Julia Child continues to inspire chefs and launch a thousand food events. This August (when all good French citizens go on holiday), the Kahala Resort holds Bon Appétit!: A Tribute to Julia Child and Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The month-long event is held in honor of the French-cuisine chronicler’s 100th birthday.

There will be classes, a grazing event, and special menus in the hotel’s eateries, but the  highlight is a benefit dinner for the James Beard Foundation. The press release says it will feature a “surprise French chef” (which means they haven’t signed a contract with someone yet), and I can’t wait to find out who it will be. Hmmm. Daniel Boulud? Eric Ripert? Alain Ducasse? Joël Robuchon? A girl can dream can’t she? And attending the dinner will be James Beard Foundation VP Mitchell Davis, who I know from way back when he wrote great mini-reviews for me when I was at the Time Out New York Eating + Drinking Guide.

Tickets for the James Beard Foundation dinner are $275 until July 1. You save $50 if you go the early-bird route. After July 1 the price is $325.

In March, Ariel Kaminer, author of the New York Times Magazine‘s “The Ethicist” column, invited people to send in essays answering the question: Is it ethical to eat meat? The results were published in last Sunday’s issue, and the winner, Jay Bost, is planning to move to Hawai‘i next year to pursue a Ph.D. in tropical plant and soil science. The agroecologist currently teaches at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC, and could add interesting thoughts to our ongoing conversation on farming—and its future—in Hawai‘i. He writes that eating meat is defensible when “one does three things. First, you accept the biological reality that death begets life on this planet and that all life (including us!) is really just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form. Second, you combinie this realization with that cherished human trait of compassion and choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain and/or meat. And third, you give thanks.” It’s clear that a growing number of people in Hawai‘i eat by those tenets, and a growing cadre of Hawai‘i chefs and farmers are instrumental in feeding us the important message (you know who you are!). Read Mr. Bost’s full essay.

I took the liberty of emailing Mr. Bost a few questions, which he graciously and thoughtfully answered:

Eatizen Jane: You’ve studied agroecology in a dry climate—what spurs you to study tropical plant and soil science? And why did you choose the University of Hawai‘i?
Jay Bost: Well, I have studied agroecology in dry climates, but also I have lived, researched and farmed extensively in the subtropics (northern Florida) and the tropics (Mexico and St. Croix, USVI).  I chose UH because I love the agricultural possibilities in the tropics and how quickly one can establish diverse, delicious agroecosystems. Having spent a good deal of time studying and growing in the greater Caribbean basin, I thought exposing myself to the plants, agricultural traditions, and cultures of the Pacific would give a greater breadth to my education. I am very excited to learn about work that farmers, chefs, and community groups are doing in Hawai’i to promote food security and the conservation of diverse foodways. I am also very impressed by the work being carried out at CTAHR and by the National Tropical Botanical Gardens (particularly the Bread Fruit Institute), USDA’s United States Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, and Hawai’i Tropical Fruit Growers, and look forward to learning and collaborating with these wonderful groups.

EJ: What do you think about companies such as Monsanto using Hawai‘i as a biotech crop testing spot? It’s big business here, as I’m sure you know.
JB: I think that conservative risk avoidance measures should be taken when experimenting with these crops and that communities need to be involved in discussions about the research being carried out. While I believe that agroecological and biological approaches to agricultural problems will, in the end, be the most cost effective, applicable, and sustainable, I think that the technologies of biotech have certain potentials, used appropriately, to to aid us in feeding ourselves sustainably. That said, the research on these technologies should be highly transparent and oriented towards general well being over profit. I hope that the future of the biotech conversation can be less contentious and more driven by transparent data, good will, and respect from both sides of the debate. As with most technologies, its the application of it that, in the end, determines its legacy.

EJ: Are you also aware of the small but growing agroecology movement here? Farms such as MA‘O Farms raise not only organic crops, but youth leaders in an impoverished area at the same time.
I do not know much yet about the growing agroecology movement in Hawai’i, but I am certainly excited to participate and eat from it!  I do know that Hawai’i, ironically, faces many of the same issues in regards to food security that I experienced in St. Croix, USVI, namely being highly reliant on imported food. I am excited to eat fresh, local food in Hawai’i and am relieved that it’s available to a certain extent. I hope the movement continues to grow and that my work at CTAHR can be part of that movement.  Its better for our health, the local economy, our security, our sense of place, and the planet’s threatened ecosystems! Hawai’i is such a fertile land with rich traditions of agriculture. It should strive towards the greatest food self sufficiency possible while still preserving the wild lands harboring its unique flora and fauna that remain.

