Roots for the Home Team

We are a baseball family.

I have been devoted to the Chicago Cubs since the mid-seventies when I fell in love with the game and, ahem, Bill Buckner and Manny Trillo. I even got to meet Bill Buckner. Be still my beating heart. And had he stayed with the Cubs, Buckner would have avoided that World Series ground ball between the legs incident which marred his career.

My husband is a devoted St. Louis Cardinals fan. If you’re a Cubs fan you will understand the problem here. When we were expecting our first child, we made a pact that a daughter would be a Cardinal fan with Steve, and a son would be a Cubs fan with me. Seemed like a nice way to foster a friendly, non-gender based family rivalry. Until Eric was born. Not one day in, and Steve was already whispering names like Bob Gibson, Stan Musial, and Ozzie Smith in Eric’s ear. Hey, no fair! Eric did eventually see the light and has leaned towards the Cubs for several years now.

There is no place to watch a ball game like Chicago’s Wrigley Field. But since winning the World Series in ’16 and continuing to be hot this season, tickets are super expensive and hard to come by. So last weekend our family headed up to Milwaukee’s Miller Park to watch the Brewers take on the Colorado Rockies. (The Brewers are nipping at the ankles of my first place (at this writing) Cubs, so I cheered on the Rockies.)

How does baseball tie into real food inspirations? I didn’t think it would. It never has. I was resigned to Miller Park’s famous Bratchos – a combination of brats and nachos – or maybe a hot dog. Which would have been fine. If you know me at all, you know I’m not militant about eating real food. I just choose real food as often as I can.

On the way to find something BBQ’d, my daughter and I passed a brightly polished little salad stand. We were fighting crowds, so I kept walking. But then I thought, “We should go back and at least check that out.” I was skeptical about a salad from a baseball concession. Would it be one of those, yeah, yeah, we know you fans SAY you want healthy options so here’s a lame salad with tasteless, watery romaine, a few dry veggies and two croutons kind of salad?

Well, this was not your ordinary ballpark concession. And not your ordinary salad.

Roots For The Home Team sells salads at Miller Park and at Target Field in Minneapolis. Salads created by local teens. With ingredients grown by teens in urban community gardens. Working with local chefs, the teens learn about nutrition and create original salads. And then they market and sell them.

The teens have adult mentors, such as Roots For The Home Team founder Sue Moores, who teach them entrepreneurial skills to help them successfully sell their salads. They learn about food handling and safety, marketing, sales, leadership, interacting with the public, and gain a whole lot of experience and confidence along the way.

On this particular Sunday, the teens were offering two salad choices: M.Y. Fresco (M.Y. stands for Milwaukee Youth) and Brew Crew Caprese. By the time I went back to take another photo, they had sold out of the M.Y. Fresco. Yay for them! Cost: $10, with the option of adding chicken to either salad for an extra $2. We’ll talk about that price in a minute.

I ordered the M.Y. Fresco. The salad was assembled in front of me by a couple of very lively and enthusiastic teens. I thought, well, we’ll see how the salad tastes, but either way, this is clearly a good thing for these kids. Well it was a good thing for me, too! The salad was delicious. Extremely fresh ingredients. I tasted nothing but quality in that salad. I was so impressed with the freshness, the flavor combinations and the dressing that between innings I went back to the stand.

This is my recreation of the M.Y. Fresco salad. Roots for The Home Team provides sturdy, colorful, easy to follow recipe cards for their salads so you can make them at home, too!

After complimenting the kids, I spoke with Sue Moores. She told me Roots For The Home Team has its original Salad Up! stand at the Minnesota Twins park. (I later learned that stand opened in 2012, so they’ve had time to get a handle on their plan and their brand.) Miller Park is its first expansion stadium.

Roots For The Home Team hopes to clinch a new ball park and add new communities to their line up every year. Sue talked about the impact this program has on the teens and how it gives them a taste of what they can do – opens their eyes, minds, and hearts to expand their goals.

So the $10-$12 salad. Yes, that’s a little on the steep side. But let me ask you this: Do you buy Girl Scout cookies? Sponsor your nephew in a walk-a-thon? Stop by the cheerleaders’ car wash? Buy local coupon books from the high school teams? Or wrapping paper from the choir? Buy a square for the Super Bowl pool? We shell out a few extra bucks for these fundraisers because we know the kids and we know it’s for a good cause.

Roots For The Home Team is a REALLY good cause.

To learn more about Roots For The Home Team and to get recipes for all of the salads they make (I counted 12, plus one soup) check out the Roots For The Home Team website. And if you’re taking in a Brewer’s game in Milwaukee on a Sunday this season, be sure to visit their Salad Up! stand near section 119. If you’re watching the Twins, you can find the Roots For The Home Team crew on Saturdays and Sundays, Gate 34.