All posts by Leslie Lang

Emmy Award-Nominated!

May 5, 2008 Leslie Lang

We were happy to see that Chefs A’ Field, that PBS series that did an episode on Chef Alan Wong recently, has been nominated for an Emmy!

While they were here, the Chefs A’ Field people accompanied Alan Wong and Richard to Keaukaha Elementary School, where Chef Alan had adopted the 6th grade through our Adopt-a-Class program, and videotaped him teaching them about cooking and also a little bit about life. It’s scheduled to air sometime in 2009 — we’ll keep you posted on that.

Here is some information about the Emmy Award nomination. Our huge congratulations to them on a really impressive achievement.

Chefs A’ Field: Kids on the Farm
NOMINATED FOR 2008 EMMY AWARD &
RECEIVES HONORS FROM THE PARENTS’ CHOICE AWARDS

WASHINGTON, DC – May 1, 2008:
The public television series Chefs A’ Field: Kids on the Farm has been nominated by The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for a 2008 Daytime Emmy Award. The awards recognize outstanding achievement in television production broadcast in the 2007 calendar year. The series was nominated in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Photography. The coveted Emmy will be presented at the 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards broadcast live on ABC Friday, June 20th at 8:00 pm, from Hollywood’s famed Kodak Theatre.

Last month, Chefs A’ Field: Kids on the Farm was awarded the 2008 Parents’ Choice Award for excellence in family programming. This national award recognizes programming that exceeds standards set by educators, scientists, artists, librarians, parents, and kids themselves.

In other news, Chefs A’ Field: Kids on the Farm is in the midst of field production for a fourth season, with shoots in Washington DC, Mexico, Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Virginia. In the coming months the series will continue its culinary adventures traveling throughout the United States filming America’s best chefs and their kids as well as the stellar farmers and fishermen the chefs rely on. Thirteen exciting new episodes will be released on public television in Spring 2009.

Currently in its third season, many have described Chefs A’ Field’s “green cuisine” approach as “a cooking series with a conscience…bringing the important issues of sustainability and the environment to forefront…without getting preachy.”

In over 40 episodes filmed so far the series explores the vital relationship between great chefs and their food sources. Each episode features one of America’s best chefs traveling to the field to explore the offerings of their local farmers, ranchers, and fishermen. The chef then returns to the kitchen, where ingredients are transformed into delectable dishes. As the chefs interact with the farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, viewers see how environmental practices make a difference in how foods taste and hold their nutritional value. Shot in locations across the United States and abroad, the high-definition series showcases regional cuisine and is filled with picturesque scenes shot at the peak of seasonal harvest.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Chefs A’ Field currently airs on public television stations nationwide–check your local listings or visit chefsafield.com for national listings. The series is a co-production of Warner Hanson Television (Washington, DC) & KCTS 9 (Seattle, WA) and is distributed by American Public Television (Boston, MA).

SPONSORS: Chefs A’ Field is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Whole Foods Markets, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, USDA/SARE (CSREES), The Park Foundation, Seeds of Change, Topco/Full Circle Food, The Wallace Genetic Foundation, California Strawberry Commission, Walnut Marketing Board.

CREDITS: Producers: Heidi Hanson & Chris Warner; Writer/Narrator: Jed Duvall; Directors of Photography: Tim Murray, Mark Thalman, & Chris Warner; Editors: Rachel Vasey, Don Lampasone, & Chris Warner; For KCTS 9: Executive Producer: Jay Parikh; Production Manager: Tom Niemi; Station Relations: Shaylan Frazee

PARTICIPATING CHEFS: John Besh, Michael Mina, Joseph Wrede, Bruce Sherman, Robert Weidmaier, Richard Sandoval, Mitchell & Steven Rosenthal, Cathal Armstrong, Michel Nischan, Jason Wilson.

ADDITIONAL AWARDS: James Beard, CINE, Chicago Film Festival Hugo, Film Advisory Board, New York Festivals, White House Photographer Awards, Food & Wine Tastemaker Award, and others.

