The art of cooking from the heart
It’s funny but all my chef idols–M.F.K. Fisher, Alice Waters and Nancy Oakes–are women. I don’t know if it’s a stereotype or not, but I believe women cook from their hearts and men cook from their egos.
Ed Kenney is in many ways O’ahu’s Alice Waters–our patron saint of local organic farms. Like M.F.K. Fisher, author of The Art of Eating, Kenney’s relationship with food is a narrative of love. He has brought his philosophy of slow cooking, a return to our roots and cooking from the heart to his two successful culinary establishments–town and Downtown.
Town was my dream forever. But I always planned to open another restaurant and move on to other projects. When I was at the Museum of Modern Art, it was almost like an epiphany. The connection between the visual arts and the culinary arts hit me. And that union is what I brought to Downtown at HiSAM.
Interestingly enough, 90 percent of our clientele at both town and Downtown are local and repeat business. So when you saw me come into Town tonight and I stopped to greet and welcome people at various table, that’s because it’s not only about the food. Of course it’s about the food– but more importantly it’s about the connectivity of food.
A little while back, I was speaking to the culinary students at [Kapi'olani Community College.] I asked the students to define one of their most memorable culinary moments. So I walked around all serious and professional with my white pad and pen. I took notes like a surgeon and they all quoted some white tablecloth French fine-dining experience. And then it was my turn and you know what I said? “Well, let me see, it was Thanksgiving of 2007 and it was in my home with my wife and kids and my parents and my wife’s parents and we were sharing food and wine and let me see another memorable food memory–that must have been Thanksgiving of 2006.” That’s why our mantra at Downtown is “you are where you eat”–not literally the place in which you eat–but who you eat with.
We will be rewriting both our vision and mission statements in the near future. There are many exciting developments. At Downtown in particular we are planning to incorporate Hawaiian language classes for our staff on Sundays. The reason I work with high-risk youth is that I believe in re-connecting people to food. Food is a communal act. I am completely behind the green movement but I also believe that many organizations are jumping on the “Go Green” bandwagon. You need to practice green. For example, we use a worm bin for all of our waste. That is the law of return. When we began we used about 40 percent local produce–now we’re utilizing over 80 percent. It’s all in the ingredients and people here in Hawai’i get that.
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