 Think Tech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Welcome to Hawaii Food and Farmers Series. I'm your host today, Matthew Johnson. And this is a show where we talk to Hawaii's foodies, farmers, and everyone who cares about Hawaii's local food systems. As always, you can join the conversation by tweeting in an at Think Tech H.I. And you can also now call in and talk to us. We really hope you do. It would be great. I don't think anyone's ever actually called. So the number is 808-374-2014. So please, we'd love to hear from you. As always, we have an exciting guest. And with us today, we have Amanda Corby with Under My Umbrella. And she's going to be talking about the upcoming Hawaii Book and Music Festival, which is also going to be featuring a lot of local chefs and local food. So Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the show. Hey Matt, thanks for having us. So I think I've been quasi-harassing you for at least two years now to come on the show. It's very exciting to have you here. And I can't wait. So let's just go ahead and get started. Yeah, sounds great. So Amanda, before we talk all about yourself, because you are involved with a lot of different things, tell us about the Hawaii Book and Music Festival. Sure. So this is the second year that we at Under My Umbrella and P.The Group are involved with the festival. And what we've introduced, because the Book and Music Festival, this is the 13th year, they've always been about supporting the local community. There's always been hula, storytelling, entertainers, music, many things. And there were food vendors there. But as our community of people interested and passionate about food and farms really has been rising in the past several years, they decided to create a venue just for that. So P.The Group this year in partnership with Ulupono Initiative has a food and cookbook venue at the Book and Music Festival. So we'll have two full days of panels and chef demos, all revolving around locally sourced food, whether it's a little bit of storytelling, talking about climate change in our food systems, learning how to make dumplings with Chef Leanne Wong, my husband Chef Mark Noguchi will be doing a little bit of cooking and harassing of people as well. And we're very excited to have the Oahu Food Hub and Oahu Fresh there serving local produce to the about 30,000 visitors that will have over the weekend. Wow, you pretty much just summed up the whole festival in one or two breaths. That was amazing. Yeah, that's what I do. So let's kind of break that down a little bit. Sure. So the White Book and Music Festival, this is the 13th year. That's correct. And where is it located? It's on the civic ground. So right off of King Street, it takes, I mean, it really takes up several blocks. So it's on the entire civic ground property. I think there's about 30 different venues that are set up on the property there. So there'll be lots of signage. There's parking on King Street. At the public parking space, it's actually free on both dates to be able to park there as well. Wow, cool. Lots of space for lots of people. Yeah. So it's kind of a little bit of all of the best that Hawaii really has to offer. So we've got the book part of it. Can you talk a little bit more about that? So it's going to be featuring, I know, local authors and what does that all look like? Yeah. So my understanding is that at each different station, there's a wellness station and that will be all featured around speakers and panelists talking about wellness. There's an author station. I think Christy Yamaguchi will be there talking about her book, or I think books maybe that she has out. They fly in a lot of authors from the mainland as well as featuring local authors here. So I think for two days straight, you will be seeing over 50 different authors that are represented there. And they're going to be doing all kinds of readings. There's a children's zone that's just focused on children's books. Uncle Wayne in the Howling Dog Band is going to be there for both days. Which as you know, my daughters are huge fans of that. Officially groupies? Yes, they have shirts. They're those girls. Yeah, already those girls. It's their first groupie experience. Yeah. So we're excited though. We're really excited that it's grown to be something that, there's something for you, there's something for me, there's something for your grandma and there's something for my kids. Yeah. No, that's great. So we just saw a picture on the screen here. It looked like you can actually buy books as well. So it's going to be a bookshelf. Yeah, I think one of the highlights of the event for everyone is they have a book swap. So people can bring five books and they get all laid out on the table and you can do a book swap. So you don't even have to spend any money. There are places where you can buy books as well. But I think historically that's really been a highlight for folks is the book swap. I'm busy setting up our venue so I never get to see the excitement really at the other tins throughout. But what I hear is I think there's a big line of people that come and some people are really adamant about being there for the beginning of this book swap that's happening. But it does continue for the whole weekend. Wow, fun. So let's talk about the food part of the festival, which your group's, Peely