Joanne Franz sees many changes in 41 years as Westside cook

But what hasn’t changed is how much she enjoys the work.

“I still enjoy the job,” she said. “The kids are great and I love my coworkers — I have a really great team I work with in the kitchen.”

It was Franz’s mother-in-law, Jane, who got her started. Jane was head cook at Westside for many years, and recruited Joanne as a newlywed.

“I started as a substitute for one of her helpers,” she said. “So I subbed for a little bit, and that person quit, and I kind of fell into the position. My interview was with her and (then principal) Marv Turner.”

Franz worked with her mother-in-law for 12 years before Jane’s retirement; she then became head cook. At first, she prepared meals for Westside students only. Several years ago, she also began cooking for Hood River Middle School, and has since added Cascade Locks. She estimates that she serves 300 daily at Westside, 190 at HRMS, and 50 at Cascade Locks — for lunch. She also makes breakfast.

It’s a challenge she enjoys.

“I keep a production record for each school, and each day write down notes for prep the next day — this school gets this much, this school gets this much,” she said.

Each school has a designated storage area in the refrigerator, and breakfast and lunch are prepared accordingly. Two of her staff transports and serves the food at HRMS, while Cascade Locks’ meals are delivered daily and served by instructional assistant Debi Fischer.

Portions are planned, with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables. Recent USDA mandates state that every child who goes through the cafeteria line must receive a half a cup of fruit or vegetable, and all breads must be 100 percent whole grain.

“They have to take it,” she said. “They’re learning to eat it more.”

She serves fresh fruit, ranging from apples to grapes to cantaloupe, every day for breakfast, and at lunch, students choose items from a salad bar.

Because students have to take the fruits and vegetables, she tries to provide options like bagged carrots or sealed applesauce cups that can be “re-served” on the cafeteria sharing table, where students who are still hungry can chose from unwanted items. It’s one way to cut down on food waste — although waste still happens, and there’s not much they can do about it.

While cooks used to make lunches from scratch, the trend now is more frozen or prepared foods. She often hears that there’s a need to go back to homemade, but the kids’ tastes have changed and they often won’t eat those meals when they are prepared.

“More and more parents are so busy, they do a lot of box cooking, frozen food or take out and kids are just used to that,” Franz said.

Another change: “We used to do desserts more often,” Franz said. “We took away a lot of the snacky foods, like chips and desserts. It’s more fruit and vegetables and a variety of choices for an entrée, but the kids don’t like the idea that they don’t get the desserts, they don’t get the chips.”

On Wednesday, Franz and other district head cooks visited Nature’s Finest in Parkdale as part of the Farm to School initiative, where local farmers sell produce directly to schools for their lunch programs. Next year, the district will purchase a variety of vegetables from the farm — carrots, cucumbers, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, and, Franz hopes, snap peas.

“The kids love (snap peas,) but they’re usually too expensive,” she said.

Her job isn’t just about cooking; there is a lot of paperwork involved for both her and her staff: First Cook Veronica Jimenez, Assistant Cooks Jennifer Cox and Cindy Sparks, and Kitchen Helpers Susana Hernandez and Charmaine Wampler.

“We do a whole lot of counting and a whole lot of bookwork,” she said. “With the regulations that we have now, we have to count everything we put out and count what’s left to make sure we put out what we’re supposed to.”