Photo: Joe Mabel/Wikimedia Commons

Abby Conway

Home Grown Goes Urban
The Food Project’s Build-a-Garden program is now accepting applications from residents of Boston and Lynn who wish to start their own garden. The idea behind the program is pretty simple: once your application is accepted, The Food Project builds you a raised bed garden and provides support for how to grow what you want to grow. All interested residents are eligible and, the best news, no prior gardening experience is neccesary. For the urban farmer raised bed gardens have many benefits since they can be built on pavement, growing food in them is relatively easy and you can produce a decent volume in a small space. If you’re not interested in tending your own garden, or if you’ve already got one, consider volunteering with The Food Project and thereby help spread their mission: “to grow a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system.”

CupcakeCamp Comes to Boston
CupcakeCamp is bringing community and cupcakes together on April 15th at P.A’.s Lounge in Somerville. CupcakeCamp hosts gatherings in various cities where people with a passion for cupcakes (baking ‘em and eating ‘em) can come together. Local bakeries Sugar and Petsi Pies are already lined up to attend, but the event isn’t limited to professionals. Amateurs are encouraged to register their own cupcake creations and bring them on down on the 15th. Anyone can attend! The event is free, and P.A.’s will be offering a special lineup of cocktails. Since I’ve already confessed my love for cupcakes, you all know I’ll be there. And I’ll report back, so keep your eyes peeled for PRK’s upcoming coverage of Boston’s first CupcakeCamp.

Blogging School Lunches
Last week in Tidbits we wrote how Massachusetts is on its way to improving school lunches through a comprehensive bill passed earlier this month. This week, I came across a teacher who is making this issue a personal one, literally. Mrs. Q, as she calls herself, is an anonymous Midwestern school teacher advocating for improving school lunches by actually eating them, “just like the kids,” every school day in 2010 and documenting it on her blog Fed Up With Lunch. It isn’t pretty. Day after day Mrs. Q posts pictures of her lunch, which comes in individual, pre-packaged and often previously-frozen servings. Mrs. Q hopes that her effort will result in sweeping changes to school lunches throughout the country. Want a real eye-opener? Check out what she’s been eating. She has decided to remain anonymous in an effort to protect her professional career.

Conspicuous Calories
Restaurants will be making some noticeable changes with the passing of the new healthcare legislation. The bill that passed late Sunday night in the House mandates nutritional labeling at chain restaurants. Similar legislation already exists in some states, but this provision regulates that all chains with 20 or more locations must display nutritional information for standard offerings on menus and menu boards. The legislation also extends calorie labeling to vending machines. This is a huge victory for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has been fighting for such legislation since 2003 (on a personal note, I dealt with this first-hand during my last trip to New York City. And while I knew that a giant chocolate chip cookie wasn’t good for me, I didn’t realize that some were that bad. No more guilt-free snacks for me).