MERCHANDISE: Chefs A’ Field DVD’s and Cookbooks are available by phone KCTS 9-Channel 9 Store (800) 937-5387 or visiting channel9store.com & amazon.com

SERIES WEBSITE: chefsafield.com

Where We Live

Halema‘uma‘u 2008

May 2, 2008 Leslie Lang

There’s a lot of excitement up at the volcano lately, where suddenly ashes and gases are billowing dramatically from a newly formed vent within Halema‘uma‘u Crater at the summit of Kilauea.

From the National Park Service:

What began as a new gas vent (fumarole) in Halema`uma`u crater sometime between March 10 and 12, 2008, has progressed to be the first explosive eruption in Halema`uma`u Crater since 1924 and the first lava erupted from the crater since 1982.

The National Park Service website continues with this synopsis of events since the new vent appeared within Halema‘uma‘u crater on March 11, 2008:

At 2:58 a.m. on Wednesday, March 19, 2008, scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory recorded a small explosion in Halema`uma`u crater, the first explosive event since 1924. Debris was scattered over a 75 acre area. A light dusting of ash fell in a community several miles away in the district of Ka`u.

On April 9, another small explosion occurred, depositing dense blocks and particles of fresh lava on the Halema`uma`u overlook area.

On April 16 at 3:57 a.m., another small explosion from the vent occurred producing a dusting of pale-red ash west of the crater.

The new explosion pit continues to vigorously vent gas and ash, with the plume alternating between brown (ash-rich) and white (ash-poor).

Visitors may view the new vent within Halema‘uma‘u crater and the plume from the overlook at Jaggar Museum. Other overlooks with views include: Steam Vents, Kilauea Overlook, Kilauea Iki Overlook, and Volcano House hotel.

We had a few days of poor air quality when our normal tradewinds died off, and the vog settled in over the island.

But this is not the norm, and mostly it’s just exciting to go up and see the volcano and wonder what will happen next. Will it erupt? Scientists up at the Hawai‘i Volcanoes Observatory tell us this is unexpected behavior and they are following it closely to see how the situation develops, too.

Following long-time local custom, we packed everybody into the car and went up to have a look the other day. It was so interesting to see the crater, which we are used to seeing doing nothing at all, looking so alive.

There’s a webcam, too, if you’d like to look for yourself.

Community, Where We Live

Merrie Monarch Week 2008

April 4, 2008 Leslie Lang

I love Merrie Monarch week in Hilo.

Hilo absolutely shines every year during Merrie Monarch week, which started Sunday. Hula dancers and hula fans

descend upon this town from the other islands, from other states and even from other countries, for our annual, huge, week-long celebration of hula.

During Merrie Monarch week every year, when there are so many more Hawaiian people than usual around town, I feel like I can squint my eyes and almost see what it was like here a couple hundred years ago.

And there is hula everywhere. Here is the halau of well-known California kumu Mark Keali‘i Ho‘omalu practicing outside one of the hotels on Banyan Drive yesterday morning.

And I love the craft fairs with beautiful Hawaiian products, and the food, and the demonstrations and talks and everything Hawaiian.

Here are some of the other things I really enjoy about Merrie Monarch week in Hilo:

• Hearing lots of people around town speaking Hawaiian

• Hula performances everywhere!

• Seeing all the beautiful, woven lauhala hats people wear

• People wearing amazing flowers in their hair. And lei. And beautiful, genuine smiles.

• Seeing the living traditions that people still practice. Such as this hula by Halau O Kekuhi, who performed at Wednesday night’s Ho‘ike, a free performance every year during Merrie Monarch week. It was a thrill to see this renowned halau dancing in the open-air Edith Kanaka‘ole Stadium with Mauna Kea behind them.

• Hearing Hawaiian music

• Seeing Uncle George Na‘ope around town

• People who spontaneously stand up and do a hula because they’ve just gotta dance!

This was unplanned. This woman in the audience was sitting, doing the hula from her chair as she enjoyed this familiar anthem to Hilo, and then just cast aside her cane — really — and got up and danced, to great applause. It was wonderful.

