Food Revolution

Jamie Oliver, the English chef who took on the "lunch ladies" of Huntington, W.Va., in an attempt to make school food more healthful, has been told thanks but no thanks by the Los Angeles Unified School District. "Our feeling was that his time would be better spent or invested in other communities," Melissa Infusino, the director of partnerships in the superintendent's office, said Friday. Oliver is bringing his "Food Revolution" reality television show to L.A. for its second season, and he and his family plan to move to the area in January, a spokeswoman said.

In the not-too-distant past, the best dinner spot in Healdsburg was a red-sauce Italian joint next to the highway, and the only option for picnic goodies was the Salami Tree Deli. But then Napa got crowded, Sonoma wine developed street cred and a slew of boutique hotels opened up around the town square. And Healdsburg became seriously about food. So serious that the tamale truck at the Saturday farmers market features chef-butchered meat. So serious that the town is home to at least four destination restaurants, including one where the cooking is equal parts science fair and Cordon Bleu.

Jamie Oliver is a little different from other hosts we've talked with. He's animated, he's passionate, he's, well, a chef — and he's not vying for the Emmy as a host (though his show is in the running for reality series gold). Still, The Envelope was curious about a Briton's take on the job. Jamie Oliver "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" (ABC) What's the biggest faux pas you've committed on the show? Maybe it was calling the lovely Huntington [W.Va.] school cooks "lunch ladies."

The sap is running on a crisp spring morning — sugar maples along the roads are festooned with every manner of container, from gallon milk jugs to shining buckets. Steam and smoke waft upward from jury-rigged sugar shacks and multiroom log sugar houses worthy of a spread in Architectural Digest. This variety is typical across the country — the small producer's next-door neighbor might be a multimillion-dollar producer. But beneath the bucolic image, there are questions.

SERIES Who Do You Think You Are? Looking into his family history, Matthew Broderick helps historians solve a 150-year-old mystery and discovers that his paternal grandfather served as a medic in World War I and that his grandmother was descended from a Civil War hero in this new episode (8 p.m. NBC). Live From Abbey Road: Counting Crows, Melody Gardot and Hockey perform in this new episode (8 p.m. Sundance). Bill Moyers Journal: Moyers speaks with financial journalist Gretchen Morgenson for a candid look at the obstacles facing substantive reform of the financial system, then takes a closer look at the newly signed health bill with John Nichols, the Nation, and Terry O'Neill, Now (9 p.m. KCET)

You should talk about: "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" America, this is your life: In his new ABC reality series, you'll see the British chef ask a classroom of 6-year-olds in Huntington, W.Va., to identify a bunch of tomatoes. One boy says they're potatoes. The others don't know. Oliver's already changed school lunch laws in the U.K., but can he reform the unwilling denizens of "the fattest city in the U.S."? (Today) Talk about having a weird but somehow perfect marathon: Follow Season 3 of "Mad Men," fresh out on DVD, with the special two-disc Blu-ray release of "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2."

In the film "We Are Marshall," the town of Huntington, W.Va., reels, then regroups after most of Marshall University's football team is killed in a plane crash. Forty years later, Huntington is at the center of yet another potential turn-around tale. Only this time, rather than a phoenix emerging from the ashes, the image is more of a grilled chicken breast rising from a landfill of deep fryers. In "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution," the boyish and preternaturally media-friendly British food guru known for a while as "The Naked Chef" because of his penchant for simple food, comes to Huntington in the hopes of transforming the unhealthiest town -- i.e. the fattest town -- in America.

A curious thing about food history is that historians, when they entertain it at all, consider it a quaint diversion. Given humankind's interest in food for nourishment and enjoyment, this lacuna is a surprise. The few extant food histories tend to be uncritical and unsystematic in their approach and characterized by antiquarianism.