EJ: When do you expect to arrive in Honolulu, and what are you looking forward to eating here?
JB: We expect to arrive in mid-August, me, my partner, Nora, our son Kailu Sassafras, and our two dogs, Tublu and Mushu.  It will be quite a journey for us all from here on the Swannanoa River in Appalachia where we have spent the last year.

We will miss some of the foods available here in North Carolina, particularly the amazingly ethically raised animals produced on the campus of Warren Wilson College where I have been teaching.  But, my palate is enamored with the tropics! In terms of food to try in Hawai’i, wow! Lots of things!  I am particularly excited to try poi, being a lover of taro and fermentation. I also love the diversity of cooking greens and fresh spices found in the tropics, and look forward to learning many new species and uses in Hawai’i. Of course, the fresh fish! Being obsessed with avocados, I look forward to sampling the diverse varieties of avocados that are found on the island. And having fallen in love with breadfruit in the Caribbean, I look forward to trying the diversity of varieties and preparation techniques found in the Pacific. Lastly, I can’t wait to try the chocolate two friends are producing locally at Madre Chocolates.

Last night was the pop-up’s downtown debut. You can reserve a table for March 17 and 24, at 6pm or 7:30pm. On those dates, you can also drop in for lunch without reservations at noon. After that Addis Ababa Hawaii will make decisions about a regular schedule. Let’s hope it goes well!

Here’s my Feb 2011 post on Addis Ababa Hawaii, when it first appeared at the defunct J2.

Lemongrass Cafe, 83 N King St, between Maunakea and Smith
To reserve, email addisababahawaii@gmail.com

I feel like I’m working on a soap opera script, following chef Chris Kajioka. Two months after I interviewed him and Mourad Lahlou (see below) in September, the Hawai‘i-born chef went through a tearful divorce (I keed! It was all amicable) and reunited with his old flame Ron Siegel at the Ritz Carlton’s new restaurant Parallel 37 (they gutted the eight-year-old Dining Room).

Seigel is known as a chef’s chef—he doesn’t have the Food Channel name recognition of, say, Tom Colicchio, but in the restaurant world, he ranks. Kajioka worked under Seigel at the Dining Room and rejoins him in the same (reworked) space, with new food. The formal dining format has been reinvented as a hotspot, with a loosened culinary necktie, so to speak.

Ron Seigel “taught me hot to cook, act and be in a highly professional and caliber kitchen,” says Kajioka. And it’s thanks to Seigel that Kajioka moved on to Per Se.

“I remember our last meeting five years ago, before I left the Dining Room,” wrote Kajioka via email. “I told him I wanted to move to NYC. I mentioned Jean Georges and Le Bernardin as possible restaurants. He asked if I wanted to go to Per Se. I was floored because I didn’t think I could get in that kitchen. He made one phone call to Jonathan Benno. I was on a plane three weeks later. So in a sense I owe a lot of my career to him. One of my best friends is Ron’s current sous chef, who has been with him for almost 10 years, so I jumped at their offer to join and bring the level back up. In some respect, I took a few steps down to be the meat cook and work with my mentor and one of my best friends and talented cook, André.”

Kajioka left Aziza just one day before he started at Parallel 37. “I was extremely sad to leave Mourad,” says Kajioka. “We have become fast brothers and have a genuine professional and personal respect. I could honestly see myself working with him in the future, we always joke about Aziza in Hawai‘i—I almost think he is only half joking.”

Parallel 37 opened on Dec. 12, and Kajioka started a few weeks before that to train with the staff and finalize the opening menu. He reports that the menu is a lot more simple and casual than the old Dining Room, while remaining centered around the farmer’s market, but with more straightforward flavors and techniques.

The San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer hasn’t officially weighed in on the restaurant yet, but he did post this tidbit. Kampachi sashimi? Could Kajioka be having an influence beyond meat?