• Seeing cultural traditions survive, and thrive

• Little 3-year-olds up on stage with their elders, dancing hula

• Seeing how many people—young, old, male, female—appreciate hula

At the Hilo Hawaiian on Tuesday, Iwalani Kalima’s halau performed. At one point, the students kneeled on the stage and pulled two sticks, which they would use in the upcoming hula, out of their waistbands. The kumu (teacher), Iwalani, was at the ipu, but suddenly she stood up and climbed on the stage.

She kneeled down next to the tiniest girl — could she even have been 3 years old? Maybe only 2 — and started fumbling around with the girl’s outer skirt. “She lost hers,” she finally said to the audience, and we realized the girl’s sticks had slipped inside her costume. Iwalani had to lift up the outer skirts and hunt around inside the elaborate costume for the little girl’s sticks. It went on for quite some time and was cute and hilarious. Here’s that performance.

There are a hundred other stories and photos and videos I could show you. Search “Merrie Monarch” at YouTube if you’d like to see more.

You can also watch tonight’s Merrie Monarch program live on KITV’s website. It’s Hula Kahiko, traditional hula, and it runs from 6 p.m. to 11

p.m. The final night, which will also stream live on KITV, is tomorrow and runs from 5:30 p.m. to midnight.

And then you can start making your plans to be here in Hilo next year!

Music

Slack Key Class

April 2, 2008 Leslie Lang

Richard asked Macario to say a few words about the slack key guitar class they both took recently, which was taught by slack key master Cyril Pahinui.

The class, held at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, was popular — so many signed up that they had to split the group into two different classes.

Macario says it was Richard’s “fault” he was there. “Richard told me about this class coming up, and I signed up at the very last minute. It was fun taking the class with a friend. We were having so much fun, we wouldn’t play we would just listen. You get caught up when he starts to play, and we’d just put our guitars down and listen to him playing.”

“Richard was into it,” he says. “Both of us were. He and I were just like two little kids at a candy store. It was great.”

Macario was a professional musician in his “former life” — a couple decades ago, before changing careers and becoming a photographer. But he played drums, not guitar, and says he always wanted to learn slack key.

“It’s more than just playing the music,” he says. “There’s a feeling to the music. Cyril kept saying, ‘Don’t play how I play. Play how you feel.’ Because when you’re playing, and you’re in that groove, then something happens. Because you can move people.”

Cyril’s father was the late great Gabby Pahinui, the legend in Hawaiian slack key, and he learned to play guitar from his father since he was a young boy.

Macario says Cyril taught his father’s tuning — the way he tuned his guitar. In older days, this information was private and never shared. So why does Cyril teach it now?

Cyril told the class he likes to pass it on. “He said if he doesn’t teach anybody, and nobody carries it on after him, then he’s going to lose it.”

Macario says he’d definitely take a class from Cyril again. “There’s so much coming at you. I think it made the beginners a little scared. But it’s good for them. It’s good for them to see we can all do this. All you have to do is work at it. If you practice everything he taught you in this class, then when he comes back to teach the next one you’ll be ready for that class.”

“The music is just in him,” he says. “And in class, he’s coming at ya. It’s a lifetime, two lifetimes of music coming at you, and you’d better pick up what you can because you’ve only got six classes to do it.”

He says he’s still trying to find his way around his guitar. “But everything Cyril taught us just makes sense,” he says. “If you practice what Cyril taught in that class, you can pretty much play any Hawaiian song. And not only did Cyril teach the class, he made people go up and jam with him. How many chances do you get to play with Cyril Pahinui?”

He says the class was a nice surprise. “Before, his dad just overshadowed everything because he was so great. But Cyril is on his own and carrying on the tradition even without his dad.

“And Cyril himself is ‘the man’ now,” he says. “He’s the icon now. He is a great slack key player in his own right.”

Awards

Hawaii Business Hall of Fame

March 21, 2008 Leslie Lang

Richard was inducted into the Junior Achievement Hawaii Business Hall of Fame a couple weeks ago, and Penny Mau took some lovely photos at the Waikiki ceremony.

