A huge hello Choklits Community,
I’m very excited to be sharing our first ever seasonal menu with you all! I’m Saliya, the new Chef at Choklits Ringwood and I’ll be working with Lai, our Chef at Choklits Surrey Hills, to bring you some of the most nutritious and best tasting food our early learners at Choklits have ever had. We promise!
Before I share our winter menu for 2022 (which has a bit of a twist), I want to assure all of you that although both Lai and I are new to the chef roles at Choklits we have spent significant time with our fellow Choklits team members and management learning more about the children, our philosophy and most importantly how we source and prepare exactly what they love in a healthy and nutritious way.
Our no packet, no sugar policy will obviously remain foundational in our approach. The main meal of the day will become more comprehensive over time to help give the children a bigger variety of flavours and textures to try. We will also be incorporating more vegetables, fruits and herbs from our Choklits gardens too.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about the menu for Choklits as it’s quite different to my previous role. Lai and I have a couple of things in common, we are both parents and we have both come to Choklits from the aged care industry. The more notes I made and the more research I completed for our new menu, the more I found myself returning to the exact same thought- what would my 4 year old daughter want and love to eat? And, what would I, as her Dad, want her to be eating each and every day?
The answer became clear, it was time for something different!
For the first time in over 6 years, I convinced the Choklits leadership team to allow us to trial a completely random menu. We are calling it Wacky Winter!
At the beginning of each week we will plan something different for each day. There will be a wide variety and we’ll incorporate many different ideas and cultures. Every dish served will be inline with our philosophy, super nutritious for our children and displayed in our kitchens for parents and carers to see.
After each meal and snack we’ll ask the children what they liked and what they didn’t like. We’ve even got the Choklits educators onboard, they’ll be tasting and providing feedback for us too. What we want to achieve from “Wacky Winter” is a broader understanding of each child’s needs and wants so we have everything we need to prepare future menus.
Any feedback you have would be highly appreciated as we really want to create the best Choklits menu ever!
If you have any questions about this winter season or would like to talk about food, please let us know via either the Choklits Facebook and Instagram accounts. We’ll respond to any questions and comments there.
On behalf of Lai and myself, stand by for Wacky Winter!
Saliya Lanka
Choklits Child Care Chef at Ringwood
Our Centres
(03) 9879 5888