Oct. 21—For someone who doesn't like zucchini, Alyssa Mikes sure was raving about it in her school cafeteria.
"I like it because I like the tomato sauce," the Wilson High School senior said after taste-testing a hot dish of sliced zucchini in a sauté of tomatoes, garlic and Italian spices.
Getting kids and teens to eat veggies they wouldn't normally eat is possible, but there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it, according to chef Bill Scepansky, who helped Wilson cooks prepare the zucchini recipe and a cold tomato salad last month.
"You can't just put eggplant on a plate and say, 'Today, we're having eggplant,' " he said.
But by adding some skillfully cooked eggplant into a ratatouille of zucchini, garlic, tomatoes and other fresh vegetables, Scepansky said, the eggplant has a chance to sing.