Penny (now a school principal on O‘ahu) and her husband Ron (a well-known entomologist with an illustrious career at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at UH Manoa) were neighbors and good friends of ours back in the early 70s, when we lived in apartments overlooking Hilo High School.

We’ve stayed friends all these years, and I invited them to be with us at our table at the awards ceremony. Ron was in China, on assignment, and couldn’t make it, but Penny came with her brother Terrance. Tracy and Kimo were also at our table, as were Dan Cabrera and Edna Bartolome. Dan was Best Man at our wedding; we attended UH together in the late 60s.

See Penny’s photos of the event here.

Adopt-a-Class, Alan Wong, Community, Tomatoes

Chapter 3 – Keaukaha Morning

March 10, 2008 Leslie Lang

We watched Chef Alan Wong cook something up the other morning at Keaukaha Elementary School in Hilo.

He was there in conjunction with Richard’s Adopt-a-Class program. Chef Alan had adopted the 6th grade, and then asked if he could go speak to them. So when he was in town last week, he did.

The students chanted a Hawaiian welcome to him.

That crew is from PBS. They filmed the whole morning for a Chefs Afield episode they’re doing about Alan Wong, which will air sometime next year.

He is just wonderful with kids. Very down-to-earth, very open, very real. He’s a natural-born teacher and the students really responded. They were amazingly engaged.

He and Richard both spoke to the kids. Chef Alan told them, “If Alan Wong can do it, you can do it.” He told them that he grow up thinking salad dressing came out of a bottle. They, too, can achieve anything, he told them. “You just have to work hard,” he said.

Richard told them that when he was their age they were kind of poor, and they had a picnic table in the kitchen for their dinner table. He said his father would pound on that table and say, “Not ‘no can.’ ‘CAN!” Richard told those kids they could do anything they want.

Chef Alan showed the students how to make mayonnaise and also a li hing mui salad dressing. As he cooked in front of them, he kept pointing out what part of what he was doing had to do with reading, and what was math, and what was science, and made the point that if they wanted to do that kind of job they’d better stay in school.

When he started, he asked how many kids hated tomatoes and most raised their hands. By the time he did a taste test with them – they tasted a piece of Brand X tomato, and then a piece of a Hamakua Springs tomato – they were believers. At the end, some of his people walked around with platters of cut-up heirloom tomatoes and the kids were actually lunging for them, trying to get tomatoes to eat.

Afterward, some of the students showed Richard and Chef Alan their kalo (taro) patch.

The principal of the school told me they never get people of such celebrity speaking to, and inspiring, their kids. Richard says that one of the teachers told him, too, that no one comes to Keaukaha Elementary to tell the kids they too can do it. He says the teacher had tears in her eyes when she told him that.

It was really an incredible morning.

Alan Wong, Community, Food and Drink

Chapter 2 – The Cookout

March 7, 2008 Leslie Lang 1 Comment

If the Tomato Recipe Contest was Chapter 1 in our interesting times of this past week, here’s Chapter 2.

You already read about Chef Alan Wong judging at our Tomato Recipe Contest the other day. Now let me tell you about something else he just did in conjunction with the farm.

Chef Alan, who is based on O‘ahu, regularly buys produce for his restaurants from Hamakua Springs as well as a few other farms here on the Hamakua Coast. And every year he flies his staff here – chefs and other staff from his different restaurants – for a couple days.

The purpose of his annual visit? To visit the farms, and the farmers, who produce the fresh, delicious ingredients they work with every day. Chef Alan has a personal connection with the sources of his food, and he wants his chefs and other employees to know where the food comes from too, and who grows it, and how, so they can take that knowledge back with them. So they visit each farm, see how the food grows and get to know the farmers a little.

Then the culmination of their visit is that all his restaurant people and all the farmers gather at Hamakua Springs for an absolutely world-class Alan Wong cookout using ingredients from those local farms. It’s Chef Alan’s unbelievably gracious and generous (and delicious) thank you to the farmers.

