Share your table?

Sitting at a communal table can be an enriching experience, as anyone knows who has ever found themselves sitting down with strangers at a bed and breakfast and rising as newfound friends, trading addresses, ideas for sights to see and restaurants to visit, recipes and sometimes even hugs and kisses.

There's something about sitting down to food together that just promotes communication and fellowship.

This, at its most basic, is behind a new multimedia project, Share Your Table, being launched this week by TV producer Melanie Kosaka of First Daughter Mediaworks and her Share Your Table partners, which include The Advertiser. Kosaka is best known for having produced cooking shows for PBS and international markets ("Hawaii Cooks with Roy Yamaguchi," "New American Cuisine," "The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter").

But for the past few years, Kosaka has been thinking outside the TV box, fascinated, she says, by the possibilities of new media, interactivity and online "communities."

"What inspired me is the opportunity to share stories and videos about Hawai'i's history, culture and arts through a food-focused lens. Food and our memories of food (what our mothers cooked for us, what we ate for special celebrations) is often the soundtrack of our lives and one of the most tangible and ever-present ways we connect to our heritage and with each other."

Because it's so new, Share Your Table is a little bit hard for some to get their heads around. It's not a TV show; it's an online package of photos and videos, recipes and articles, blogs and podcasts and opportunities to interact with experts and other Share Your Table users. Soon, 30-second Share Your Table factoids will be seen on local cable television; Oceanic Time Warner is also a partner. And, when you sign up for Share Your Table's "To Go" service, you'll receive additional material sent straight to you.

"The great joy of producing for multiplatform is the opportunity to create content that is set in just the right contextual environment to engage the audience — online, on TV or via mobile (devices)," Kosaka said. "For example, Master Sommelier Chuck Furuya did this fantastic interview with superstar winemaker Greg Brewer that you can download as a podcast. And on 'To Go,' we'll send you Chuck's short list of his favorite Greg Brewer wines. In the Reel Food section, film producer Chris Lee tells us his favorite Honolulu dinner-and-movie combos. The 'To Go' portion is Chris' hit list of favorite restaurants with specific menu recommendations."

In the first Share Your Table package — online now — is a how-to video on making dashi (Japanese fish stock) from scratch, a story on Portuguese bean soup and how it came to be the soup of Hawai'i (with recipe), content related to wine and restaurants, a blog that outlines days in the life of the Hono-lulu fish auction auction, by auction manager Brooks Takenaka, and chef D.K. Kodama leads a good eats tour of Kaka'ako. Content will be refreshed every week, with features dropping in and out, but available on the Share Your Table archive.

There are also forums where you can post your comments in each of the topic areas.

The Share Your Table production team includes director of online and broadcast video Robert Bates, who is dividing his time between Hawai'i and Oregon, where he is working on a documentary that follows food from seed to table. Tony Tung, co-founder, is a partner in the design studio Not That, This and was recently nominated for an Emmy for his work in iTV/VOD. His studio has produced more than 30 projects in the field of new media.

Tung, who has done some food writing but says his main expertise is in the new media side of things, is excited about seeing how Share Your Table users respond to various interactive tools. For example, he plans to set the site up so that you can select a recipe and have the ingredient list automatically download to your phone so you can consult it while in the grocery store.

But closest to his heart is making Share Your Table a place where the stories behind recipes are told. Share Your Table is soliciting readers' own recipes to be archived in a databank that will eventually allow readers to build their own collections, both online and in print and that will searchable by island, town or region. But recipes, he said, are not the important thing — they're easy to come by.

"We want your memories," he said. "I want a story behind every single dish. What we're trying to do (is) capture the moment, to build an online time capsule, really it's recording history. The overarching idea is a gathering place where people talk story."

For example, when they asked farmer and farmers market activist Dean Okimoto to share recipes, he came up with steak and ice cream. Foodie Kosaka was a little taken aback, expecting something fancier or more esoteric from the man who put mesclun greens on O'ahu menus. But then Okimoto related the story behind this menu, that it was his father's favorite thing to make for a special meal.

"It gives me chicken skin (to hear a story like that," Tung said. "I think that's what we're all about. That's what drives me."

Others involved: former Advertiser food editor, cookbook author and farmers market proponent Joan Namkoong, who presents step-by-step cooking lessons and writes other articles; and Advertiser food editor Wanda Adams, whose interest is food history and how we came to eat the way we do. Managing editor is Mari Taketa, and Aaron Namba and Annie Namba are Web editors.

"We want to create a great online hui, where Hawai'i's history and culture can be explored and shared through food. We also want to be sure that we reach a global audience," Kosaka said. "The challenge and the opportunity is to continue to produce content that is engaging and relevant to Island viewers and a national and international audience, as well."

Next: possibly a Share Your Table for Singapore.

The project is sponsored by Sub Zero/Wolf Hawai'i, the Hawai'i state Department of Agriculture's Seal of Quality program and the Hawaii Seafood Council.