 Welcome to Healthy Planet, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet on the ThinkTech Livestreamy Network series. I'm your host, Dr. Grace O'Neill. Joining me today is Aliyan Cumick, vegan chef. Welcome, Aliyan. Thank you for being on the show again. So tell us about your new products. I know you have chocolate, you have other projects you're working on. The biggest project I'm working on at the moment is my third book titled Hawaii Washoku. It's going to be released at the end of the year, hopefully around November, so just in time for the holidays. And it's gluten-free and vegan plant-based cookbook about Japanese cuisine. But the title, Hawaii Washoku, is a very unique concept where I'm connecting the principles of washoku, Japanese cuisine, with the spirit of aloha. So it's going to be a very unique read, about 150 recipes. So very much looking forward to its release. Hi, so all the recipes are Japanese recipes? Yes, all Japanese, all Japanese recipes. For people that don't know me, I'm from Australia, from Sydney originally, but I did live in Japan for 30 years. So three decades of my life, and that's where I became a chef. That's where I started my cooking career. So this book has been in the works for a long time. It was just a matter of when and how I do it. So this is a very, very exciting project for me, and I can't wait to share it with everyone. Indeed. So are you able to give us a preview maybe of that? I don't know if you can give us a preview, but maybe just some names of some things that might be in the cookbook, or I don't know if you're done, or what your situation is. Yes, so we've moved into the editing stage now, and that's a few months' work there when we get the layout and design done. But the book itself is, there's 11 chapters in the book, ranging from one of the main chapters I would have to say is the planted sushi and planted sashimi chapters. In the book, I actually do not use the word vegan or plant-based rarely. So I've swapped that word for planted, and that's going to show up on the cover of the book as well. And it's a great way that I think it works for a lot of people. It's not as intimidating as some words that kind of scare people, and maybe this will be more comfortable for them. So very exciting chapters, the planted sushi and sashimi chapters, very interesting. And I've, you know, keeping in mind this is a cookbook, so food that is doable in your own kitchen, in your non-Japanese kitchen. So all of the recipes are easy, simple to follow. There is a photograph for every single recipe, and some side pictures as well with step-to-step guides on how to get through the recipe. So very, very interesting book, and the pictures are beautiful. I also am the photographer of all of my three books, including this one. So that's almost like writing a whole book itself when you do the photography as well. So yeah, I hope everyone enjoys what I've put together. It's going to be a really great book. Oh, I'm sure. It will be enjoyed by many people. I'm wondering, do you show us how to make tofu, or is that something that's in the book? Not tofu from scratch, no. And there are some recipes like Homemade Missile, Homemade, what else is there, Homemade Missile. A lot of the sources, definitely Homemade. But the reason I didn't do a homemade tofu from the soybean is because I want to keep it realistic. And in Japan, basically people don't make their own tofu. Very, very rarely do people make their own missile. But once a year, it is a thing. It can be a once a year sort of thing. So yeah, in order to get as many fit in, as many recipes as I think the book deserves, I haven't gone overboard with stuff like that. And quite frankly, personally, I've never made a homemade tofu that I have felt is worthy of putting in a recipe book. It's a very tricky sort of process. It's harder than cheese then, I guess. It's harder than even cheese. It is. But there's, I'm doing a lot. There's actually a chapter, a whole chapter on tofu dishes and some of the exciting things in that chapter use an ingredient called shio koji or salt koji. This is a very, very popular ingredient amongst foodies. And I have done also a homemade version of that. So the recipe is made from scratch. If you think miso and soy sauce, things like that are game changes in cooking. Wait till you try shio koji. And if you haven't, you can get it from any of the Japanese stores here on the island. It's like it's a marinade or a seasoning, a condiment, I guess. You can use it just like that. That is a game changer when it comes to Japanese food. Adds incredible umami to everything. And shio koji actually also works as a tenderizer. So just simply by marinating anything like vegetables, I have a broccoli and a Brussels sprout up and baked dish that is tenderized in this shio koji marinade. Amazing. So you can show us how to make the shio koji though so we can feel like going out to buy it. Or maybe we'll just go out to buy it to see what it tastes like. So when we make our own, see if we can replicate the taste or make it better. Yes, it's actually exactly like soy sauce or shoyu or miso. One of those things that a lot of people don't make, but it's so simple. I had to actually put the recipe in the book. It's like a five minute process. But if you're actually going to go out and buy the koji, then you might as well just buy the shio koji ready made and try it first to see if you like it. So in the tofu section, I actually make cheeses, aged cheese from tofu that has been marinated in shio koji. I don't have a picture of that for you, but it's incredible. It completely changes the texture of tofu. You would have no idea. It started off as a block of tofu. So there's some really cutting edge, sort of exciting recipes in the book that I think are going to be very interesting for a