But I’m sure it won’t be long before this drama takes some new twists. Kajioka is never short of offers, and he’s always wanted to stage at kaiseki temple RyuGin in Tokyo and Alain Passard’s red-meat-free L’Arpège in Paris (both spots have three Michelin stars. “They have always been on my bucket list,” says Kajioka, “and I truly want to make those happen.”

SINCE CHRIS KAJIOKA joined Mourad Lahlou’s San Francisco resaurant Aziza in January 2011, the contemporary Moroccan spot has become a sort of pilgrimage stop for Hawai‘i eaters and cooks. And Kajioka said choosing Aziza over the other name-brand eateries that wanted him was the best decision he could have made. He and Lahlou were in Honolulu in September for the inaugural Hawaii Food + Wine Festival and kindly met with me at what was then the Waikiki Edition, after they were done prepping for the next night’s Streets of Asia: Morimoto and Friends Presented by Hawaiian Airlines event at the hotel on Sept. 29.

The dude duo has been working together less than a year, but they’re already joined at the hip, communicating in an easygoing, brotherly banter. And it was like that from the start—they talked for a couple of hours the first time they met. Kajioka was in San Francisco on a job reconnoiter mission and had interviews lined up at many of the city’s to eateries.

“Chemistry in the kitchen is so crucial,” said Lahlou, “and Chris wanted the job for the right reasons. Lahlou also like Kajioka’s straightforward, no ass-kissing manner.

For the moment they were still awed by the Kaua‘i-farmed shrimp they just worked with, in preparation for the big “Streets of Asia” event the next night. “We just tested, worked out the cooking time. I felt it was better than lobster. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever tasted and I’ve tasted a lot of things. I wish we could get them in San Francisco,” said Lahlou about the crustaceans. He moved from Casablanca to San Francisco in 1986 to attend college—”If I had known about Hawai‘i I would have gone further,” he laughs.

“I don’t remember them being this good,” said Kajioka. “And the sea asparagus from Kahuku is pristine and juicy. It’s woody on the mainland.”

“I felt stupid today,” chimed in Lahlou. “I thought we had great ingredients in San Francisco, but the seaweed is amazing here. Sea beans—I’ve never tasted anything like it. It’s been an eye-opening experience.” All the gushing about local ingredients is enough to make even the most hard-bitten cynic feel warm and fuzzy. Their culinary cocoon of bliss absorbed everything around it, including me.

“I didn’t think I’d leave here wanting these products,” said Lahlou, adding that he doesn’t even want to do anything to them—just “enjoy them the way they are.” Which led the conversation to what he’s doing with Moroccan cooking. North African cooking, like other well-spiced cuisines such as Indian, isn’t about putting individual ingredients on a pedestal by letting it shine with just a squirt of lemon or a drop of olive oil. It’s the opposite of Italian cooking.

“Moroccan cooking is about building flavors,” explains Lahlou. “It can get cluttered—you can have seven or eight different vegetables in a dish and they all wind up tasting the same. It’s not about merely enhancing the flavor. it’s hours and hours of creating new flavors.”

For him, the biggest challenge has been to remove those many layers of flavors, stripping things away, as one would remove clothing from an overdressed person “to just see the beauty of things.” He’s documented how he tackles this challenge in his new book Mourad: New Moroccan (read the New York Times article about it!).

And it’s a philosophy that spoke to Kajioka. “In the Bay Area, the ingredients are so much better. There’s got to be a way to use the same products and have them stand out,” he said.

“I don’t like heavy reductions and heavy plates,” said Lahlou, talking about TKKT. “He made teamed halibut. He took chermoulah concept and made a broth—it was like a dashi. It felt so refreshing. I find this is so Moroccan. He captured all of that in that broth.”

Lahlou learned how to cook out of necessity: “I was homesick when I came to the U.S. I was trying to stay in touch. I started calling my mom every day. Then the bill came. I had to find another way to connect.” So he started cooking, and learned something. He tried to re-create what he had in Morocco, “but you can’t,” said Lahlou. “There’s no smell, no food, no light. If you’re in the middle of Marakesh having a merguez sandwich, it ties in together. But you have it in San Francisco and it’s lame.”

Instead, he decided to make Moroccan food in the context of the Bay Area. To illustrate the concept, he cites a rabbit dish. “In Morocco, the rabbit is smothered in a sauce of paprika, ginger, turmeric, then you stew the shit out of it. I take rabbit and confit the leg, pan sear the loin, braise and pull the shoulder, and make stock out of the body. I cook them separately so that each part has integrity, then put them back together in a dish.