Group and also under my umbrella are helping to organize. So talk a little bit about that. So you mentioned that there's going to be some cooking demonstrations. There's going to be some chefs there. Also don't be doing the farmers market. So yeah, talk a little bit about who's going to be there on the food side. Sure. So on Saturday morning we get started on Saturday May 5th and 10 a.m. is whenever we get started with activities there. And we will have Ashley Watts who you know from local IA, which is a community sport supported fish share. And she has really done a great job. She was with us last year as well of educating both adults and children about sustainable and locally caught fish through art. So she brings some small fish with her and we have fish prints early in the morning time. So kids can come down. We have a little station set up. Ashley brings out fish. They talk about them, where the gills and the eyes are and the kids get to touch them, but they also get to make fish prints that they can take home with them. So we start the morning off with that with Ashley in the morning. And then we go into our first panel. I'm going to make sure I tell you correctly because it's updating every minute. Next at 11 is when we'll have Dumplings All Day Wong with Chef Leanne Wong. She was with us last year as well in a huge hit. She was talking about her book, her cookbook Dumplings All Day Wong. So what happens is at a chef demo, we have a stage with a little mirror. We're very professional with the mirror so you can see what's happening. The audience does a very good job of telling us if it's not positioned correctly. That's what I love about this crowd. It's all ages, all types. So you really... That just means you know that they're interested, they're interested. They're interested and they're outspoken, which I really appreciate. They're willing to help us do our job better. I love that. Instant feedback. Yes, instant feedback. So you set up so you can really watch what's happening. We ask the chefs to make it very house cooking friendly. So we don't need all the fancy things they do for us in the restaurant that we wanted to be everything that you can make at home. So they'll go through how to make it and the best part is at the end, they do sampling. So you get to try the dishes. So presumably if you came for both days you could try dishes from eight different chefs that otherwise you would have to go to the restaurants to try. And they're all featuring locally sourced ingredients in their dishes, which as you know about us is kind of the baseline from what we build from when we work with folks. So we're excited to be able to highlight not just the chefs, but also the farmers and the producers who are making and growing and loving on the food that we're eating. So Lian, chef demo. So doing the dumplings. Doing the dumplings. And then we have, I like this one, we have perfect pickles, two easy Chinese recipes featuring Lynette Lowe Tom, which I think everyone knows from the Star Advertiser. She has a cooking column with the advertiser is always sharing really great recipes. And she's a real character, very charismatic, gets people involved and is happy to share some of her recipes with us there and also is going to share some history with us about kind of Chinese cooking in Hawaii and how it came to be. So I'm excited to have her there to be able to share knowledge and history as well as how to make a perfect pickle. Wow, that's fun. Because I think, yeah, pickling is something everybody's heard about, but not everybody knows how to do it. And it's actually pretty simple. So that seems like a perfect thing for everyone. I'll make sure that you're up there to help her with it. Oh. That would be great since you're there. Then you can help her with the perfect pickle. Okay. Yeah, awesome. Thanks. Next, from one to 145, we have how to process a fish. Maybe what somebody can call in and tell us, we try to come up with a name for this panel. Ashley Watts is going to show people the basics of how to break down a fish, which I think the Kimi Warners of the world make it look easy to break down a fish. And we all feel like, I don't know if I can do that, but it's actually quite simple to do. And you do it one or two times and it's something you can do at home. And for us, then it really widens the horizon of the kinds of fish that you will eat because there's lots of fish that taste really oh no, but if you don't know how to process it, then you're kind of limited to the fillets that you can buy in the market or getting from someone like Ashley. So she's going to try and make it feel less intimidating as far as breaking down a fish. But I couldn't think of a sexy title for it. Less intimidating than breaking down a fish? That doesn't sound good to you. I wanted to be like people like, oh yeah, I want to learn that. Yeah, breaking down a fish. I feel like there's got to be another phrase for that. But hopefully our viewers are going to call in or tweet in or send a postcard. Yeah, tell them they'll get a fish on me if they come up with a clever title for how to process a fish because that's currently what we're going with for that one o'clock slot. Okay. We're excited. We're going to have Mellie James with us for a mana up talk story. Oh, nice. That's going to be really cool. So we're calling