Nadine Kam photos
In the front row, from left, Kapiolani Community College Culinary Arts associate professor Alan Tsuchiyama, Culinary Institute of the Pacific director Conrad Nonaka, University of Hawaii Vice President of Community Colleges John Morton, and chef Roy Yamaguchi, show the $80,000 check presented by the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival to the Culinary Institute of the Pacific.

Now that we've cleared all of winter's major holidays, the founders and directors of the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival took time out to host a Mahalo Reception for festival partners and participants, and a check presentation of more than $200,000 at Kapiolani Community College's Ka Ikena restaurant on Feb. 4.

During the September 2012 festival, 4,000 visitors and residents from around the world enjoyed 50,000 portions of food served up at 15 events at six venues on Oahu featuring 61 chefs, four master sommeliers, 25 winemakers and 31 local farmers, artisan food producers and innovators. More than 200 culinary students from Kapiolani Community College, Leeward Community College, Maui College, and Kauai Community College put in 23,000 hours working side-by-side with some of the most respected names in the industry.

As promised during the fall event, funds raised from a week of HFWF events will benefit culinary education in the islands, as well as organizations working toward long-term sustainability and agricultural integrity. The 2012 beneficiaries were: Hawai'i Agricultural Foundation ($80,000), Culinary Institute of the Pacific ($80,000), Leeward Community College Culinary ($30,000), Paepae o He'eia ($10,000), and Papahana Kuaola ($10,000).

Hawaii Food & Wine Festival co-founders and co-chairs Alan Wong, left, and Roy Yamaguchi, with executive director Denise Hayashi.

With all but $1 million left to be raised for the construction of the new Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Diamond Head, University of Hawaii Vice President of Community Colleges John Morton announced that the school system will put Phase I of construction of classes and labs out for bid in the next two to three week.

The great thing about the association with the culinary program is that students were tasked with coming up with pupu for the event, so guests could gauge the return on those dollars. The food was amazing, certainly equal to the best restaurants in the state and I could see and taste the improvement from just a few years ago, when a chop suey, throw everything in the pan mentality reigned. Our food may not "suck," as Scott Caan so eloquently put it, but could at times be viewed as muddled. I can see where students' direction is now more thoughtful and considered.

After speaking about HFWF, co-founder chef Roy Yamaguchi humbly introduced his co-conspirator and co-chair chef Alan Wong as, "The man who made it all happen," while Wong refused the honor, assuring that it was Roy who did all the work.

Wong reiterated the aim of the festival, which they saw as a way of putting the spotlight on Hawaii, bringing in international media to focus on farmers and "get people thinking and talking about Hawaii," and most importantly, to make the kind of sustainable decisions today so our grandchildren's children can also enjoy the pleasures we enjoy today.

Considering Hawaii's geography and relationship to the ocean and limited land, it would be crazy to ignore the specters of global warming and development. We can see the effects on fish stocks and easily predict a future in which fish is no longer edible and the consequences going up the food chain.

HFWF is continually working to ensure people keep thinking and talking about ways to preserve this culinary paradise. This year, the festival will add a stop on Maui to its calendar, timed to the tail end of Ka'anapali Fresh.

One of the problems of putting out such a beautiful display of greens is that no one wanted to disturb the arrangement.

Cheese and fruit spread.

Braised baby abalone on daikon with miso mustard sauce and micro greens. Loved it!

Spicy kim chee snapper springroll with edamame and wasabi puree, saute of Ho Farm tomato, Ewa sweet corn, sea asparagus and kochujang aioli.

Seared nori ahi on shiso noodles with Hamakua mushroom, crispy taro threads, kabayaki, hot mustard aioli and ginger scallion oil.

Someone took a humorous approach to dessert, serving up cheesecake over green tea cake, to the delight of a marzipan mouse. (more...)

Nadine Kam photos
A tray of abalone—prepared by Mélisse, Lemon Moon Café and Sure Thing Burger's Josiah Citrin—ready for deliver to one of the VIP tables at the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival's Day 3 "From Farm to Table: A Makahiki Festival," that took place at Hilton Hawaiian Village Sept. 8.

It may have been raining elsewhere on Oahu, but the sun shined down on Waikiki and evening three of the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival Sept. 8 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, where more than a thousand guests dined in the open air.

