For 20 years, TV producer Melanie Kosaka has been shooting TV shows and creating Web media that focused on food, she says, "from seed to table," including a popular series for Honolulu celebrity chef Roy Yamaguchi and Chicago's iconic Charlie Trotter.

But it wasn't until she began working on her latest project, the multidimensional, interactive Web site Share Your Table, that she began to see high consumer interest in three hot topics: eating local, gaining access to fresher foods, and a hunger to know both the sources of food and its history and place in culture.

"What's especially exciting is the response we get from people in their 20s and 30s who are excited about cooking," said Kosaka, noting that the stereotype is that no one young cooks anymore. Not so, she said. "Maybe because they are of a generation whose parents grew up on convenience food, cooking is a whole new experience for them. What they've really shown me is that if people are educated about food, and if you give them enough background to make them feel comfortable, many can't wait to try something in the kitchen."

One of the pieces on the Share Your Table site (www.shareyourtable.com) that Kosaka is most eager to have people see is a three-minute video documentary featuring chef Ed Kenney of town restaurant and a print story by writer Martha Cheng about "Why Eat Local" (go to www.shareyourtable.com/stories). It is, Kosaka said, "most reflective of the intentions of Share Your Table." Locally grown food, Kenney says, supports generational family farms, perpetuates cultural practices and boosts the Island economy. "And it's 10 times better than anything else you can get," he says.

Besides, says the narrator, "it's something we can do every time we shop" — a core tenet of Share Your Table, doing what you can in your own small way.

The video talks about "the conversation between grower and consumer" and one of Share Your Table's aims is to be part of that conversation, too, with segments featuring farmer and Hawaii Farm Bureau leader Dean Okimoto, who shares recipes, tours farms and offers ideas about how to eat local; and Brooks Takenaka of United Fishing Agency, the Honolulu fish auction at Pier 38, who has daily contact with fishermen and blogs about it on Share Your Table (a blog, for the uninitiated, is short for Web log, a sort of online diary, generally updated every few days with whatever's on the blogger's mind).

Share Your Table was first introduced last year, but is being reborn this month as technical arrangements are finalized with the project's TV partner, Oceanic Time Warner. Soon — next month or the month after — a Share Your Table on-demand channel will be available to Oceanic Time Warner cable digital subscribers featuring not only the online documentaries but past Kosaka projects, including Yamaguchi's "Hawai'i Cooks"; a Chinese cooking series featuring mother-daughter team Leeann and Katie Chinn, "Double Happiness"; and other culinary productions produced by Kosaka's First Daughter Mediaworks company.

Also online, and on the upcoming channel, Get Fresh, is discussing what's fresh in markets on a particular week, who is growing it and how to cook it. "Think of it as the next generation of farmers markets," Kosaka said.

The Share Your Table site has been somewhat static over the past few months, but action is picking up with the relaunch. Every week, one new video and feature story — will debut along with a couple of short pieces. And blogs will be posted three times a week.

Share Your Table's videographer is Robert Bates, whose other project right now is a 60-minute documentary, "Ingredients" about restaurateur and eat-local pioneer Alice Waters. Bates, who lives in Portland, Ore., but called the Islands home for some years, shares her concern about, and interest in, the sources of local foods and customs.

New to Share Your Table is food writer Martha Cheng, who late last year did a piece about how to celebrate a locavore Thanksgiving, focused on ingredients grown here (range-fed beef and roast mahi instead of turkey, for example, plus ginger and tangerine purple sweet potato mash). She even uses a little-known fruit found at a local nursery, mamey sapote, which tastes like pumpkin pie, to make the dessert.

Former Advertiser food editor, farmers market proponent, author and freelance writer Joan Namkoong films and writes a How To 101 feature each month and, in addition, will prepare a print feature for The Advertiser and a video for the Share Your Table site, Sunday Night Suppers, about how to parlay a cooking session with the family into several meals over the course of the week or month. The first one debuts in The Advertiser and online March 4.

"The premise is that Sunday night is a great time to sit down with the family and have a home-cooked meal, and it's a great day to cook something from scratch that everybody will enjoy," said Namkoong. Cook a double batch and freeze one, or use up leftovers from a generously sized preparation in meals later in the week.

The series launches with a basic roast chicken that, on another night, becomes tacos and other good things. Sometimes the recipe will be an entree; other times, it will be a key ingredient. For example, the April segment will look at oven-roasting tomatoes, which can become a simple sauce for pasta, a complement to grilled fish, a topping for bruschetta for a snack or appetizer. Another plan is to teach the making of a good chicken stock, then to share recipes for a hearty chicken soup and a chicken and mushroom risotto.

"Once this gets going, people can check in and talk about their favorite Sunday night supper, or ask for dishes they'd like to see featured. We want it to be more interactive," said Namkoong.

My series, Origins, spotlights the history of Island foods. This month, we're exploring poke (that segment debuts today on the Share Your Table Web site; I've got a poke recipe for you in this section, too, that's especially for Advertiser print readers). Upcoming: chicken long rice, shave ice, saimin. Got any other dishes or foods about which you're curious?

Also on Share Your Table, an interactive Web conversation, Table Talk, poses questions and provides answers on local restaurants and where to find various dishes and food items.