our panels talk stories because we want to get people's mindsets away from, it's a panel sitting talking at you. We want it to be more inclusive of the audience as well and make time for a lot of question and answer and even make the format a little bit more informal of people sharing knowledge. So Mellie's going to have a few of her partners from mana up. They are to talk about what mana up is and how they're supporting our local food system. So I'm really looking forward to that panel or talk story. Yeah, fine. And they're having their kind of launch party tomorrow. Tomorrow. Yeah, you're going to be there. See you there. Okay. Awesome. Bye. Bye. A beer. Oh, fantastic. Then we have Cooking in Pono. And who is the author of Cooking in Pono. And she, I think her book came out a few years ago, but she's really excited to be sharing. We'll actually have her there for both days and she's going to talk about how we cook in a more Pono fashion, how to incorporate our local traditional values here in Hawaii into our cooking and make it healthy and yummy at the same time. So again, another time for free bites of food. Yeah. We're going to be eating and partying pretty much the whole weekend. And that's neat too with what you're talking about with Leanne and kind of how to cook Pono. And I know she's real involved with the, I know with like Sir Fryder, they do the ocean friendly restaurants. Yep. And there's also the other organization, I'm blanking on the name of it, the group of chefs. It's like hi. Oh, the Dames? Doms? Yeah, Le Doms. But there's another one too where they're talking about more of using sustainable food practices in the restaurants. But yeah, so she's real involved in just, she's a well-known chef both from New York and now here in Hawaii. And probably one of the best spots to get brunch in Honolulu. But it's neat that she's constantly trying to make her place better. And that's great that she's going to be talking about how everyone can do that in their cooking at home and make it more enjoyable. We call her Mama Wang. She's definitely the mama of the culinary world and of brunch. And we love, now that she has a little son, she's also learning to cook for babies as well. So maybe there'll be a new cookbook. I can't think of the clever name of what it would be. Baby Wang. Wang baby. Yeah. No, Wang baby. I don't know if that one will work out. Sorry. That's another piece of homework for our viewers to do. And they can do that during the break. So we have to take a quick 60-second break and we'll be right back with Amanda. Amanda. Sad. All the better to see you with my dear. What are you doing? Okay, cool. Research says reading from birth accelerates the baby's brain development. And you're doing that now? Oh yeah. This is the starting line. Push. Read aloud 15 minutes. Every child. Every parent. Every day. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. The Hawaii Food and Farmer series, as always, are actually just really once a month now. I'm your host, Matt Johnson. And today we're talking to Amanda Corby with Peely Group slash Under My Umbrella. And we're talking about the Hawaii Book and Music Festival, which is going to be happening in a couple of weekends from now, May 5th and 6th. So you're just kind of going through the schedule, getting us all excited for the cooking demonstrations and everything happening. I guess we still have the schedule of what's happening on Sunday, May 6th. Yeah, Sunday. So same thing. We started at 10 a.m. with our keiki fish activity again with Ashley Watts. Oh. So it's a good, you know, it's 10 a.m. I don't know if people are quite ready for breaking down fish or eating poke at 10 a.m. in the morning. So we like to give them something to do to get the kids entertained and agreeable to stay for the rest of the day. So what we found last year was really great to have a keiki activity in the beginning of the day. Then we're going to, at 11, we're going to a value-added food talk and taste, which I think maybe you can tell us a little bit of something about with the Oahu Food Hub folks. Yeah. About that. That's right. That's right. I forgot I was part of this itinerary. So yeah. So I think I'm going to be maybe talking at that event as well. So we're going to be talking about kind of value-added products. So highlighting some of the different products that a lot of small businesses are doing here featuring local produce, local meats. So as part of the Oahu Food Hub, which is the warehouse that houses about 15 different food businesses, we're going to invite some of those tenants. Yeah. To come and talk about what they're doing. So we have Lauren. Shoop has been on the show before. He's going to be talking about what they're doing with breadfruit, Ulu, and making it into Ulu Hummus. And then we also have Bryn from Voyaging Foods. It's going to be talking about some of the stuff that they've been doing with Ulu and cauliflower. And then we also have Bahmagi, who is with Ponupur. So he's been doing a lot of work with local pig farmers and working to really take that final pig product and break it down and have it available for restaurants and then making different value-added products with that. So I think it's going to be a neat talk just kind of, because everybody knows, yeah, support your farmers and buying produce of the farmers markets, but