But he started out with the “cook-the-shit-out-of-it” technique. “I just learned by trial and error,” said Lahlou. “Knowing what I know now, I never would open a restaurant with $3,000, like I did in 1996. I didn’t have enough money for a deposit after I signed the lease.”

Lahlou learned on the job, and reveals that he’s still learning. “What is really exciting is when I get to work with people like Chris—he brings something new to the table. It bends the trajectory we’re on. People want to learn from him. He’s a great, great addition to the team.”

For Lahlou, doing the Hawaii Food + Wine Festival was extra special with Kajioka on hand. “I’ve done so many events, but this is really important. Meals on Wheels in New York, James Beard House, Pebble Beach—they all feel the same. Chefs don’t even know what they’re doing—they just show up. Peeling and deveining 1,000 prawns from here with Chris—there is a sense of place, there’s a link.”

Hawi—the second-to-last last stop before you hit the end of the world, aka the lookout at Pololu Valley—wasn’t where I expected to find one of my favorite cafés in the islands. But a year ago, while visiting friends, that’s exactly what we found.

In August 2010, friends from New York road tripping on Hawai‘i Island told me they found this place called Zest and were in raptures about it. I had to see for myself. So when I found myself in the village two months later, I told my companions we had to have lunch there. We found it in the last Wild West-style old wooden building, on the left, with a sign in red script proclaiming “Zest.” Then we learn that the chef is Jason Verdon, previously executive chef at Roy’s Waikoloa, and the menu is an eclectic cafe dream of things like beet salad, Cuban sandwich and kabocha ravioli.

That salad was a Christmas-colored composition of stuff just harvested from nearby Waimea, sweetened with pieces of Maui pineapple, and topped with a yuzu vinaigrette. The Cubano was a refined interpretation of the pressed sandwich, gushy with beautifully fatty slow-roasted pork butt and accented with pickled jalapeños and prosciutto in the place of the usual slice of canned ham. Ahi tataki was perfectly seared, if a little overwhelmed by the yuzu-liliko‘i vinaigrette. We inhaled the mushroom dumplings in a garlicky white wine sauce.

I was just in Hawi last weekend, and was relieved to see that is is still open. Verdun has left, and owner Patrick Sullivan has taken over in the kitchen (he said Verdun is now at Daniel’s Organic Cuisine in Waimea). I was pleased to find that the menu is almost intact, and the Cubano still worth the drive. “Jason taught us well,” chuckled Sullivan.

Zest Kitchen, 55-3435 Akoni Pule Hwy, 808-889-1188

Photos by Cyrus Amini.

So he secured the DLNR lease to the little shack at the end of He‘eia Pier (a two-year process), where for 30 years the Choy family sold plate lunches, beer and bait. “This is the perfect flagship,” says Inouye, who fished off the pier as a boy.

The gang gutted the kitchen (often with people from the community pitching in), and installed fancy new equipment and chef Mark Noguchi, a CIA graduate and alum of Town and Chef Mavro.

Opened in April, He‘eia Pier General Store & Deli was in immediate hit, with sleek, sandbar-bound bunnies and Uncle Ernie fishermen types alike. Noguchi mixes plate lunch classics like hamburger steak with innovative creations such as his lemongrass burger (available as a special only—the high price of lemongrass makes it too costly to have on the regular menu. Wah!). And the catch of the day may be the freshest on the island—the boats are coming in all the time. And if the day is a big fail for fishermen, that means no fish from the General Store, cause that’s how serious Noguchi is about the word “fresh.”

Inouye, 37, sees the “deli” as a community hangout. He cites the growing cluster of eateries in Kailua and adds, “We can do our part on this side, and keep things as local as possible.” Which means getting ingredients directly from East Side farmers and fishermen, from the Otsujis in Hawai‘i Kai to the Reppuns in Kahalu‘u.

Eventually he’d like to “branch off and do higher-end places.” He’s thinking small-plates-and-wine. But right now, sitting on the pier, the nightlife-guy-turned-dad doesn’t want to be anywhere else. “I want to dedicate 35 years to this.” (Read my post about the spot’s blessing/opening at Honolulu Magazine.)