lot of people who enjoy cooking and who are interested in delving into some more plant-based cuisine. Now I hear that the Japanese, they're obsessed with strawberries. So I don't know if you have any recipes of strawberries, but I hear that the Japanese climate is not really tropical. They have these little greenhouses that keep the strawberries warm because they like to grow in hot weather only, even in the winter. And it takes up a ton of energy. I can't remember where I heard that on the radio. I thought it was really interesting to have a strawberry mochi. I don't know if you have any recipes for the strawberry mochi, but the one in the farmer's market is really good. Yes, and it's also vegan and gluten-free, I believe, the one at the farmer's market. I do have a recipe for the strawberry mochi. I have a recipe for the mochi itself, for the uncor, the bean mixture. And then, yeah, and then it's basically wrapped in a strawberry. In the book, I do have a picture that I would like to share with the viewers, and that is of the fruit sandoor, fruits sandoor, the fruit sandwich. These things are, you know, they're so popular in Japan. Fruit sandwiches are definitely a thing, and they're amazing. But they're always made with Japanese milk bread, which obviously is not, you know, plant-based friendly. So you have to substitute the bread that you like. But fruit sandwiches are very popular. Instead of the cream, I'm using a vegan cream cheese that has just been sweetened a little bit with sugar. So that's another interesting recipe. And you're absolutely right. Japanese go crazy for strawberries and for good reason, because I'll tell you now, in my humble opinion, they have the best strawberries on the planet and beyond, beyond. If you've never tried a Japanese strawberry, buy an airplane ticket, get on the plane and go there just for the strawberries. So what other kinds of desserts do you have in your book? I'm very interested in Japanese desserts. I am keeping it very, very Japanese, the whole book, actually. So I'm not doing much of flavored cookies or this and that. There is one cheesecake recipe, the matcha cheesecake recipe. And the reason I'm doing that is because you might know, but or maybe you don't. But in Japan, cheesecake is very, very, very popular, extremely popular. They have baked versions, raw versions, cotton cheesecake version. So I definitely had to do my version of the cheesecake. It's a cashew base. And then the rest are just all mochi. There's mochi recipes I do as well. And I don't think many people know how easy mochi is to make, because recently I actually got some omiyage from a friend who bought mochi from one of the Japanese confectionery stores here. It's very expensive to buy. I was actually quite surprised, very good, though. But yeah, I hope this book encourages you to just to sort of start making more Japanese food. It's not as difficult as you think. You know, most people look at Japanese food and how beautiful it is. It's, you know, a work of art in in many cases, but very achievable for the regular home cook. There you can you can you can whip up all of these things. So the dessert section, yeah, it's going to be really, really cool. And I think I opening at how easy some of these recipes are to to nail. Yeah, I would love to learn how to make mochi because I'm always buying it at Peace Cafe, you know, those little ones that are wrapped in this saran wrap. OK, it would be. Yeah, I would love to make something like that, because it's not too heavy. I find that some of the American desserts when you buy a cake here, they're really heavy. They're super sweet and what you buy in Asia are not as sweet. So I kind of like that a little bit better. I prefer that. Go ahead. Yeah. No, Grace, I was going to tell you about just another one of the desserts in the in the sweet things chapter is Nama Choco. Have you heard of that? Nama Choco is it translates to like raw chocolate in Japan. It's it's kind of everywhere. But I have a matcha chocolate and then a dark chocolate with Japanese hibiki whiskey in a very decadent. Yeah, very addictive. That's great. I'll definitely be checking that out. I want I want to go through your pictures because you sent me some really lovely pictures. If you could tell us, you know, I know we went through the sandwich, but can you show some of the other ones, Michael? This is this was taken in Kyoto in Japan. So I mentioned earlier, I did live in Japan for 30 years. And this is just a picture that I'm adding, adding some of my experiences and moments that I had in Japan throughout the book. So beautiful Kyoto. If you've never been to Japan, put this on your bucket list. Put Japan in general on your bucket list. It's such a special country. This is the Sendai Sendai, the city that I lived in. Sendai is known for its beautiful trees and nature. It's actually nicknamed the city of trees. And this is the main street. I actually lived off this main street, Jouzenji Dori. Anyway, this is just a monument or a statue that I walked past probably almost every day. And it has a lot of I have a lot of memories when I look at this. So Sendai is the place that I lived in the Tohoku region. That's where the 2013 earthquake and tsunami occurred. But it's it's a beautiful place, beautiful food and highly recommend if you ever visit Japan, visit the Tohoku region. This is my Orbento picture, picture of lunchboxes. In Japan, lunch, there's a there's a meaning behind a lot of lunchboxes. If you look at the bottom picture, sort of in the middle, that's that's like a love, a love bento. Lots of women or mothers or wives make make these bento with characters and heart shaped vegetables or heart shaped nori or some stuff like that. They spend a lot of time making bentos. Bentos are another work of art in Japan. They don't mess around, you