then there's people also kind of taking it to that next step. Yeah, awesome. Now I feel like I'm the host of the show. Yeah, just like that. I might take it over. You know, the rest of the show is yours. Getting. So looking forward to that, that sounds awesome. I'm really, we've been talking for so long, I feel, like about value-added products and how to get them to market and how to create a more sustainable living for farmers through thinking about value-added products. So I love that now we're not just talking about it. There's actually people doing it. Yeah. And I think as we educate the public about people doing this, that's the way that then we support them and being successful in these things they're doing. So awesome. I'm really glad to hear that that's going on. After your panel, we're going to have cooking for community. That's going to be by my husband, Chef Mark Noguchi, which we're excited about this cooking demo because it's not just him being his usual funny self. He's actually going to be cooking based on this project that we started with Key Project out in Kahalu'u. We are feeding out there currently twice a week about 150 elders, Kapuna, a day. So we have a partnership with them and on Wednesdays and Fridays there's a free meal program for the Kapuna of Kahalu'u. And Peely Group has been working on this project in testing out different recipes that are healthy, that are using locally sourced ingredients, but that are also things that the Kapuna really enjoy eating and that kind of take them back to pastimes and remind them of why they love not just living on the east side but also eating from all the farms on that side. So Mark's going to do a demo kind of based around what he's found with that partnership out there. And so that should be, the food won't be bad. I would imagine. I think that's the understatement of the show. 1 p.m. we have a public-private partnership through the eyes of Farm to School. This is going to be a really cool talk story. It's with the Lieutenant Governor and some of the partners from HMSA Foundation, from Kaiser Permanente and from Ulupono who are working together. They're doing this project in Mililani. I'm sure you may know about the project they're doing in Mililani. So they're kind of going to talk about how this partnership in the Farm to School movement has shown these different for-profit and not-profit entities to come together and work to support the local food system. So I know a little bit about the project happening in Mililani with the schools and I know it's kind of a pilot project that's going on but it sounds like if it's successful it could be huge for our school systems here. Well yeah, I mean it's very, I mean there's been a lot of talk and chat, a lot of groups interested in getting more local food into the schools, into the cafeterias. And there's a lot of unfortunate reasons why that's challenging. So yeah, what I know about this project in Mililani is that they're using this as a pilot project to really kind of work through that red tape and so it's good having all this different, we have the Department of Education involved and then you have some different funding organizations and also the farms as well to actually figure out how to do it. So I think a lot of people, a lot of groups throughout the state are really looking at this project. That's going to be a fantastic conversation. Yeah, so I'm looking for it. I think that's going to be great. That's again 1 to 145. Then at 2 p.m. another powerhouse from the west side. We're going to have Albie Miles and some folks from UH West Oahu and they will be talking about the future of our food and climate change. We just did a super cool kind of experience dinner and I had Albie and a few of the folks from West Oahu come out. It was in conjunction with an art exhibit called Flooded. Oh yeah. Did you check that out? I wasn't able to make that one. So part of Honolulu Biennial but there is all these amazing photos of what the future of our food will look like based on what will survive in 30 to 50 years. So come check out that panel and you'll learn more about some of the work they're doing at West Oahu as well and also always time for questions. So people can ask questions. I know there's lots of gray areas in the world of climate change that means for us as an island and also for food. So I think this is a great opportunity to talk to. I feel like Albie's like the smartest person in the world about climate change. He's definitely at the top of the list. He's pretty smart. So great that we'll be able to pick his brain there and then 3 p.m. we'll have another cooking and porno food demo. We're closing up shop a little bit early because there will then be at 4 p.m. a free concert by Jake. So bring your ukulele. Yeah, that's right. Oh wow. Yeah, free concert. That is fantastic. Yeah. I love how it seems like there's a lot of like fun kind of light things going on but then there's some pretty very important heavy conversations going on. Yeah, so. What a great mixture of lots of things to learn, deep conversations but having a fun time at the same time. Pretty much in my life I've learned if you keep food around you will keep people interested. So we like to mix it up a little bit. So that's a perfect segue because we're kind of talking about this specific event and this isn't something that just happened overnight. This is really kind of a collaboration of the work that you do and your husband Mark Noguchi do with your two organizations, Peely Group and Under My Umbrella. Can you talk a little bit about so when you say starting like with Peely Group so you kind of mention a few things that you guys are doing. You mentioned that with a key project where you're feeding the capuna and then also obviously the Hawaii Book and Music Festival. But what is Peely Group and how is that tying with Under My Umbrella? Sure. So it ties in through marriage. Oh, marriage. