Another taste of the Tasting Cafe

When the Rocky Mountain News folded in February 2009, food editor Marty Meitus’s job disappeared, too — so she approached the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant and Children (WIC), administered by the Tri-County Health Department, with an idea for a pilot project: “a program in which the parents and kids could sample foods, just as if they were at a Costco or a Sam’s Club, but without the lunchroom ladies in their blue-capped splendor,” she explained in February 11 Cafe piece.

But Meitus herself would be on hand at the Tasting Cafe, to serve up nutritious, easy-to-prepare foods and show WIC’s clients how to make them at home.

The pilot project was such a hit that it’s now been expanded to all ten Tri-County facilities. “I’ve been plotting menus and planning how we can do this,” Meitus reported on Monday, the day before the expanded program was launched.

Chicken McMarty is back on the menu, joined by Eggs McMarty. “Microwave an egg, put it on two whole wheat English muffins with a slice of cheese,” she says. “It takes about eight seconds.”

Through the end of September, the Tasting Cafe will be open twice a month in Tri-County’s bigger facilities, once a month in the smaller ones, giving WIC clients a taste for how to eat healthy. “You don’t have to make a trip to the drive-thru, and you can feed your kids well,”
Meitus promises.