard the farmers are out in the field working even harder at picking delicious fruits and vegetables.

When putting together your grocery list and meal plan, keep in mind what fruits and vegetables are in season so you can enjoy them at their peak.

While it's too hot for most lettuces, farmers are beginning to plant the seeds for their fall crops and should be back in about a month. Blackberries, peaches, cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes, and apples are filling the farmer's market shelves along with peppers, potatoes, zucchini, squash, and eggplant.

Always remember to support local first and enjoy what's in season.

Cardinal Numbers

Imagine the entire St Louis population going to one hospital once a year. BJC comes close to seeing that many patients in any given year.

Put another way, the hospital has more patient visits than there are people in the US who speak a Serbo-Croatian language, estimated to be 266k (shout out to our Bosnian friends!).

According to BJC’s website, “Each year the hospital receives about 275k patient visits.”

The Census estimates St. Louis City’s population to be 298k.

298k 2023 St. Louis City population
275k BJC Children's patient visits each year
266k Serbo-Croatian language speakers in USA

Bonus: Did you know that when you count to 100 you don’t use the letters A B or C? The first time D shows up is in one hundred!

Quote of the month:

Thank you for reading! Have feedback? Want to get involved? Want to feed 20 kids for just $100 (or even provide a more modest donation)?
You’d be amazed how much help just a small amount of money provides our community.
Check out TableForLou.org or email us at Table4Lou@gmail.com