Brunswick Celebrity Chef Day: "This is my favorite fish so far."

Monkfish a la plancha served with home made tortilla chips and mango salsa - that’s what was on the menu at the Brunswick Junior High School last week thanks to local chef and Brunswick parent Noly Lopez of Yarmouth’s Gather restaurant. The monkfish was donated through our Fishermen Feeding Mainers program as part of MCFA’s work to highlight local seafood in K-12 cafeterias throughout the state. Chef Lopez marinated it in some tasty spices and then seared up in time for hungry students to sample. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. “I’ve tried a lot of other fish and this is my favorite fish so far,” said one student. “I really really really really really loved it!” said another.

This wasn’t the first time that some of these students had tried monkfish. Brunswick School District is one of the partner districts in MCFA’s work in K-12 cafeterias, so students here have been among the first in the state to provide feedback on new recipes. That includes scratch cooked meals like this one as well as ready-to-serve products like Hurricane’s Soups’ Maine Coast Monkfish Stew, Sweet Potato Pollock Soup and the newest - Hake Corn Chowder. It also includes Flounder Fish Cakes and Tots made by Rockport-based Graffam Bros Seafood. Students at nearby Region 10 Technical High School have been involved as well, developing recipes using local seafood that will soon be sampled in the district.

This is the fifth Celebrity Chef Day we have helped to facilitate this year. Other districts have included Freeport, Bangor, and Yarmouth - and, given their success, we plan to do more in the next school year. We are delighted to be working with talented local chefs who have developed new recipes and serving ideas that get school nutrition staff excited about preparing fish and students excited about eating it!