The scene is a long table with twenty-four red metal chairs under a high steel roof strung with lights swaying in the Hawaiian tradewinds at sunset in July. And then it rewinds like film in fast motion like you see in the movies, rewinding backwards in a blur until it stops on a scene in a small-town grocery store in the High Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California, zooming in on a pile of suitcase-sized bags of dog food stacked near the meat counter where seven year old me has brought my blanket to make a little fort and then curled up to sleep while my parents work late into the night butchering deer for local hunters after the store had closed.

I was sleeping on the job. It was my first job, and I liked it. My mom made sure I understood how important it was. It was a big job, the final step in a long line of turning something that was once a wild animal into something that would now be an ingredient in a freezer, later becoming food that would feed a family. My mom leaned down closer to me and the shiny stainless steel countertop and told me how important it was to write verrry clearly and neatly onto the white butcher paper package that she had perfectly wrapped and taped, as she took one of the special black grease pencils and wrote LOIN.

I took the pencil and slowly and seriously copied my mother’s letters onto the cold mushy packages, eventually adding a bit of my own flair, and sometimes getting a stern redirection from my step dad who was on quality control even from his position behind the loud whirring saw whenever he noticed I had started to draw hearts and flowers next to the letters FLANK, CHOPS, (and to my giggling delight sometimes next to) RUMP.

My parent’s butcher shop was inside of Young’s Market, the only market in the small mountain town where I grew up. Jerry’s Meats was where I began my love of penmanship and also the first place where I saw the behind the scenes action of where food comes from. I loved the smell of cold cardboard boxes on the other side of the swinging doors with the sign saying “employees only” in the refrigerated back room where I was sometimes allowed to go to “help” my step dad get one of the full sides of beef that hung from hooks in the freezing cold walk-in where I was always secretly terrified of getting locked in. I loved saying hi to the owner, Ed and his son Mike when I would see them in the isles. They were also respectively the grandfather and father of one of my best friends - it’s that kind of small town, where everybody knows everybody.

Eventually my job also included rotating the packaged lunchmeat that hung in rows in the refrigerated shelves next to the butcher counter, putting the ones with the newer dates in the back and moving the older ones to the front, and most importantly, checking the dates to make sure none were expired. Another very important job for an elementary school kid. I guess I was moving up the ladder.

When I was twelve years old, my parents opened a restaurant in a building they bought on a property next to a river, where they would also build a home. Because I am the youngest of a combined six children between the two of them, and the rest of my siblings had long graduated and were off starting their lives, it was the three of us, my parents and I, moving equipment and tables and chairs and supplies and eventually hanging the wooden sign outside that my mother and I had painted that read “B.J.’s Bar-B-Que & Deli”, named after the two of them: Barb and Jerry.

I watched my parents take on their roles as restauranteurs. My mom, a magical energizer bunny type who welcomed customers with a hug while managing reservations, scheduling, book keeping, baking pies, making vats of baked beans and probably juggling a hundred other things too. And then there was my step dad, a hard-ass with a big heart and a politically incorrect sense of humor, a hard worker and a hustler since he was a kid. He had an entrepreneurial business sense and a strong opinion about quality meat, amongst other things. He was the cook and the head dishwasher - that was his turf and you better not mess with it. They were the dream team and they achieved my mother’s goal upon the opening of “B.J.’s becoming a household name”. Meanwhile I stepped into my role of order taker at the deli counter and eventually as a waitress, as we called them in the late ‘80’s.

In high school, I was at the restaurant most days after basketball or volleyball practice, and couldn’t even think about making plans with friends on Friday or Saturday nights until after closing on Prime Rib Night. I didn’t realize it then as I complained about always having to work instead of hanging out with my friends, but I was learning about business. While my friends were all chillin’, I was the one with a checking account. I had friends who were picky eaters while I was out tasting new things while my parents dragged me along to food shows in convention centers with endless rows of the latest restaurant equipment and products and samples. Now I know that those times were also teaching me how to eat.

After I graduated from high school and moved to Maui, I got my first job in a “serious restaurant” at the Charthouse in Kahului, where I was so nervous being in this fancier environment that I actually lit a customer’s sleeve on fire one night, but that’s a story for another time. My time spent there showed me my first glimpse of the pirate ship that is a restaurant. The front of the house versus the back of the house, the managers in their aloha shirts and the cooks with their anger issues and frequent smoke breaks, the flirty bartenders, the beautiful young servers and the pau hana drinks down the street once our shifts were over.