The event was themed "From Farm to Table: A Makahiki Festival," paying tribute to the Hawaiian  harvest season, and highlighting  a sustainable future for Hawaii, with 22 celebrity chefs—many noted for promoting “farm to table” sustainable sourcing and cooking practices—enlisted to turn their talents to local produce, seafood, poultry and meat products.

While last year's food was a little meh to me, perhaps a little more familiarity this year was helpful. Many of the dishes were stellar, and when people asked me which was my favorite, I really couldn't pick one. So many were delicious. And unfortunately, with the scope of the selections, I was only able to sample about a third of what was offered.

You would think I would head to the visiting chefs stations first, but with our local chefs offering such dazzling selections near the entrance, I filled up fast. And silly me, the goal is variety, trying as many different dishes as possible, but I liked Hiroshi Fukui's monchong so much that when servers brought a batch to our table, I had a second helping!

For chef groupies, the event is a dream come true. You'd have to make many trips to San Francisco, L.A. and New York to hit up each of the chef's restaurants in person, and even then, the main man may not be around. But here, they were all heavily involved in preparation and giving attention to anyone who wanted to talk food and get a snapshot with these culinary stars.

It was definitely an amazing night to remember!

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Jon Matsubara's roasted Kona lobster was one of the many delectables offered up near the entrance to the event, where most of the local chefs were positioned.

Matsubara, of Azure restaurant at The Royal Hawaiian, offers up his roasted Kona lobster with anchovy and marrow butter, topped with sea asparagus, Ewa corn, Ho Farms tomato and baby rocket.

Susan Feniger of Susan Feniger's Street, and Border Grill, served up chilled Korean noodles with grilled skirt steak.

Lee Anne Wong shared two dishes incorporating pa'i'ai, not dissimilar, but 250 years apart in terms of preparation, as she explained in the video near top of page. I particularly loved the way the pa'i'ai picked up the flavor of the smoked marlin in the old-style preparation. Chances are, you'll be seeing more of her soon. She's pulling up stakes from New York and will be moving to Hawaii by next summer.

Wong worked with Daniel Anthony of Mana 'Ai, who was making more pa'i ai on the spot.

Jonathan Waxman of Barbuto, New York, does some heavy lifting, removing fish from a grill.

All the chefs, including Josiah Citrin, of Mélisse in Santa Monica, obliged fans who wanted to have their photos taken with them. (more...)

Nadine Kam photos
From left, YWCA of Oahu CEO Kimberly Miyazawa Frank, Café Julia chef Lance Kosaka and app developer Melanie Kosaka, at the beta launch of Lei Fresh.

The YWCA's new Café Julia was the setting for the beta launch of Melanie Kosaka's latest app venture, Lei Fresh.

The Hawaii-grown, interactive mobile app will help conscientious shoppers find and share local products as they pop up in grocery stores and farmer's markets throughout the islands.

The app will be available Aug. 15 as a free download in Apple's App store. In the meantime, you can take a look at a video posted at LeiFresh.com.

It was a no-brainer that the event take place at the cafe, where Melanie's brother Lance is the chef, who also represents Laniakea Catering. He was offering an array of artisan pizzas including one with butter, tomatoes and arugula, and others topped with smoked pork, and another with adobo and chicharrón.

Neighboring restaurants also serving their specialties included 'Umeke Market, Mix Cafe and Brasserie Du Vin.

Natalie Aczon of Whole Foods Market, with Stephanie Chang of Design Ink, who created the logo for Lei Fresh.

Laniakea Catering's adobo and chicharrón pizza.

'Umeke Market's kimchee meatloaf made with Big Island grass-fed beef.

Mix Cafe and Bruno's Forno chef Bruno Iezzi mixes his lemon rigatoni, with Wu Qin He.

The Whole Foods display included some of the misshapen carrots you don't get to see in their perfect in-store displays. This one looks like a claw or the bottom half of a grotesque doll. Natalie Aczon said the employees pull odd ones all the time that look downright pornographic.

This one looks like a pig's foot. After the event, the produce was available for the taking. I don't know who got these carrots.

Among the guests, Sean Morris and a homecoming Candice Kraughto, briefly back from Shanghai.

Nadine Kam photos
Manoa Chocolate Hawaii founder Dylan Butterbaugh, with Megan Gallagher, left, and Tia Apilando.