know, making these things. They're very almost competitive, I would say, especially if you look at some of the bento that bento boxes that parents are making for their kids. They're incredible. But yeah, lunchboxes, all of them have a meaning. And in every in every thing, everything that Japanese people do, there's a principle called the rule of five or the principles of washoku. There's five of them. And what that's what makes Japanese cuisine so special is they have all these principles like that suggests you have, you should have five colors in every meal, five different textures, five different cooking methods. So if you go back to the picture that Michael just showed now, this is a typical meal and it's called Ichiju samsai. One soup, three dishes. This is this is basically a very common concept in the Japanese cuisine. You have a bowl of rice, three sides and a soup. And then the extra dish would be skimon or pickles, some sort of Japanese pickles. So the dish that I have there for the main dish, the main protein, that's tofu, but it kind of looks like a piece of fried fish. The egg roll is also made from tofu and some nori. So everything, everything Japanese people do, they it's it's a very mindful cuisine. They think about color, texture. They reflect their their very, very heavy on gratitude. So before every single meal, a Japanese person will put their hands together and say itadakimasu. They will do that whether they are alone with a stranger eating in a restaurant alone. They will do this. They'll go itadakimasu before the meal, which just means I'm going to eat. But basically it's showing gratitude for the person that made the food. At the end of the meal, they'll say gochisousamadeshita, the same sort of, you know, showing the same sort of gratitude. So in the book, I do try to, as I mentioned earlier, sort of bring these two spiritual just principles between the spirit of aloha and the principles of the Japanese cuisine called washoku. So it's it's it's interesting. You'll get it once you once you read it, you'll start to think, wow, OK, that's why so many Japanese people come to Hawaii and they just love they love the the spiritual vibe here. So the picture that I am showing that Michael's showing now, this is part of shoujin yori, which is the Buddhist vegetarian cuisine in Japan that was that started with Buddhist monks. This was actually the sort of food they ate because they abstained from eating animals way back in the day. And even to this day, shoujin yori, you can find this in temples and some restaurants in Japan. So that it's very, very, very healthy, mainly vegan, mainly, mainly plant based. And those that the dish that you just saw now was this steamed savoury custard, very popular dish in Japan. It's just Japanese food is so healthy. And there's a story behind all of all of the dishes. So once you start reading more about Japanese food, if you enjoy eating Japanese food, just go online and Google it and find out why it is as it is. It's very, very interesting. And this is my main photo for the book. This is what we call washoku, Japanese cuisine. It's also kaiseki yori, like a kaiseki course, which is basically a high end Japanese cuisine, a high end course. Kaiseki courses can be anywhere from eight to 15 or 16 dishes per course. So that is a typical what you will find if you go to a restaurant or if you stay in a hot spring or something and you order a kaiseki course. That's what it looks like. It's incredible. And all of the dishes in that photo are in the book. We have a few minutes left. So I do want to touch on your new column in Crave, Secret Garden. Can you tell us about that? Yes. So this year I was asked to become a columnist for the Star Advertisers Crave magazine. My column comes out the third Wednesday of every month, and it's called Secret Garden. So basically I introduce or I review plant based options on the islands, in particular on Oahu. So I introduce restaurants. I do recipes every now and again. So you can you can you if you subscribe to the Star Advertiser, you'll you'll get the Crave magazine every Wednesday. Mine's the third Wednesday of every month. You can also go to my web page, LillianVegan.com. And in the blog section, I do I do an extensive sort of follow up from that column. So lots of pictures if you're ever looking for plant based options, that's a good place to start at my web page. So I keep everyone up to date with what's what's going on on the islands. There's there's so many options vegan options on the islands. I'm only touching the surface. So this is really fun to do once a month. Is there anything new that maybe some people haven't been to yet or seen? I I don't believe so, but I could I could be wrong. And I I don't want to say no to that answer because I'm not sure. There are pop ups sort of happening all over the island. So it's yeah, it's hard to stay on track with what what exactly is going on. But what I can tell you is there there are more more plant based options than one thinks. And what I'm trying to do is unravel the plant based options that are not necessarily only in vegan restaurants. Plant based options that exist in in restaurants in general, because that's an you know, that's an important important place to start because plant based food, as we know, is not only meant for plant based people, people who are on a plant based diet. Anyone can enjoy healthy plant based food. So I hope that people do start, you know, to to challenge or start to experience some of the options that are in restaurants. Give it a try, you know, next time you're at a restaurant, skip the ditch the burger and go for a plant based one just to see what it what it tastes like. So, you know, you do that once a week and slowly you can reduce the amount of meat that you are consuming. And it will be good