Jamie Oliver Warns L.A. He's On His Way

by Allen Salkin, Posted Nov 23rd 2010 @ 1:00PM

Photo: Slashfood

Watch out, Los Angeles school officials! You may become next season's prime-time TV villains.

Jamie Oliver, the English chef who won an Emmy for his show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" (which portrayed some school-lunch bureaucrats in West Virginia as ensuring that children are given meals sure to make them obese and short-lived), is bringing the show to L.A. for season 2.

When producers wrote to officials at the Los Angeles Unified School District, asking for permission to film in the schools, it was denied.

"Our feeling was that his time would be better spent or invested in other communities," an L.A. school official told the Los Angeles Times.

In part two of Oliver's exclusive three-part interview with Slashfood, he lays down a warning to the district.

"If I really want to get in," he said. "I'll get in, however that might be."

He has been through this before, he explained, "American or English, they are all the same, red tape all the same, bureaucrats all the same. Can-do people and can't-do people."

The show is due to start taping in January. It is not going to focus only on school lunches in L.A. It will be based there, but will seek opportunities wherever they can be found to illustrate the drama of how hard it can be to change the way Americans eat.

"Sadly," Oliver said. "Governments or states in England and America have this massive arrogant attitude that 'We're all right, jack. We're doing just fine.' We all know that's not true."

Filed Under: Television/Film, Interviews, Behind the Apron
Tags: jamie oliver, jamie olivers food revolution