Instructions: Bill Chow, Chris Kallenberg and Angelo Konidis are tenacious guys, bent on ensuring that their preschool children eat healthful food.

Never mind that they are trained chefs, able to turn out haute cuisine with speed. At home, these dads slow it down, keep it simple and turn their children into sous-chefs.

Training kids for a future culinary career is not their goal. Instead, they use teamwork to make sure their children eat five servings a day of fruits and vegetables and learn to enjoy a variety of foods.

Sure, sounds easy for a professional, you think. What about the nights when the rest of us are rushed and the family is clamoring for dinner? It takes energy and patience to involve preschoolers in cooking, and few parents have time to do it every day. But culinary teamwork is a great way to have fun and raise the odds that your children will want to eat food theyve helped make.

Healthy cooking begins at the market.

The easiest, healthiest, fast food is straight from the garden, said Alice Waters, chef-owner of Berkeleys Chez Panisse. Learning about food is as important as learning the ABCs.

Start lessons at farmers markets and supermarkets. Their displays of ruffly greens, knobby vegetables and rainbow-colored fruits can help introduce preschoolers to a world beyond peas and carrots. Try things with unusual names - or colors - that may appeal to children: baseball bat squash, yard-long beans, broccoli trees, purple potatoes or star fruit.

If you have more time, a trip to a you pick it farm can teach children that apples come from a tree and berries come from a bush or cane - not green plastic baskets or white foam trays.

To make the connection between surf and table, visit Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay or stop by an Asian supermarket such as 99 Ranch to see rockfish, whiskered catfish, crabs and lobsters swimming in tanks and salmon, squids and oysters resting on ice.

Once preschoolers are old enough to stand on a stool and reach the kitchen counter, theyre old enough to help.

Washing salad greens or leafy vegetables is a great way to start. Kids think of it as water play. Set a very large bowl in the sink, fill it with cold water and drop greens in a few at a time for children to swish clean before you spin them dry. Give children a brush to scrub more sturdy vegetables, like potatoes, carrots, and summer squash.

Or teach them to wash rice, something Chow says his not-quite 3-year-old daughter enjoys. Konidis, a chef at the Santa Clara Hiltons La Fontana restaurant, lets his 3-year-old son stir cupcake batter with his hands. A spoon doesnt work, Konidis said, because it just gets lost in batter.

But dont expect perfection. Kids are learning, and they frequently lose interest midstream.

When it comes time to eat, there is no reason to prepare a different meal unless your child has a food allergy. Dietary guidelines for adults and children over the age of 2 are identical.

Chow, who lives in Foster City and was head chef for Martin Yans Yan Can Cook television productions last year, says his preschool daughter likes stir-fried vegetables (one kind at a time) and rice, especially rice cooked in chicken broth rather than water. Konidis son likes his dads child-size pizza on French bread topped with soy pepperoni and Alpine lace cheese. And Kallenberg, a retired chef and full-time San Francisco dad, makes alphabet soup laced with vegetables for his 2- and 4-year-old daughters.

Dont make servings too large, advises Kallenberg. This is an appetite turnoff.

Kallenberg believes that children, like adults, enjoy food more when it is beautifully presented. When serving fruit, for instance, he fans slices of pear, banana, apple, kiwi, mango and pineapple on a blue plate to show off the colors of the fruit, and adds a sprig of mint. At the table, he and his wife often take turns telling a story involving one of the foods they are eating, working in information about where and when it is grown.

But Kallenberg wants his children to experience more than taste. He wants them to exercise their sense of smell, too. As a game, he lines up jars of spices such as sassafras, star anise, cloves, cinnamon sticks, basil and cumin and teaches them to identify the smells. After one session, the girls painted watercolors. While the paint was still wet, Kallenberg sprinkled the art with ground cinnamon, shaking off the excess outside. The dried pictures were hung by each girls bed.

You can team up with your children in the kitchen even if cooking isnt your strong suit. As food authority Marion Cunningham told me, Young children have no expectations. For them taking something raw and cooking it is magic. Kids learn so easily and quickly they dont know they are learning. What they see is just the way things are done.

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