Jenny Gensterblum transforms cafeteria food into healthy and delectable meals

By Alex Mikoulianitch

Jenny Gensterblum isn’t your ordinary lunch lady working at Léman Preparatory School and flipping hash browns. She’s got an impressive arsenal of cooking skills up her sleeve, all backed by a degree from the French Culinary Institute in New York, which she deploys in earnest to provide delicious, nutritious meals for the school’s students and faculty on a daily basis.

From a young age, Gensterblum was surrounded by a culinary atmosphere. Starting from the garden her family owned, to her mother’s cooking talents, the young Michigan-born girl began budding an affinity for the kitchen that eventually proved to be part of her career.

“Mom was a big cook and really influenced how I like to eat and what I think about food,” Gensterblum said.

She admits it was unexpected for her when she realized her path was going in the direction of the culinary arts, though looking back on it now, it seems all too obvious.

“It definitely surprised me, but I realized I was spending all my free time learning recipes and having dinner parties and spending all my money on exotic ingredients, so it’s definitely something that occurred to me later on,” Gensterblum said.

This realization prompted Gensterblum to travel to the Big Apple and enroll at the French Culinary Institute, which she believes was the most enriching experience she had ever had.

“I think it was the best year of my life,” Gensterblum said. “It’s one thing to enjoy cooking and being able to doing it on your free time. But being able to do it every single day was so amazing. I learned so much and I met so many great people. I think it was a challenge trying to figure out what I was going to do once I graduated, but luckily I found a place.”

Gensterblum didn’t automatically stumble upon a position at the school. She went the traditional route, working at a few restaurants first.

“I started working at a restaurant in the East Village, and I was there for probably around seven months after I graduated,” Gensterblum said. “It really wasn’t something that was resonating with me. I was seeing a lot in the news about school food lunch reform and ways that you could get involved with it, and I ended up finding an opening at [Léman] and I came straight here.”

It was here that Gensterblum began focusing her efforts on school lunch reform. The kind of lunch kids eat at Léman is much different from the average lunch you’ll see at a New York public school. The students go crazy for her kale chips, and she routinely makes healthier versions of traditional favorites, like corn chowder and marinara sauce, from scratch. She’s even compiled her team’s recipes into a cookbook, Secret Sauce, to bring her kid-pleasing fare to the masses.

“I think, for us here, and I know there are a lot of schools out there, especially private schools where they have dining services companies that come in and [they] can change from week to week, but everyone that works here works solely for the school,” Gensterblum said. “We really, really care about the kids. [We want] to make sure they get a good meal and make sure that it’s something that they look forward to. We really take pride in what we put out for them.”

These efforts, which Gensterblum heavily credits to the help of the school administration and the rest of the staff, are what brought her recognition for her outstanding service to the culinary field.
“My staff and I are really honored,” Gensterblum said. “[We] work really hard every day to make sure that the kids are learning something about food and getting a good meal and look forward to coming to lunch. I’m just really grateful and honored to getting some recognition for it.”

With Joe Carvin’s departure from the race for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination, top consultant Bill O’Reilly’s strange couple of days are over.

O’Reilly confirmed that with Carvin out of the race, he is now back doing press for Rep. Bob Turner, whose campaign for Congress was helped enormously by O’Reilly’s press work. But when Turner announced for Senate this week,with O’Reilly already committed, another member of O’Reilly’s firm, Jessica Proud, handled press for Turner’s campaign, while O’Reilly continued to do Carvin. Both offered to quit both campaigns because of the conflicts, O’Reilly said.

E. O’Brien Murray, who managed Turner’s 2011 congressional campaign and had been considered the mastermind behind the upset, also had been with Carvin.

Here’s the statement that went out this morning:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JOE CARVIN: ‘REPUBLICANS WILL BE WELL REPRESENTED IN RACE AGAINST GILLIBRAND’

Withdraws Candidacy; Remains Neutral

Rochester, NY – March 16…Westchester businessman and Rye Town Supervisor Joe Carvin (R) withdrew his candidacy today for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate.

When Carvin made the decision to get into this race, the Republican Party had only one declared candidate for the office. Carvin entered the race because he wanted to ensure that the Republican Party faithful had a choice of candidates and to ensure that voters understood the depth and urgency of the financial crisis confronting the nation and threatening our long-term jobs prospects.

“I was pleased with the positive feedback I received from Party members and leaders around the state when I talked about the need to fundamentally restructure our entitlement systems, our tax code and health care,” Carvin said.

Carvin made it clear that this kind of fundamental reform could not go forward without shared sacrifice among the people of New York and the United States. “Far too often politicians are afraid to tell voters the truth about the severity of the fiscal and jobs crisis we are facing. I was pleased that the New York Republicans are prepared roll up their sleeves and take on today’s daunting challenges.”