Manoa Chocolate Hawaii hosted the grand opening of its Kailua factory on June 16, from afternoon through evening, with no shortage of chocolate aficionados clamoring for a taste of its 60 to 72 percent premium chocolate bars.

Founder Dylan Butterbaugh became fascinated with the process of making chocolate in small batches with friends about two years ago, and after much trial and error and invention, created his boutique chocolate with aims of raising Hawaii's profile as a producer of upscale chocolate.

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The operation is as green as can be, with people power going into the winnowing process that separates the husks from nibs of the roasted cacao beans. Now that it's summer, Dylan is something of a Tom Sawyer or Pied Piper for friends of his younger brother Carson, who are gladly putting their muscles to work grinding the nibs and pedaling the Dora the Explorer tricycle that powers the winnower. (A vibrating back massager keeps the beans moving.) Their reward is a taste of the remnants of the chocolate tempering process.

I got a chance to try my hand at grinding, and it was interesting to note the vast difference in flavor of the nibs and the first pass at the freshly ground chocolate, which was sour, fruity and bitter. The grinding releases the cocoa liquor, a complex combination of more than 300 chemical compounds that give a particular region's chocolate its particular flavor profile. This is the essence of the cacao and Manoa Chocolate celebrates the differences by importing beans from all over the world, producing single-origin chocolate bars for our side-by-side comparisons.

In store that day were chocolate bars made with cacao beans from Samoa, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Peru. Hawaii regions currently being represented are Waiahole and Hamakua, and Dylan has high hopes that with his operation, more growers will be inspired to plant cacao trees and contribute to a viable industry in the islands. He has access to an acre on the dry side of Waimanalo that he intends to plant with cacao.

Nothing could be sexier than the combination of Hawaii and chocolate, he said, and I agree!
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Manoa Chocolate Hawaii is on the second floor at 315 Uluniu St., in Kailua, above Cinnamon's restaurant. Call 343-3040.

On display: A cacao pod and cacao beans in various stages of production.

The chocolate is conched and tempered before it can be molded into chocolate bars.

Lisa-Marie Tam was among the first customers of the day. Her chocolate necklace pegged her as an aficionado.

A chalkboard showed the origins of chocolate available that day.

Nadine Kam photos
At The Green Table, a farm-to-table restaurant in Chelsea Market, I enjoyed melt-in-your-mouth candied pork belly with strawberry relish served over rhubarb and cress.

Every time I visit New York, I stay in a different hotel in a different part of the city as a way of getting intimate with each neighborhood.

This time around, I booked the Dream Downtown in Chelsea, close to the Meatpacking District and Chelsea Market, which gave me more time to explore the market's many casual eateries. It's also close to a crosstown metro line and crosstown bus that put me in a straight line toward Union Square, home to the four-day-a-week Union Square Greenmarket and Whole Foods Market.

Lucky you live Hawaii. "The Beach" at Dream Downtown is a mere 4 feet wide and 4 feet deep. Even so, people will gravitate to any water.

The Dream lobby.

My little home away from home. The design isn't very calming and I find a lot of these more style than substance hotels to be impractical in their bathroom setups, especially shallow square sinks that splash back.

Also at The Green Table, a beet salad topped with shaved fennel.

In the window at Ruthy's Bakery & Cafe were some of their 3D special occasion cakes, including examples for kids and fashionable adults.

Here's one example of a photo cake from Ruthy's web site: Ruthys.com

I can't leave New York without having a lobster roll. I wanted to return to Luke's Lobster, but settled for this one at The Lobster Place in Chelsea Market, which was just meh. I prefer Luke's minimalist approach with just a swipe of mayo on the buttered, toasted bun, or no mayo if you request it. Luke's lobster is also nice and bouncy, not chewy and overcooked. In the background is a root beer float from nearby Ronnybrook Dairy.

I could have followed everyone else's lead and stood in line for a dinner of whole lobster.

D.I.Y. diners could also shop for fresh shellfish at The Lobster Place.

Across town, the fish displays were impressive at Whole Foods at Union Square.

The Union Square Greenmarket was up and running, even on Memorial Day.

At the market you could pick up honey, jams and jellies from the Berkshires, which I visited later, as well as greens, cheeses and cage-free duck eggs.