Wednesday, March 31, 2010

RAVE - Sign Jamie Oliver's Petition

When the cheeky chappy first came along he - in my opinion - completely changed the face of cooking. Not only was his attitude and demeanor a refreshing change from the rest of the TV Chefs, but his bish-bosh-bash approach to cooking, and the food he made, definitely changed the way I cook.

We have several of his cook books, and even though they sit between Nigella Lawson in the comfortable corner of the market, Raymond Blanc in the posh French corner, and Heston Blumenthal in the super techno corner, you just have to look at their sauce-spattered pages to see which ones get the most usage in our kitchen.

Our Jamie stood the restaurant world on its end when he took disadvantaged teenagers from British streets, put them through basic training and then narrowed them down to fifteen, the core staff for a new restaurant, also named Fifteen.

A recent venture of his is described at his web site like this: Jamie has made a new series for American TV about food – how families eat, what kids get at school and why, like the UK, the diet of processed food and snacks is causing so many health and obesity problems. The series was filmed in Huntington, West Virginia.

Jamie's challenge was to see if he can get a whole community cooking again. He worked with the school lunch ladies and local families to get everyone back in the kitchen and making tasty meals with fresh ingredients – no packets, no cheating. He's started a Food Revolution: to get people all over America to reconnect with their food and change the way they eat.

When this was featured on The Late Show With David Letterman a few weeks ago,  the host joked that it was unlikely Americans would take to this. However, just last week it was revealed that schools where Jame Oliver's diet was implemented not only saw healthy improvements, but academic test results improved too!

Now, there's a petition to sign at Jamie's web site. You can sign the petition to SAVE COOKING SKILLS AND IMPROVE SCHOOL MEALS here in the USA.

Pork Pie-tastic!

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