This year for the first time there was also an imu. On Monday afternoon Kimo and his good friend Al Jardine prepared the imu, filling it with pig, turkey, beef, taro, sweet potato and more.

Chef Alan put some nontraditional ingredients in the imu, too. Lesley Hill and Michael Crowell, of nearby Wailea Ag Group,
brought big long “trunks” of heart of palm to put into the imu as an
experiment (they were delicious).

Here’s how it looked after they opened the imu the next day and were taking the meat and other foods out. That’s Mrs. Ha there, Richard’s mom. She’s great.

Here they are, chopping up the cooked meat. That’s Al in the blue shirt and Kimo in the red.

We all gathered at the farm’s recently reclaimed green shack. We’ll tell you more about that historical building on the edge of Hamakua Springs later – it has a story, too. For now we’ll just say that it was the HQ for food preparation. See all the beautiful old photos of former plantation days? They tell some of the story of what plantation life used to look like.

So everybody gathered the food from the imu and took it inside, where tables were set up and Chef Alan and staff cooked and set up the long serving table. There were some amazing dishes made with Hawai’i Island Goat Dairy goat cheese and local Hamakua Mushrooms, and Ka’u coffee and Big Island Candies and more.

It is absolutely amazing what Chef Alan can do on a portable gas burner.

This was a shrimp, olive and tomato concoction. Is your mouth watering?

The serving line. There was even more food around on the other side, too, that doesn’t show here.

Richard thanked everyone for being there and talked about why Alan had brought us together, and then Richard’s grandson Kapono said a blessing in Hawaiian and English. And then we ate. And ate.

There was also a PBS crew present, taping the whole thing. They were following Chef Alan around taping a Chefs Afield program, which will air next year. There was a lot going on.

It was really a terrific evening. From the reason we were all there – because Chef Alan has such respect for, and such connections with, his farmer friends, and thanks them with such an incredible feast – to the new connections as restaurant folk and farmers got to know and appreciate each other, talk story and eat and laugh together. It was a fun, delicious, boisterous event where everybody seemed to be enjoy the food, the setting outside under the big tent, talking, the company.

A huge mahalo to Chef Alan and all his employees, who prepared such a tremendous feast and also created such a wonderful, memorable gathering.

Contest

Contest Winners Announced Here!

March 5, 2008 Leslie Lang

We are very proud to announce that the Grand Prize Winner of our second annual Tomato Recipe contest is:

Lakeisha Germany-Ross, an 11th-grader from Connections School in Hilo!

Note that this was not a kids’ or students’ contest. This was a regular old, anybody-can-enter adult contest, and that made it even better when we learned that our winner was a student from our downtown charter school. We were thrilled to realize that.

Our judges prescreened the entries and chose the top five recipes from each of the three categories, and then on Monday morning culinary students from Hawai‘i Community College prepared those 15 recipes. Their task was to follow the recipe exactly, and it’s a credit to their instructors Chef Allan Okuda and Chef Sandy Barr that they did such an absolutely terrific job. What an impressive job the students did. I know that because we got to sample the dishes after it was all over.

Lakeisha’s dish was called “Cherry Tomato Compote & Budino.” “What is Budino?” wrote Chef Alan Wong, our guest judge, on his score sheet. We will inquire and then let you know, because this inquiring mind wants to know too.

Looking at the recipe, Budino is a mix of cream cheese, mascarpone cheese, eggs, sugar, lemon juice and orange and lemon zest. The mixture is baked, then cooled, inverted and topped with the recipe’s Tomato Compote (ingredients: red and yellow cherry tomatoes, large tomatoes, sugar, lemon [sliced thin with peel], sultana raisins and water). The result is delicious.

Chef Alan Wong donated a special prize for the grand winner, and so Lakeisha and a guest will be dining at Alan Wong’s restaurant in Honolulu, with roundtrip airfare provided by Go! Hawai‘i’s Low Fare Airline.

Each category’s first place winner receives $350 and is invited to a personal tour of Hamakua Springs Country Farms. Go! is also providing airline tickets for winners who live on outer airlines to fly over for the tour. Second place winners each receive $300, and third place winners $250.

