What’s Happening With DooF!
On the eve of our new Web site launch, we wanted to share what’s been happening and our plans going into 2010.
Earlier this year, following two very successful DooF-a-Palooza events at Google in 2007 and 2008, many of you wrote or called to find out when we would be holding our next event. Sorry not to follow up sooner. DooF has been very fortunate in having the support of some of the most important innovators in the food, health care, media and technology fields, which has enabled us to attempt some very ambitious goals in the name of getting kids excited about healthy food. We spent much of 2008 working with PBS to develop a prototype for a Web-based television show combining animation and live action. After hitting a snag in the upper reaches of the PBS system, we decided to do what we should have done sooner, and turn foodbackwards.com into a resource for our community of parents, teachers and children – sharing the fruits of the work we’ve been doing.
The Web site now includes four topic areas:
ABCs (education), to which we’ll be adding a DooF curriculum created by two teachers working in the Oakland Unified School District in collaboration with Alameda County Nutrition Services, along with reports documenting food history and culture from our DooF Aliens (more on them in a nanosec).
Channel DooF (videos). This year we’ll be choosing a new team of DooF kids and documenting the process of auditions, and a weekend-long DooF Camp, to which we’ll invite the finalists. Once we’ve picked our team, we’ll be off to a range of locations to talk to food experts and real people (see below DooF-on-Wheels).
Cookbot Recipe Planner is designed to help families to figure out what to cook by typing in ingredients they have already.
DooF Community Section will include blogs teachers, parents and food experts, plus information about food events.
You probably noticed some funny looking guests on our site. Those are the DooF aliens – Pollo, Y, Trippe, and the Cookbot. Please be nice to them. They come from a planet that doesn’t have food (existing instead off a petroleum-like substance called gloop). Needless to say, they’re very curious about this food thing they’ve discovered on Planet Earth. Soon, our DooF kids will be teaching them all about it, thanks to something called DooF-on-Wheels.
In 2010, we’ll be bringing the excitement of DooF-a-Palooza to a location near you with DooF-On-Wheels, a biodiesel-powered vehicle featuring DooF cast and crew that will tour farmer’s markets, schools, and grocery stores and bring good food fun to children, families, and the DooF Aliens, who’ll be providing a full report to their superiors back home. DooF-on-Wheels is a new way to celebrate growers, chefs, purveyors and local food resources and will be the basis for our new DooF series.
That’s it for now, but stay tuned for updates on our progress, resources, recipes, and fun food facts from our alien correspondents.
Mike Axinn
Related posts:
- Delivering on the Promise of DooF!
- A Food Backwards Thank You!
- DooF-a-Palooza 2008 Teaser Photos
- The Game’s Afoot!
- DooF-a-Palooza 2008 announced!