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jamie oliver wants to teach us about good food

i’ve been blessed to somehow get snuck into a “satellite” viewing of the TED 2010 Conference. For those of you not familiar with TED, they are the collectors and spreaders of innovation, ideas, and creative solutions. Their tagline is “ideas worth spreading,” so i like to think of them as a think tank that doesn’t selfishly sequester away their learnings. and every year, there’s a big conference that gathers them all together. and i’m watching it, at a satellite location, Live.

how great is that?

so yesterday was day one of TED 2010, and i was able to watch the first session, “mindshift,” as well as catch the last half of the live broadcast of the TED Prize winner this year, Jamie Oliver.

so i’ve tried and tried to sum up the four speakers and one ukelele virtuoso (yes, that’s what i said) here, and people. it can’t be done. i will have to share with you some TED thoughts over the next few weeks, breaking it down to individual speakers. instead, let me just tell you what made me cry last night.

jamie oliver, of “naked chef” fame, has been running a program to introduce kids to cooking and food for years-and has quite a program going. oliver was the winner of this year’s TEDPrize, and as recipient of this award, he gets to present his “wish” to the attendees. here’s what we were presented (which is stole from the TED Blog):

“THE WISH:
“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

THE PLAN:
Set up an organization to create a popular movement that will inspire people to change the way they eat. The movement will do this by establishing a network of community kitchens; launching a travelling food theater that will teach kids practical food and cooking skills in an entertaining way and provide basic training for parents and professionals; and bringing millions of people together through an online community to drive the fight against obesity. The grassroots movement must also challenge corporate America to support meaningful programs that will change the culture of junk food.”

so here’s where i started to get teary. in a few minutes, after oliver talked about what he was passionate about, he shared this wish and plan, and then they said to the crowd, so. that’s jamie’s wish. what do you have to help get this done?

and people. without hesitation, so many folks were clamoring for the microphone. just in the first two minutes i heard so many responses, among which were:

our company has office space you can use, we’ll get you all set up so you can run your movement out of there.

my family is friends with the biggest grocery chain in our state; we’ll get you connected and make sure they make changes in their stores to coincide with what you want to accomplish.

we’re working on a food policy in my state, if you’ll come help us with it we’ll write it with your pen. (jamie’s response: i’ll be there tomorrow)

we’ll give you $10,000 towards building a cookbook to help youth learn to cook- and publishing it.

we’ve got web experts and a website-you can have our staff and our site.

….and on it went! i was floored. instant response, generous response, and most importantly Practical Tangible gifts to help make oliver’s wish come true. i have never seen a more perfect expression of “group genius.”

share me

TED, day one.

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