After the disappointment of the school bus sideshow, Jamie is back at a school board meeting. He hopes he'll have better luck because it's smaller. The board smirks and rolls their eyes as Jamie talks and generally make themselves look like jerks. Why even allow cameras in that case?
Anyway, Jamie decides to dress himself and some volunteers as fruits and veggies and stand outside an elementary school handing out healthy lunches and flyers with the contact info for the board rep from that area. He snips that he doesn't want to dress as a giant tomahhto, but the school board forced him to. And then one of his volunteers gives a spiel about how the schools are training the kids to eat fast food. It's a good point, but it would probably have been better were it less scripted. And also not delivered by a giant strawberry. Jamie agrees with me and asks her to take the leaves off her head so he can take her seriously.
Seven hundred and forty-five emails have been copied to Jamie on their way to the school board. As a result of the email campaign, Jamie has been invited into a school which is owned by the LAUSD but run in partnership with an entity called the MLA; they’re nervous about going against the school district, but they want to give it a try. Unfortunately, the president of the MLA has to tell Jamie he's allowed to be anywhere on campus, except for the cafeteria. He does get to take over the Culinary Arts program for the moment.
Jamie goes back to beef with Dino the burger guy for some reason and asks to take over the business for a week. Dino is understandably reluctant. This whole thing is terribly scripted and also dumb -- why can't Jamie just open his own place for a week? Aren't pop-ups all the rage in the food world right now? Jamie bickering with interior designers might not be riveting TV, but it sounds a damn sight better than having the same argument over and over with Dino. About smoothies. In the end, they agree that Jamie will serve another menu side by side with the current one, and vows to double Dino's profit.
Jamie opens the first day of his culinary arts class by having a CR session about obesity and bad health, and then gets his students to make burritos from scratch. He corners Sophia, who talked earlier about her little sister being diagnosed with diabetes at age 10, and tries to point out that she could make changes in her life so that she herself won't get it. She feels that since her parents have it, and her grandparents died, and there's no chance of avoiding it. She cries; he hugs her and promises to look after her.
After the class makes their burritos, they go outside to eat and Jamie tells them he's turning them into activists. First, though, he spends the weekend trying to figure out his burger menu. He finds a butcher, and finds a cut and mix that allows him to make a burger for just 10 cents a patty more than Dino's. He needs to be able to sell his burgers for $4.85, and takes is new burger line (including one with pinto beans) out to the streets where he tells the customers to pay what they think the burgers are worth. They love them and offer anywhere between $7 and $15.
Jamie sets up at Dino's; his burgers are only as expensive as the most costly one there, are half the calories, and Dino thinks them too steakhouse-y. The customers like them, so Jamie starts to teach the rest of the staff to make his menu. Including, apparently, milkshakes, which we hopefully don't have to hear about from Dino again. Anyway, Jamie goes through the drive through over and over, making silly voices the whole time, in order to see if the staff can do it right, I guess. And then, ugh: Dino vrs. Jamie in round 20 of the milkshake smack down. Why can’t Dino either cooperate with Jamie or just throw him out? This can’t be good publicity for him. Whatever. Dino’s father died of heart disease, which Jamie tries to use to his advantage. Dino’s response is that he’s not going to let Jamie mess with his business. How many times are we going to revisit this?
More interestingly, while Jamie and Dino were dancing, the school district tried to shut down Jamie’s filming permit with the school and threatened to call the police. Jamie laughs at the idea facing down an armed cop with a box of veg, but the police car he finds when he gets there isn’t for him. MLA president Michael meets Jamie and tells him that in the end, the district decided to allow Jamie to continue to film, but he’s not allowed to know anything about the school lunch program, including asking kids about what they eat. The episode ends with Jamie waxing indignant because of the Revolutionary War and democracy. Maybe he’d get further in this quest if he could tone down the hyperbole.
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