Congratulations to all our winners! And thanks for all the terrific entries. We’re going to do it again next year at this time, so start thinking about tomato recipes.

Soups & Bisques

1st – Hamakua Double Tomato Bisque
Candy Barnhart, Makawao

2nd – Tomato Basil “Soup” in Parmesan Cups
Alan Ritari, Honolulu

3rd – Rich Tomato Lobster Bisque
Adina Guest, Honolulu

Entrees

1st – Roasted Tomatoes Piperade with Tomato and Spinach Orzo
Alan E. Fujimoto, Hilo

2nd – Roasted Hamakua Tomato Lasagna
Candy Barnhart, Makawao

3rd – Rustic Hamakua Tomato Tart
Misty Inouye, Hilo

Preserves & Condiments

1st – Cherry Tomato Compote & Budino (Also overall Grand Prize Winner)
Lakeisha Germany-Ross (11th grade, Connections School, Hilo)

2nd – Pacific Rim Hamakua Tomato Jam
Al Barnhart, Makawao

3rd – Slow-Roasted Lomi Lomi Salmon
Alan Ritari, Honolulu

Adopt-a-Class, Community

Welcome Chant

February 18, 2008 Leslie Lang

We were interested to see that when Keaukaha Elementary School students visited ‘Imiloa recently as a result of our Adopt-a-Class program, they did a traditional Hawaiian chant for permission to enter, and then Hoku‘ao Pellegrino responded with a traditional ‘oli komo, or welcome chant.

Hoku‘ao works at ‘Imiloa as Cultural Landscape Curator, caring for more than 50 types of native plants found on the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center’s nine acres.

He graduated from the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani Hawaiian Language Progam last year. Besides his passion for kalo (taro) and other native plants, he considers his role to be sharing and increasing understanding of the Hawaiian language, culture, music and values.

Here is a glimpse of the traditional greeting and welcome between students and Hoku‘ao, who of course represented ‘Imiloa.

Contest

The Story of a Contest

January 21, 2008 Leslie Lang

Today we’re going to tell you a little story.

So there are these people with a farm who grow really good tomatoes and other produce.

Richard and June Ha, owners of Hamakua Springs Country Farms

And there’s this guy who runs a culinary program at Hawai‘i Community College.

Chef Allan Okuda, visiting Hamakua Springs

And this celebrity chef whose Honolulu restaurant was recently named 8th Best in the country by Gourmet magazine.

Alan Wong at a Hamakua Springs cookout last year, chatting with Richard’s mom Florence Ha

They are all in cahoots this year—they’re getting together and having a Tomato Recipe contest. You might have heard Richard talking about it recently on KWXX with Mynah Bird.

Radio personality Mynah Bird (right) likes to cook, and said he might submit a recipe. Richard said they’d have to omit his name to make it fair, and Mynah Bird said, “Don’t do that!” Everybody laughed.

Contest categories this year are Entrees; Soups & Bisques; and Preserves & Condiments. If you were going to enter, you’d send us your original recipe by January 31st.

After our judges go through the entries, students in Chef Okuda’s food service program at HCC will prepare the top ranking recipes. Here’s how it looked last year.

A student explaining the finer point of presentation to Richard

HCC food service students toured Hamakua Springs last year before the contest

Then the judges, including Chef Alan Wong, will sample the recipes.

Richard and Alan at Hamakua Springs last year; and below, last year’s judges

The whole thing will be taped and aired on Kama‘aina Backroads.

Roland Torres of Kama‘aina Backroads and Leslie Lang of this blog

Some absolutely amazing dishes in each category will earn a lucky few some very nice cash and gift certificates.

Back row: Chancellor Rockne Freitas, Marlene Hapai, Chef Okuda; front row Chef Sandy Barr with two students

Winners from the neighbor islands will be given a roundtrip ticket on Go! Hawai‘i’s Low Fare Airline so they can come tour Hamakua Farms on the Big Island with Richard.

And all because they read the official entry info and emailed us a recipe before January 31st.

YOU could be one of our winners, you know. Send us that recipe soon!