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. I'm just trying to figure that out. So Peely Group is we're a food group. My husband is a chef as you know and he started out doing several restaurants and we actually closed our last cafe in December because we're so focused on community and on working within our community and unfortunately running a restaurant full-time doesn't create a lot of space for being able to be out there engaging in the community. So we still have our catering arm of our business. We do a lot of catering, corporate events, nonprofit events, experiences kind of out-of-the-box kinds of things are what we really like to do which also ties in my event experience and being able to do the logistics of helicoptering in tables so you can set them up and you know make a kitchen in the middle of nowhere. Is that something you literally had to do? It's been done. Wow. We'll have to say that for the next show. We'll save that for the next show. But so doing all kinds of different catering events and working on community projects like this with our partners. We've worked with you on a lot of things and the Food Hub and working with Community College with other restaurants with farmers. So Peely Group is really it's a passion project and my husband who can tell you that he can't focus on one thing for too long it's a good balance for him. So he's cooking a lot, getting to cook a lot of different kinds of foods not just cooking the same menus over and over but also allowing time for him to be out in the community whether it's working in Alo'i. We leave on Sunday, we're going to help with the system on Kauai after the recent flooding and if we had a restaurant space that wouldn't be possible for us to fly over there and help with that. So we're really happy to be where we're at and able to engage with our community more authentically and more deeper dive than just kind of scratching on the surface and talking about it and putting it on our menus all the time. Under My Umbrella is an event in public relations company and we've been around for almost a decade. That's how Mark and I met. I hired him to cater an event for the Food Policy Council back in version one days of that. I never knew that story. And then we worked on Ingredients Hawaii together which was a film we worked on with Bob Bates that was really fun and so kind of like you trying to get me here he just kept asking and I finally gave in. Nice. Finally figured out how to get it done. Yeah, that's right. But under My Umbrella we worked primarily with nonprofits and with businesses that are with local businesses that are scaling up. So I came from a documentary film world. I then went to work for a nonprofit and I found that I saw this situation happening with nonprofits where they have the best of intentions in planning events and doing their outreach but they're so busy doing their mission the work that they should be doing that they never get to 100% to the events and to the communication side of things so I thought what if we pull that outside of the organization but take someone who has the heart for doing things the nonprofit way whether it's bringing communities together or working with a committee or with a guild but by removing it from the organization being able to really take it to that next level and take the stress out of their life when it comes to event logistics because they're definitely not for everybody I'm weird and I love the stress of events but not everybody does, it's not for everyone so for us to be able to provide this to nonprofits and to companies and let them really work on whether they're growing their business or they have 7,000 employees and that's what they need to be focusing on is their mission we can bring the event skills to the workplace and really make sure that we stay true to what their mission is with them, the way that they feel comfortable working but we really help them reach their goals and it's awesome for us to do that because we get to work with so many amazing community members, so many great organizations and companies, not only do we get to know them and form relationships but we feel like we're giving back to our community by helping them do their job and helping them reach their mission Wow, Amanda that's awesome it's really cool to see that you guys are really practicing what you're preaching and I love how you're focusing on getting back into the communities you're working with and thank you so much for coming on the show unfortunately we are out of time but I definitely want to have you and Mark back on the show again because there's still plenty of other things for us to talk about so yeah thanks again, this was White Food and Farmer Series and we will see you again in two weeks, aloha!