for the planet and your health in general and your mind, body and soul. Absolutely. So tell us about some of the maybe some of the places that are more known for their meat, the establishments that are more known for their meat, but they do have surprisingly some plant based options that are really good. Is there any on the island that you would think of? Yes, so actually in downtown there are two restaurants I highly recommend. One is Rangoon, Burmese restaurant. They have a lot of plant based options and the food is just amazing. So Rangoon, also in the Chinatown area, there's Olay's Thai Laos cuisine. Amazing Thai Laotian, pardon me. They also can pretty much veganize anything on the menu. And they are also they're very, very the staff are very knowledgeable about what's on the menu. So if you have allergies or gluten free or you're allergic to peanuts, they can they can adopt any any dish to your dietary needs or preferences. And that's a lot. I mean, one of my favorite restaurants is in Waikiki and that would be Island Vintage Wine Bar. The chef is a Korean. Yes, the Korean chef there. I actually gave them I awarded them the Lima Award for 2022 for the best plant based options in Hawaii. Yeah, so that's that's an awesome place. It's just amazing food. And again, these places are not and not vegan restaurants, but they're they're trying very, very hard to accommodate, which is, you know, something I'm very grateful for that. They're they're keeping keeping their options on the menu so that everyone can go there and and dine there and enjoy it. So I'm curious that Island Vintage Wine Bar, what vegan options do they have that you found so fabulous? They are actually they're priced very, very reasonable for what you get. So because of the chef's Korean background, she does a lot of sort of Asian slash Hawaiian dishes. For example, there might be like a Korean dish there that I love that has a little bit of kimchi, some, you know, orkinah purple sweet potato, baked sweet potato. Then it might have some sea asparagus. It's just very, very unique dishes that and the portions are all family sized, but they're they're between, you know, fifteen and twenty five dollars. You order one dish, you'll never finish it, although I can because I I I'm a good eater, especially when it's good. That's that's one of the myths, isn't it, Grace? That, you know, vegans don't eat much. It's completely false. We eat a lot of good food. I would say we eat more. Yeah. And in yes. And in general, we eat a lot of different types of food, probably more than the average person, because we do, you know, nuts, legumes, we go all around, yeah, all around the land in search of what we can eat. So Island Vintage Wine Bar. It is my number one restaurant here on the island, I would say. Highly recommend. I'll have to check it out. I mean, because I'm always looking for places with my parents, you know, and my parents are super picky. And then, of course, I often don't have anywhere to go with them because they like to eat meat. So I'm always looking for something that will accommodate me, but is not completely plant-based. So, yeah, there's yeah, there's many places like that. You just you just have to look and honestly, just go into any restaurant that you normally go to, whether you're vegan or not, and just ask them, ask the staff what they can do in terms of plant-based. You'll be surprised. People, I think, are more open to the idea of accommodating, you know, customers, different, you know, dietary preferences. So I do it just because I want to make it clear that that there are customers like myself who who want to eat at their establishment. But, you know, if there are if there are reasonable options, I don't want to go to a restaurant and eat a Wimpy lettuce salad. Yeah, no, and paid $15 for it. It's just not on. So if you're going to, you know, thinking outside of the box, that's why I commend I commend the chefs and, you know, the people behind the restaurants that are that are adding a lot of plant-based options onto their menus. I think it's it's wonderful and it's something that we really need, especially here in Hawaii, because, Grace, you would know more about it than me, but there's, you know, a lot of obesity, high diabetes rates here. So clearly we could all clean up our diets. And I think the one thing that concerns me is that all of that all of that sort of worrying goes out the door when you go into a restaurant, you walk into a restaurant and suddenly sugar, salt, oil, all those bad things are are OK. But it doesn't have to be like that. Dining out doesn't have to mean, you know, that it has to be, you know, on the junk food side, it can't be healthy, healthy dining out is a thing. And I think Hawaii is a good place where, you know, this could be promoted even more. Absolutely. So we're at a time, believe it or not, but we have to wrap it up. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. This is Healthy Planet on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series, we've been talking with Lillian Cumick about her new cookbook and her other projects. Thanks to Michael, our broadcast engineer and the rest of the crew at Think Tech for hosting our show. And thanks to your listeners for listening. I'll see you in two weeks for more of Healthy Planet on Think Tech, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet. My next guest will be from the Hawaii Wildlife Center. If you have ideas for the show or questions for my future guests, please contact me at Healthy Planet Think Tech at gmail.com. Check out my website at graceandhawaii.com or Instagram at Graceville Living 365 for more information on my projects, including future show guests. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. Aloha, everyone. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech.