Fighting bac!

A cable TV show makes bacteria and other food fiends more palatable

IT DOESN'T SEEM possible that the dull and rather distasteful topic of food safety could be amusing and even entertaining -- until you hear Henry "Food Cop" Holthaus tackle the material.

Chef Henry, a chef-instructor at Kapiolani Community College, has been teaching culinary students about food safety since 1992, and will take his act to the airwaves beginning tonight in a weekly show entitled "Shig Happens! Food Safety with Chef Henry Food Cop."

"Shig Happens! Food Safety with Chef Henry Food Cop" Debuts at 8:30 tonight on Oceanic Channel 55

The play on words foreshadows the low-budget charm that follows. "Shig" is short for shigella, a bacteria that causes foodborne illnesses when cooks fail to wash their hands with soap and water (or -- gasp -- at all) after using the restroom or changing a diaper. The nasty illness that results is called shigellosis.

"We're going for the shock value here," said Chef Henry, who served his own Hawaiian Passion Hot Sauce at the show's premiere for friends and family last week in the Sony Lab on KCC's campus.

That's fairly obvious when the pilot episode starts with a Chef Henry-composed "gangsta rap" containing nose-crinkling lyrics about why it's imperative to "wash yo hands!" The opening scene shows Chef Henry exiting a bathroom stall and heading for the sink; the sound of a flushing toilet nearly swallows his dialogue.

But the message is clear -- and essential. Food safety concerns everyone. It's a serious topic, and not one most of us want to engage in at length. So why not make it fun?

"He's got a fantastic personality, a great sense of humor and he knows his subject," said Frank Gonzales, the noncredit program coordinator for KCC's culinary arts program. "If I were to give you facts about food safety, it would be very dry. It's just memorization. He's got a real enthusiasm for the topic and gives you a much easier way of digesting the information. You remember it better if it's funny."

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DRESSED IN checkered Chefwear pants, a white chef's top with the sleeves cut off and a hat with "SHIG" printed in bold letters across the front, Chef Henry, 51, radiates enthusiasm for a gig he hopes might pay one day. For now, it's on his own time.

The first show is called "Ten Rules for Surviving Labor Day." It's divided into several short segments, such as "News to Chew," "Your Daily Bug Allowance" and e-mails from "viewers" who ask questions or share a disgusting food experience from an anonymous buffet line.

What varies is the theme. Next up is an episode on food allergies called "Fear of Food: Please Keep Your Nuts Off My Plate."

In the down-home style one expects from local television, many segments are taped at his house in Hauula, and his golden retriever, Momi, and his wife, Alice Anne Parker, play important roles. Parker, an author and professional psychic, is especially lively as the "bad housewife" who thaws meat improperly and drives Chef Henry crazy enough to explain the way it should be done -- for our benefit, of course.

The plan is to re-run each episode for three weeks before airing a fresh one. Five new shows will be completed by the end of the year.

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AFTER ATTENDING the University of Maryland, Chef Henry "came west and just kept coming west," landing in Hawaii 29 years ago.

Last year, distance learning coordinator Joy Shirokane told him he would teach his sanitation class -- a requirement in KCC's culinary arts program -- on television for the benefit of neighbor island and online students.

That's when the idea blossomed: Why not create a show on food safety for the public?

Shirokane struggles to find instructors willing to participate in televised classes at all, so she was thrilled with Chef Henry's initiative. Many cooking shows are already out there, she said, but nobody talks about the cleanliness of your cutting board, cross-contamination of utensils and the bacteria on your sponge. She decided that this "could be something different."

Chef Henry wanted a co-host, but everyone insisted he didn't need one, said Shirokane.

Even so, he recruited Palakiko Yagodich, a coordinator for Interpret Hawaii in KCC's Hospitality & Tourism Education Department, to assist him.

"I kind of did the undercover work for Chef Henry," chuckled Yagodich, known as "Deputy P, the Kukae Cop." Wearing a short pony tail, a T-shirt reading "Hawaiian Justice" and a "SHIG" hat matching Chef Henry's, Yagodich plays a surprisingly skilled straight man to Chef Henry's comedic shifts.

"He's off the wall, so you have to be prepared for anything," said Yagodich. "I like to be loose and free, so we just ran with it."

Ed Quinto, director and editor of "Shig Happens," said Chef Henry ad libs everything. "It's more or less an outline, and he goes with it. I think doing something goofball suits him."

One segment of the show, "How Much is that Musubi in the Window?" has Yagodich stop at various convenience stores -- whose names are moderately concealed -- to purchase Spam musubi from the counter. He brings it to the culinary arts department van, where the camera and a thermometer await.

"We got one!" exclaims Deputy P.

Chef Henry reads the label aloud: "Keep refrigerated." He turns to Deputy P. "Was it refrigerated?"

"No, it was actually under one of those heat lamps."

Chef Henry measures the temperature of the food -- 102 degrees. "Hmm, looks to me like we're 33 degrees short," he says ominously. "Bacteria grows best at 102."

"What do we do? Do we eat it?" Deputy P asks.

"And pray?" Chef Henry responds.

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HE EXPLAINS that cold food should be cold (below 40 degrees) and hot food should be hot (above 135 degrees ). Anything in between falls into the "food danger zone." And food sitting on the counter should have a time stamp. "Hopefully we'll get all of these establishments to start paying attention to what they're doing in their stores," he said.

"The Diving Double Digit of Doom" segment re-enacts a chef's bad behavior while preparing food -- sometimes in front of a group in the KCC theater -- in an effort to keep others from repeating it.

"We don't want to make enemies by naming names," said Chef Henry. This is why he mimics the offending chef with a dark circle on the screen obscuring his face. "But I still want to get it out there. Just because you're a big chef doesn't mean we want to taste your spit. If we do, we'll kiss you."

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THE FUTURE of the show beyond the initial few episodes remains undetermined.

"I didn't even think that far," Shirokane admitted. She feels fortunate to have found an eager and innovative instructor like Chef Henry, who made it possible to reach this point at all. "Working in the university system can be," she paused, "not that creative. And it's not like we can hire anyone."

In addition to her day job, Shirokane helps produce, sings in the show and often records the voice-over. "Luckily I'm a little ham ... so I do all of it. You can't be too shy if you're trying to get people to be on TV!"

Chef Henry may be the only member of the small group who has thought about the next step. "I'm hoping somebody wants to pick this up commercially," he said, which would enable them to assemble a team of researchers and production staff. "It may just totally change my life. I mean, it already has."

A rousing ovation marked the end of the screening; Chef Henry reminded his fans to watch the show on Wednesday nights, and hopefully catch re-runs at various times on Oahu and the neighbor islands -- a schedule nobody is entirely sure about.

Then with a raised thumb and a confident grin he shouted, "We're going to be competing with 'Lost'!"