Season 5

Gary Olsen, Creator and Producer of
Kids in the Kitchen

am proud to welcome you to the fifth season of Kids in the Kitchen! Thanks so much to our production partners, the City of Dubuque, Mediacom and Hy-Vee Foods, for without their support, the show wouldn't be the incredible success that it is.

We have made continuous improvements to the show the past two years, and our success is due in large part to wonderful casting choices. Chef Jim Terry and our Dietician Megan Dalsing are extraordinary talents, and I'm thrilled that they will be back this year on the show. There will be some new faces among the Kids in the Kitchen this season, too. This is going to be a wonderful year, and I promise there will be some surprises.

I've always considered this television show a work in process, an exercise in creative experimentation. I'm frequently asked how much preparation goes into each show. Series television production is a feat of collaborative logistics with many people involved each chosen for their individual talents or skills. Most of the pre-production work for Kids in the Kitchen took almost a year before cameras actually started to roll. Series television then becomes easier to produce because you've developed a format, a sense of timing, and there's an expectation level among participants who become aware of what's expected of them. For example, it used to take a crew of three almost an hour and half to set up for each production. Now it takes two people about 30 to 45 minutes. But now we have a teaching kitchen that was designed expressly for television production, and we have Hy-Vee Foods to thank for that.

I can't speak for our chef, Jim Terry, but I know he brings to every episode a lifetime of cooking expertise, and he always comes to the set with nutritious fare that emphasizes healthful, natural, and particularly organically grown and prepared ingredients. But Jim loves to impart his knowledge of knife handling, proper use of appliances and above all safety and sanitation. Students are not only learning the science and math of food preparation, but the geography, history and literature of cuisine world wide.

We also enjoy the serendipity and happy accidents that occur on set that make for interesting television. When I was dreaming up Kids in the Kitchen, I recalled my own upbringing. In my family, the culinary arts were the domain of my mother. We were a very traditional American household.

Looking back on my own youth, I believe my mother considered cooking as the last essential service she could provide us kids, and I think she wanted to prolong this dependence upon her as long as possible. And God forbid I would question any aspect of food preparation or the ingredients she used. I can only imagine what would have happened if I came home and announced I was thinking of becoming a vegetarian or if I made suggestions about more healthful menu alternatives (if I knew of any at the time).

She actually wasn't too keen on me experimenting in the kitchen. She was perhaps correct that I would most likely make a mess, and there were the dangers of hot surfaces, sharp knives and the specter of food-borne illness looming. I recall an old gas oven in which my mother singed her hair and eyebrows while igniting a pilot light. Thankfully it was a small explosion but an explosion nonetheless because she had left the gas turned on. She could have blown the entire house to kingdom come! Very dangerous! Needless to say I didn't touch anything in the kitchen except what was put on a plate and shoved in front of my face for all the years I was growing up.

I don't think my lack of experience in the kitchen is unique, and so I endeavored to do something about it and help kids develop an appreciation for cooking and healthful ingredients.

I just love the collaborative process of television production. I believe that television is the most perfect medium around which to rally talent and build collaborative relationships.

The results speak for themselves in many ways. Our shows are now seen state-wide on Mediacom and our fan base is growing among their 400,000 subscribers. Two years ago we won the Beacon Award, cable TV's highest honor for public service series programming beating out such entities as National Geographic Channel, Time Warner, and Cox Cable. I couldn't be more happy for the continued success of our show. I'm particularly proud of our student cast members. They are what's important to us in this enterprise.

I hope you'll stay tuned to this website because it will change frequently in the next several weeks. Photos and episodes will be posted as well as recipes and other information. Perhaps you can come out to Hy-Vee and join our audience and watch a show being taped live. Check the schedule. Filming starts at 9 AM on production days.

--Gary Olsen, Media Developer for the Dubuque Community Schools

We've completed our schedule for the fifth season of Kids in the Kitchen. It has been an outstanding and productive year for us. We had only one weather cancellation, and we added that production day and more onto the end of the schedule. I am so proud of our cast and crew. These are the best and brightest stars in our Dubuque Community Schools galaxy, and they made such wonderful contributions to the show. We the producers of Kids inthe Kitchen, including Megan Dalsing, Hy-Vee Foods (without which we couldn't do Kids in the Kitchen and we are forever grateful), Terry Mozena, Wally Brown, and Jim Terry (our illustrious chef whose been with us from day 1).

Fans of the show and anyone associated with the production can email me anytime. --Gary Olsen

Show's creator Gary Olsen in Hy-Vee's state-of-the-art teaching kitchen. The 16 feet of counter space has a built-in grill and exhaust system that captures smoke and transports it through ductwork under the floor. This keeps the mirror above clean and clear to allow a camera and the audience to peer directly into simmering pots and pans on the range. There are three ovens and two are convection ovens.

At left is the Beacon Award, presented each year to outstanding cable television shows, and we won for best series this past season. This is indeed a big deal. Competing in our category were the National Geographic Channel, Time Warner, Cox Cable, and nearly a hundred other production enterprises with far more resources than we have. How did we win this award? A great message (kids' nutrition) creativity, passion, and pure talent that were evident in every episode.