To the Editor:

Our home school co-op had the most wonderful time on our recent field trip to Caraluzzi's Market.

In every department they received a wonderful lesson about how food is delivered, prepared and packaged for sale. They were given a Caraluzzi's bag and something special to put in it in practically every department.

Carmen gave them teeny bananas from Columbia, the chef gave them dinosaur chicken nuggets and answered all their questions. We now know how to cook rotisserie chicken to perfection! And the young man at the deli taught them the secret of hard and soft cheeses and even how Swiss Cheese gets its holes. Thank you Candido in the meat department for wowing our kids by showing them how you make your ground beef and perfect hamburger patties. Several mothers in our group want one of those machines! The young lady in the bakery painstakingly showed our young ones how to makes roses out of frosting. And they got specially wrapped fresh baked cookies as well.

The children were duly impressed with the box crusher and the walk in freezer stacked floor to ceiling with ice cream.

Jeremiah at Caraluzzi's is a wonderful guy who spent a lot of time with us, answered all our questions and let the children hold live lobsters.

And best of all, at the end they each had a bag full of Caraluzzi's goodies with bar codes they got to scan themselves. The topper of the morning was a Caraluzzi's t-shirt and yellow rose (a yellow rose is the symbol of friendship, we learned) to take home.

Thank you so much to all the folks at Caraluzzi's Market who took so much time out of their busy day for us. Our kids have enjoyed many field trips throughout the years but this one was really special. A special thank you from Grace, Sarah, Christian, Nathan, Abby, Becka, Joelle, Rachael, Sophia, Paul, Ian and Milly!

Ana Schriever

31 Riverside Road Sandy Hook               March 22, 2014