“This is my favorite thing in the wo-o-orld: pick-ing po-ho-le!” Simeon sang. And it’s why a shy Japanese girl from California found a piece of home in, of all places, a mall restaurant in Wailea. And it’s why Hawai'i’s cuisine is a mash-up of cultures. You understand that everyone is “auntie” or “uncle,” even if there is no blood relation. You understand business casual in the office means aloha shirts and that a power lunch is eating at Helena’s Hawaiian Food. You understand that everyone drives a little slower (there’s a speed minimum on the highways) and that you’re going to talk story (local slang for chatting) with every cashier at every grocery store. You learn, slowly, what it means to be a local.īeing a local means you understand that Hawai'i is a special place. But the islands also have a magnetism, whether you have been living there your whole life or just a couple of weeks every year, crammed into your grandma’s house in the Kuliouou Valley of Honolulu. Being Japanese, I always resembled someone’s cousin or a friend of a friend. Partly this is because Hawai'i has so many Asians at 37.6 percent, they make up a plurality of the population. In October 2018 he opened Lineage, his ode to the food he grew up with, a fine-dining-ish restaurant across from a Louis Vuitton in a fancy mall in Wailea.Įven though I didn’t grow up in Hawai'i, I always felt like I belonged. He starred in Eater’s “ Cooking in America” video series, traveling all over the country to highlight mom-and-pop restaurants and immigrant cuisines that have shaped regions of the U.S. He consulted on a poke chain in New York City. He opened Tin Roof in Kahului near the airport, a small counter serving modern takes on the classic plate lunch, like chop steak with ginger-scallion pesto and ulu (breadfruit) mac salad that’s as mayo-laden as it should be. Later that year Simeon became the executive chef at the Asian fusion restaurant MiGrant inside the Marriott Wailea, one of the luxury resorts in the tourist-swollen stretch of Maui known as Wailea. Most of his culinary education was in Hawai'i-save for an internship at Walt Disney World-and after graduating from the Maui Culinary Academy, he worked his way up to become the executive chef at Star Noodle, where Top Chef producers stumbled across him.Įven though he didn’t win in 2013, Top Chef led to opportunities that seemed too good to pass up. Simeon is an entrepreneurial guy, almost to a fault. But I think there’s so much hype because of the author himself. Maybe it’s because there are recipes that appeal to tourists and locals alike: Spam musubi, fishy saimin, craggy mochiko chicken, butter mochi. Perhaps it’s because there is a primer on poke, everyone’s favorite Hawai'i export. This is just one anecdote, but the book, now in its third printing, has connected with people both in Hawai'i and on the mainland in an I-must-buy-this-now way. The book I’m talking about is Cook Real Hawai’i by Sheldon Simeon, cowritten with Garrett Snyder, and the photo was posted on Facebook by Simeon’s wife, Janice, on April 2, just three days after its release. This photo doesn’t show off a book’s cover art but rather our fervent demand even bulk-size-everything Costco can’t restock it quickly enough. Carved into this layer of books is a rectangle of empty space where one particular book clearly resided until it sold out. A giant metal table fit for Paul Bunyan but naturally at home in a Costco in Kahului, Maui, cookbooks rising a foot above the already tall table. Let me describe to you a different kind of book-in-the-wild work. Perhaps the portrait is cheekily art-directed so all other books are pushed aside and the author’s tome is front and center, vanity acknowledged. You know the photo: a seemingly innocuous cover shot by a proud author at a fluorescent-lit Hudson Booksellers in the airport. Every writer loves to see their book out in the wild.
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