NEW PBS SHOW OFFERS STUDENTS A TASTY WAY TO LEARN

Contra Costa Times
October 6, 2004
BYLINE: By Jackie Burrell

Strawberries, tomatoes and runny cheese are all ingredients in a new PBS series and classroom outreach program brewing in Berkeley and the East Bay. Part Chez Panisse, part Sesame Street, "DOOF: Food Backwards" is a kids' cooking show that mixes nutrition, math and science with spicy gazpacho and Thai noodles. The series won't air until next year, but 800 Oakland second-graders are getting a very hands-on sneak peek now.

"Food Backwards is our children's answer to the Slow Food (movement)," said DOOF education coordinator Ethel Brennan.

The aroma of garlic, peppers and lemon wafted last week from Angela Yapor's classroom at Franklin Elementary School, where 20 apron-clad kids were getting a crash course in tomatoes, starting with a DOOF episode set on a Lodi tomato farm and at the Berkeley farmers market.

They oohed and aahed over tiger toms and lemon boys -- heirloom tomatoes -- and chatted about ketchup with Brennan, before diving into a lesson on soup.
Second-grader Zhi Yang lopped the top off his tomato with a plastic knife and yelped in surprise: "Hey, there's juice in here!"

Mei Li scooped a pungent mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers into a mixing bowl, then wrinkled her nose at her equally pungent fingers.
"Smells stinky," classmate Sophia Huang said with a wide grin.

They squeezed lemons until they were white-knuckled, smashed garlic cloves and carefully measured olive oil and seasonings into a blender. Yapor wrote new vocabulary words on the white board.

"It's called gazpacho," Brennan said. The children stared at her, nervous. "It's sort of like salsa." Whew.

From gazpacho, it's a short culinary hop to honey, apples and "beet poetry," subjects of upcoming episodes and classroom lessons. But DOOF actually began in Mike Axinn's family room one weekend, as he watched his children flip from Saturday morning cartoons to food shows.

"Why not a cooking show for kids but zanier?" Axinn asked himself. "We're airing it at a time when there's a great crisis going on with obesity. Our philosophy is to get these kids at an impressionable age. Go in before it's too late."

Axinn pulled together a creative team that included pastry chef Alan Tangren from Chez Panisse and a range of food-loving, award-winning filmmakers, writers, artists and actors -- and, of course, Chez Panisse owner and founder Alice Waters. The doyenne of California cuisine, Waters also started the Chez Panisse Foundation and Berkeley's Edible Schoolyard. Filming began in that schoolyard last year.

It's no accident that the project is coming out of Berkeley's Fantasy Studios and Saul Zaentz Film Center, said Axinn.

"If you're into food and you live in Berkeley, it's like Eskimos and snow," he said. "You know 20 different types of lettuce."

Last spring, Axinn and his team approached Alameda County nutrition officials with the test DVD and an education outreach proposal. Between now and March, Brennan and her team will visit 40 different second-grade classrooms to tout the delights of apples and pears, tomatoes and stinky cheese.

"We don't say we're going to teach nutrition or math or science, but that's what food does -- teaches without seeming like you're teaching," Axinn said. "It's amazing to go into classrooms. They're all raising their hands to tell us about their grandma's garden."

Franklin's second-graders wanted to talk about their own garden, a serene sweep of curved brick paths, raised vegetable beds and a new gazebo that can hold an entire class. The children began working on it as first-graders in Lisa Lam's class, learning about life cycles, examining plant roots and growing their own salads.
Now, as the gazpacho eaters began dunking crunchy garlic toasts into their salsa-like soup, a knock sounded at the door. Lam's first-graders peered around the doorjamb, sniffing wildly. Soup? A movie about tomatoes? Shyly, they edged inside, took a seat on the floor and DOOF rolled again.

The program will be televised first on KTEH-TV, a public television station in San Jose.