Since Carvin’s decision to enter the race, two new candidates have decided to run for US Senate joining George Maragos in the competition, Wendy Long and Congressman Bob Turner.

“My number one goal in entering the race was to ensure that the Republican Party had a nominee capable of defeating Ms. Gillibrand in November,” Mr. Carvin said. “But in the last several days – after Ms. Gillibrand was ranked the most left-wing senator in America by National Journal and after she voted for higher gas prices by opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline – I believe any of the candidates in this race can beat her. I am one hundred percent confident that I would have received the 25% of the Republican delegate vote necessary to get on the ballot, but I am now comfortable that my party is well represented.”

The New York State Republican Convention, at which a Party nominee will be chosen, is being held today in Rochester, NY.

“This has been a tremendously uplifting experience and I am extraordinarily grateful to all those around the state who have supported me in ways large and small over the past few weeks. I am particularly grateful to my own county chairman Doug Colety and his committee for giving me such strong support.”

To see more from City & State click here.

Carol Ann Rinzler
Turtle Bay

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.

“And medicine does too little about improving balance, which erodes with the years,” says Boomer Nancy Adlfinger, whose ankle was broken in a fall. She is also “so grateful that now I know what my husband suffers with his disability.” Empathy—and how when to know it’s deficient, is the real shortcoming to be overcome.

It’s good to know that Sal has a supportive friend to help him in the recovery process. Far more should be said about why so many don’t in this go-it-alone society, even with all the technology that supposedly connects some, but not all. Sal also has offspring about whom my informer knew little because we parents of adults aren’t asked about these most significant others.

And yet as the late patriarch Joseph Kennedy strongly maintained, “The greatest Kennedy asset is our closely connected interdependent extended family.” And yes, you’ve heard that here in myriad ways before, but until it takes hold, to quote Dr. Samuel Johnson, “We need as much to be reminded as informed.”

And with the enormous outpouring of tributes to Sen. Ted Kennedy, let’s not forget his also greatly missed sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and her “labeling people” concern. “No more saying, ‘the disabled,’ but rather, ‘persons with such and such a disability,’” insisted this foremost champion of persons with any and all disabilities. She might also prefer “a person who is alcohol-dependent,” rather than “an alcoholic.” Sadly, this dependence did not spare the Kennedys and intervention is still too little considered.

If ever preventative medicine and treatments were needed, it’s for alcohol dependence, which unlike widely “addressed” smoking and obesity problems, so adversely—even criminally—affects behavior. Ah, and not for Catholics only surely, is Recovery Sunday, Sept. 13, “the 11th annual Day of Prayer in all the New York Archdiocese parishes for those struggling with and in recovery from addictive illnesses (www.recoveryweekend.org). Other faiths take note! (To be continued.)

And the life/limb/health-saving endeavor called CARR (Coalition against Rogue Riders) needs all the help possible to fight City Hall brass, so blinded by its love of two-wheeling that it can’t see how these silent wheelers’ wholesale aversion to the laws of the road endangers other travelers in this high-density city.

Ah, how incredibly blessed to have safe and convenient public transit—preventative medicine of the very first kind. Except, must say it—again, and for however long it takes—the articulated bus’ interior noise and lack of temperature control (in all city buses) are unhealthy, uncomfortable and energy-wasteful. So please, help, and get mad as hell, o-o-ps, the dickens, and tell 311, “These very real, everyday health blights just have to go!” And while you are telling…
–
dewingbetter@aol.com

The first step would be convening a Constitutional convention to identify some of the larger, structural changes that our current representatives would be unlikely to make themselves. Though we doubt it would ever happen, strong arguments can be made for getting rid of our two-chamber system and creating a unicameral legislature.

At the very least, one reform distasteful to incumbents is a must: term limits for state office holders. Yes, in an ideal world limits should be only in voters’ hands, but Albany is in dire need of fresh blood. To make sure the legislature keeps some form of institutional memory and legislative experience, the limits could be generous: maybe five two-year terms.

Another way to create more competitive elections and temper the power of incumbency would be instituting some smart campaign finance reforms. Public matching funds, reasonable donation limits and strict enforcement should all be on the table.

Part of the reason the Senate leadership struggle was so pitched is because the majority essentially controls redistricting, a process that has long been used to protect majority incumbents and target opponents. Independent redistricting is the only way to ensure this critical process does not become politicized and that citizens are fairly represented.

Finally, one change that even our current elected leaders could endorse would be defining a replacement process for a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office. The state has been without one three times in the last 40 years, and the Senate’s chaos shows just how important this tie-breaking position this can be.

We, like many New Yorkers, have been disgusted by the lack of professionalism and cooperation, not to mention bald-face power grabbing, which has defined the past few weeks in Albany. But if this turmoil becomes the tipping point for real reform, then voters may have gotten something out of their leaders after all.