A couple of years later when I moved to San Francisco to study photography at the Academy of Art, I got a job at the Real Food Deli where I stood behind a lengthy deli counter filled with large bowls and platters of as-advertized “real food”, delicious, healthy creations made in the kitchen next door. and secretly envied the job of Michelle, the cheese monger - I hadn’t known such a glorious job existed until then. These were the years where I started to actually learn how to cook, for no other reason than the fact that I had grown up around great food and great restaurants but now I was a poor college student with a pretty decent palate, a big appetite and a small budget.

Those years would also be my last in the “industry” for the next fifteen years. However, that time of my life held the years that I got married and had three kids, so feeding people became my most important job yet. When I had my first child, I began to see food differently. I couldn’t imagine putting anything artificial or unhealthy into that pure, shiny, new little human. I had never before really thought about or cared too much where my food came from or what was in it, as long as it tasted good. But suddenly, those things had become important. As my children grew up, I tried to steer them away from fast food with my constant complaint that it’s “not real food!”.

After a career as a photographer of children and families and eventually food and interiors, and then through a string of connections, fate, twists of life, and a divorce, I eventually found myself with a blog called Swigs & Grinds and a little cafe in a residential condominium building in downtown Honolulu, which I named the Real Food Cafe.

It was never my dream or my plan to be in the food industry when I grew up. The seven year old little girl asleep on the stack of dog food was dreaming of being an artist, and once she learned what it was - an interior designer, until she found photography and writing. Now, looking back I realize that a life built around food was never not going to happen. For better or worse, the food business is in my blood.

And now our grocery store scene zooms out from the kid asleep on the dog food, and fast forwards back to that scene at a long table with twenty-four red metal chairs under a high steel roof strung with lights swaying in the Hawaiian trade winds at sunset on July 17, 2023. I have set this table with vintage cake stands lined down the middle holding ferns and candles, with flowers cut from the fields of Ho’i’o Acres Farm, interspersed with bunches of the tiniest green bananas that were mistakenly harvested too early from KLK Farms, but made for the cutest table decor, along with green pomelos and pomegranates snipped from the trees of my own garden.

After I stopped sleeping on bags of dog food and began working in the food industry, I had long dreamed of this table, of this dinner. I dreamed of meeting the farmers and hearing their stories, their passion, and their love of the land, the seasons, and the miraculous alchemy of growing real food. I dreamed of accepting their invitation to come into their fields and pull the things from the ground, to listen to their tips of how to cook them, and then to create a menu using 100% local ingredients. I dreamed of taking it a step further and creating an event where the people who love sexy food and sexy drinks can come and dine with the people who work so hard to bring us the best local and sustainable products.

And so it was, our first Farm to Fork dinner.

The menu:

AHI POKE ON FRIED KLK FARM ULU CHIP - with Ho’i’o Acres Farm marigold and Waihole Greens Sprouts + EWA BEACH CALAMANSI SLUSHEE

FRIED MA FARM DEVILED EGG - with Diamond Island Farm pickled onion + KLK Farm Coconut Rum Cocktail

MA FARM CUCUMBER GAZPACHO - Ho’i’o Acres Farm borage flower, fresh herb oil & Breadshop baguette + Hoe Mary! Spicy Ma Farm Tomato Cocktail

KLK COCONUT MARINATED MAHI MAHI - with sautéed cabbage + Oeno wine pairing

MADRE CHOCOLATE CACAO NIB & ROSEMARY CRUSTED MAUI RAISED BEEF TENDERLOIN - with Ma Farm Cassava & Small Kine Farms Mushrooms + Oeno wine pairing

KLK FARM DRAGON FRUIT SORBET & MANOA CHOCOLATE HOT CHOCOLATE + Madre Chocolate Cacao Tea

Connections were made at that table. Food was savored, bellies and hearts were filled, and three days later when I had finally risen from the ashes of exhaustion after pulling off the dinner, I sat down to finish writing the story of this table of my dreams coming to life, and I realized that today is my step father’s 87th birthday. How appropriate.

So many things have changed in my family since the days at the butcher shop and B.J.’s Bbq & Deli. Today, instead of worrying about prime rib sales or butchering animals, Jerry spent his birthday at the hospital where he has been admitted for the past week with his heart functioning at only 30%. Now, instead of rewinding or fast forwarding through the scenes, I would like to press pause on this present moment and lift a glass to the man who raised me, who loved and worked together with my mother to teach me about the value of hard work, of quality food and of the joy that comes from creating the space for people to gather around a table and enjoy the taste of love in a plate of food.

Happy birthday Jerry, may you know the value in the lessons that you have taught and in the love that you have given. Cheers to you old man, I love you and I thank you.