Dadstronomy

But I was especially happy with the progress of my former students, professionals and amateurs alike. In the Chef in Love clique, the two Hotdroulis brothers, Kostas and Yiannis, stand out.

They have always been restless spirits and very enthusiastic about cooking, which is evident in their growth in the catering and supply field.

Literally two days before my return to America, we did a pop-up together in the wonderful, warm space of Dadstronomy, reminisced about old stories, talked about their current activities and future plans. The hospitality was warm and full of nostalgia from good old stories.

Kostas, Yiannis, Eleni, thank you for everything and I hope we can do it again soon.

Together in food means companionship. Thus, every day the children from nursery to primary school who eat Dadstronomy meals taste the food and at the same time: They learn, consciously or unconsciously, because they simply participate in the process, to try flavors together that they might have always avoided on their own, like broccoli pizza!

They celebrate together flavors that elevate them, like homemade burgers. They realize together how important it is to eat certain foods once or twice a week even if they are not their favorites, like fish and vegetable stews! They discover together that an ordinary and relatively bland food, like chicken, can become their favorite or enjoy it twice as much because Dadstronomy thought of breading chicken pieces with oats, baking them, and making them crispy “like the chicken nuggets we eat out!”

They share and manage tasks and responsibilities together because during school mealtime, someone always serves, waits, tastes before the agreed time, wants more salt, doesn’t want to try, or says the food is delicious! Naturally, at the end, someone always clears the table and takes the dishes to the kitchen, and throughout the meal, a group eating together includes the teachers and their co-responsibility in the process. They organize “all for one and one for all” to express their opinion about what they eat – negative or positive – to modify parts of the serving that hinder the flow, to eat more organized, and to enjoy their food together as a group. They live together a tasty daily life at school and expand their capabilities as individuals within a group, even during mealtime when suddenly, based on a common menu offered by Dadstronomy, food gains an additional value for teachers and children: the sense of balance we all feel when we truly eat together! Dadstronomy, thank you for taking care of us and for being TOGETHER with us! With love,

Paixniadagogeio

Kugel with broccoli, breaded sardines with cauliflower rice, vegetable lasagna, legume stew, baked meatballs… This could be the menu of a new and modern restaurant in the center of Athens, promoting healthy eating. However, these are the dishes served this school year at a kindergarten and primary school in Athens!

This is the gastronomic kitchen for schools, set up by Kostas Sotiriou, a former sound engineer, now a chef, and above all, the dad of Ioanna and Alexandra. Kostas always loved cooking, but as an amateur. “Since 1991, I worked as a sound engineer at the Megaron Music Hall. In the last ten years, I started taking cooking more seriously, wanting to get trained, get the necessary certifications, and become what we say… ‘he left it all and became…'” he says laughing to “K”. In recent years, he was also cooking obsessively for the home, for the kids, for school trips. “The school my younger daughter goes to is a free school with many trips where parents participate,” he explains. “At these events, I used to bring food, which other parents liked, and at some point, they asked me, ‘why don’t you take on making the daily food for the children?'” The school officials embraced the idea, and thus in September 2018… Dadstronomy was born.

“The idea is to offer children the food I would make at home for my daughters. Freshly cooked meals with quality ingredients, seasonal products, and sustainable farming practices.” In collaboration with the NGO “I Learn Nutrition,” he created a menu that fully meets the nutritional needs of young students and is also delicious. Because he may not have a traditional restaurant, but he serves the most demanding palates. “Children are indeed the most difficult customers in the world. And the most difficult of all is my daughter!” he says while preparing couscous with chicken and pizza with broccoli in Dadstronomy’s kitchen in Galatsi. “Teachers note which children eat what, and while at first 30% ate their food, today we have reached 65%, especially the younger ones. This is because they don’t yet have taste references and are thus open to suggestions. Older children have learned, for example, to eat lentils in a certain way, and it’s hard to change that. Lentils are generally the most popular dish among children, although 30% still don’t eat them. Even so, when we served them with an omelet, they ate them happily.” No question needed, the children’s favorite meals are pizza (which Kostas makes with homemade dough and sometimes with broccoli as a topping) and burgers.

Treats

As many schools today do not allow “non-homemade” treats from children, Dadstronomy has also taken care of dessert, offering healthy sweet flavors, treats, and cakes with or without sugar, with or without gluten, for children’s celebrations or birthdays.

Children, as known, eat pasta with meat sauce, fries, chicken nuggets, and fried meatballs, so the team has thought of ways to make all these better without frying everything: meatballs with minced meat and oats, baked in the oven, are three times better than fried, and no one can tell the difference.

Dadstronomy has 46 collaborators and a team of chefs − or creators, really − who are deeply involved in the kitchen and come up with ideas: the “dadstronomeur” Kostas Sotiriou, who also organizes musical events and is considered, besides “nose,” also the “ear” of the company, Tony Kavalieros, Eleni Vavoulioti, who has been a chef since she was 11, and Yiannis Roussos, aka “Hontroulis,” who comes up with the tastiest food ideas − he has even invented the concept “Showlutions” (solutions for every occasion, mainly with shows).

They handle large and small corporate events, private dining, school meals, and anything else related to good food, as well as occasional cooking workshops. There’s also the “MatTruckUs” dimension, which reads as “matrakas,” but it’s a mobile canteen for kids’ or adults’ parties for gardens, beaches, or any other place that calls for a joyful, fully-equipped canteen.

Dadstronomy is located in Galatsi and has a beautiful, cozy dining space for about 25 hungry people. If you still have doubts, visit the site, check the recipe for “homemade chicken nuggets” or the (tested!) meatballs, and you’ll be convinced right away.

A little cinnamon, cloves, and chocolate in the sweet

Puts that boy, so enticing

The dad we all love, makes such great food.

Kostas… Our one and only opinion

About cooking, the culinary dish!

And everything we eat, always healthy.

Endless stories have been told about that dish

That truly appetizing and healthy

Cooked with starry love, the absolute opinion

He offers at school or elsewhere, always sweet

At home, at the park, the Dadstronomy food

Has something… of his, always enticing!

Like pizza with broccoli, totally enticing

With lentils and omelet, healthy

Hot dog with chicken sausage, even fava is enticing!

Eggplant papoutsakia, in meat sauce dish

And a real moussaka, food

Prepared with the opinion of a gourmet!

We have, I believe, an opinion

When it comes to flavors and colors, what’s enticing

It must be told… with good words for that sweet

Our dear Sotiriou, with a kind heart, the healthy

Creative food wizard who conceives a tasty dish

His culinary magic, Dadstronomy!

To end this song,

I hope this has become a memory, truly healthy,

Of food, we all share, the dish

The final, sweetest opinion, goes to Dadstronomy!

We sincerely thank you for your participation in the “Food Rescue & Offering Network” of Boroume and for your tangible support of the message “No portion of food wasted”!

Thanks to your contribution and your substantial support for our work, in 2019 we managed to save even more portions of food and increase food support to charitable organizations throughout Greece.

Based on our data and Boroume’s method of calculation, in total for 2019 you offered:

850 portions of food

We hope that our collaboration will continue in 2020, and that together we will continue to support our fellow humans who are facing food insecurity.

We remain at your disposal for any information you may need, and we are open to your suggestions in order to improve and expand our collaboration.

With our warmest wishes,
The Boroume Team