Heeia Pier General Store and Deli, 46-499 Kamehameha Hwy., 236-1449, heeiapier.com
facebook.com/heeiapier, twitter.com/heeiapier

[I did a short piece on Eat the Street with a roundup of food trucks for Modern Luxury Hawaii, and they axed the part about Eat the Street. So here's the whole unedited thing, which was written back in April.]

In January, Poni Askew organized Honolulu’s first food truck rally—Eat the Street. “We were hoping for 500 people and we got about 1,200!,” says the mom of three who started the foodtruck-tracking website StreetGrindz.com as a hobby when, after a long career (in the music and coffee worlds), she found being a stay-at-home mom “didn’t go over so well for me.”

Thanks to a partnership with Kamehameha Schools, Eat the Street is now a monthly event, held the last Thursday of the month in a large Kaka‘ako parking lot at 555 South Street. And in April, Askew launched the weekly Friday Night Bites, a lower-key, smaller confab of mobile eats at 1637 Kapiolani Blvd., on the Diamond Head end of the street.

While Hawaii has a long lunchwagon legacy, in the past two years entrepreneurs have broken the meals on wheels out of the loco-moco and garlic shrimp molds. Now chowhounds follow their favorites for everything from lobster rolls to chicken adobo sliders. Askew already sees the new wave of food trucks influencing the old guard.

“Harris Sukita of Simply Ono—he’s been around forever—came to me and said ‘We’re going to start doing empanadas.’ He’s busting out of his own shell. It’s his first experiment and he’s offering something no one else is,” says Askew. “These new food trucks are getting people to think out of the box and make it exciting for everyone.”

Here are just five of the many notables:

Camille’s on Wheels
Roaming, facebook.com/camillesonwheels, twitter.com/camillesonwheel
A few wagons do global “fusion” tacos, but Camille Komine makes the best. A one-time film-world denizen—she’s been everything from make-up artist to food stylist—Komine has found her calling making tacos filled with things like lemongrass-scented pork slowcooked for four hours and mahimahi spiked with chimichurri sauce. She’s also a great baker known for her dulce de leche pecan pie and blue velvet cupcakes.

Gogi Korean Taco Truck [CLOSED]
1637 Kapiolani Blvd, www.eatgogi.com
Former merchant marine cook Jim Wilson has the most pro operation. With a permanent spot and an order-pickup system, food comes out consistently. While the food is the most true to the Los Angeles inspiration, Wilson’s best dishes are his local adaptations of Korean tacos, like braised pork on sweet-bread buns. Did you catch the Gogi cameo on Hawaii Five-0?
Postscript: Jim Wilson is from O‘ahu, but has lived for years in Las Vegas, where he has a business. He opened Gogi Korean as a way to keep a foothold here—and excuse to fly back often. Poni Askew informs me that Wilson’s Vegas business has boomed, not allowing him the time needed to oversee his food truck, and sold it a couple months ago. His buyer was overwhelmed by the work it takes to run a food truck. The business closed, in May and is now for sale. Any aspiring mobile chefs?

Melt
Roaming; twitter.com/meltHNL; melthonolulu.com
Former Nobu Waikiki chefs Lindsey Ozawa and Alejandro Briceño (also V Lounge’s pizzaiolo) and food writer Martha Cheng have O‘ahu craving grilled cheese sandwiches. Hobbs bacon, house-made harissa and pickled onions go really well with Gruyère and gouda.

Zaratez Mexicatessen
3121 Mokihana St., twitter.com/zaratez, 227-1422
Forget Korean tacos, can we get a decent Mexican taco, please? Los Angeles native Paul Zarate answered the call last fall with his chorizo tacos, chicken mulitas, and roasted-tomato salsa. He’s been cooking with his abuela since he was eight—and it shows.

Tacos Vicente
66-632 Kamehameha Hwy., Haleiwa, twitter.com/tacosvicente, 356-9111
This North Shore truck is run by three full-time Brigham Young University students, one of them from a chef-filled family in Cuernavaca, Mexico—the home of al pastor tacos. So no wonder Vicente’s are so good, the red meat pleasantly gritty with ground ancho, guajllo and pasilla chiles, and sliced right off the vertical rotisserie. (Pictured above.)