 Welcome to the Hawaii Food and Farmer Series. We are here every other Thursday. I am your co-host, Justine Espritu. My co-host is Matthew Johnson. We are the Hawaii Food and Farmer Series and every other week we bring farmers and other individuals and organizations that have a role and are participating in our food system, whether they are growing food, distributing food or making different connections to bring that food to the consumers of our community. So who do we have on today, Matt? Awesome. Thanks, Justine. So yeah, as Justine said, we are trying to get Movers and Chakers in Hawaii's local food community and today we have a big-time Mover and Chaker all the way from Maui. So that's why you might notice that no one is here on screen with us, but we have on the phone Danya Novak Katz with Edible Hawaiian Islands Magazine. Danya, thank you so much for being with us today. Yeah, aloha. It's great to be here. Yeah. So today is kind of a two-prong approach. I guess we got a lot to talk about. So first, Danya, we're going to be talking about your background and Edible Hawaiian Islands Magazine and the Edible Community Magazines and then also talking about Farm Day, which is going to be coming up on May 20th. So why don't we go ahead and get started with just hearing a little bit about your background and how you became to be such the foodie that you are. I think I became a foodie because I'm always hungry and I'm always in search of the next great meal, whether it be at a fine dining establishment or pulling a carrot out of the ground on a farm. We're just always hungry. We're always curious about food and drink. So the magazine started about 11 years ago and it started with a publisher on Kauai. I've worked for the magazine for 10 years. Edible Hawaiian Islands is a licensing agreement with Edible Communities. Edible Communities is the largest publisher of local food and local drink in the world. We've published a little over 7 million magazines annually. And there are over 100 other Edible titles across North America. There's Edible Boston, Edible Manhattan, Edible Seattle, and so forth. And I own Edible Hawaiian Islands, which is the entire state. So that's why I'm on Maui today. In two days, I was just on Oahu this weekend and then I'm going to the big island. We travel around eating and looking for stories and talking to people that are growing and ranching, fishing, cooking our food. Okay. So Daniel, what were you doing before? So you said you got started over on Kauai. What were you doing before other than have you always been in publishing? Is that kind of your background or what were you doing before that? Yeah, I was actually a pub. Well, before Edible Hawaiian Islands, I've had the magazine for starting 11 years now. But before that, I stayed home for about 10 years raising two incredible kids. My son is Noa, she's 20, and I have a daughter that's 16. And then before that, I owned a couple fine art galleries here on Maui. And actually we had galleries on Oahu and the big island. And I published art. So I find that by publishing the magazine, it really, it satisfies a lot of different things. It's food, drink, farming, gardening, cooking, but it's creative as well. So I was in the publishing business for quite a while for about 20 years before I've done the magazine. And then, you know, being a mom also helps too. And happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there and all the dads too. But yeah, I've always been in the publishing side of the business, very creative, but also has a business side to it component as well. Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about the magazine itself. So this is a worldwide publication, at least with the Edible communities and then Hawaiian Islands is obviously focused here in Hawaii. Talk a little bit about the magazine. Who is the readership? Where can people find it? What's the content like? We have a picture of, I believe it's the latest publication that just came out. But yeah, talk a little bit about that. Yeah. Okay. Well, Edible Hawaiian Islands, I think that if people know the magazine, they absolutely love it. We are a quarterly season by season. We're distributed mainly with our advertisers and then a few other key locations. But Edible Hawaiian Islands is the only James Beard awarded food and drink magazine in the state. And we hold that distinction. I don't believe that there is another publication that's strictly just food and drink. I think right now I'm the only one. Hopefully, somebody's listening out there and takes that as a challenge. But we publish season by season. And what we do is we share stories, really incredible editorial content, along with mouthwatering photography. And we share stories about people that are cooking, not necessarily chefs, although we do feature some chefs in the magazine. But we just share stories about things that are kind of cutting edge, things that are unique and different. Like on the cover of our spring issue right now, I can't tell you when we released that issue, I had so many phone calls, emails, tweets, Instagram questions. We found a cashew farm on Kauai. And I actually went there to look at Vanilla. And I was looking out and I saw all these other trees and I couldn't figure out what looked like a mountain apple, but it wasn't a mountain apple. And sure enough, it was the state's largest cashew farm. So you can read that story online on our website right now. But the magazine, I think, is unique. And it has some great stories. It has great photography. And I think that it's it's special because we really focus just on food and drink in Hawaii. We also have the support of edible communities, which is a wonderful support system of publishers all over the U.S. And we share magazines with each other. So I can see trends that are happening in from Boston, New York, the Midwest, Texas, California, all, you know, headed over this way. And along with our James Beard connections, we can really keep an eye on the prize and we can really see what's happening. So the magazine just shares all that information. So I'm kind of curious of your transition from publishing in the arts to publishing on this food community. What kind of struck your interest in kind of really diving deep into this this topic? And how did that help you kind of learn about the community? I know for me and Matt, when we were like, we want to interview farmers, and then kind of exploring that, we started to get such a diversity of guests and stories. And I feel like it's probably a similar evolution for a magazine like yours. So I'm kind of curious to hear that story. Yeah, Justin. That's correct. I, you know, I've always had, I've always had an aesthetic. I always like beautiful things. I like my house and my office to look a certain way. I like, I like to, you know, I love art. I love going to museums. I love looking at a plate of beautiful food or a field of something growing. There's just a real sense of satisfaction. And so I think that that was with me all the time. And I think I got, I got into the art business because it was really profitable, you know, back in the 70s and the 80s. And then staying home, raising a family, I think it was the same thing. I would make beautiful food. I would take my kids to see art and music. And I would introduce them to the nature. So I think that there was always that aesthetic there. I don't think it was a big transition. One thing I will say is that the very first time I saw an edible publication and it happened to be, I was on vacation in Portland and I saw edible Portland and I picked up the magazine. It was a moment that I'll never forget because the magazine is printed on uncoated stock and we print with natural organic ink. So we take that recycling to another level. Yeah. And I think that there's a certain way that the magazine is laid out and it's a, it's a business plan. I think that is very smart. We always have more editorial and photography content than advertising. And so when you look at the magazine, you read stories, it's just not a sea of advertising. It's, it's about beautiful photography, really well written stories, meaningful stories that teach and educate and inspire. Plus, we always have at least a dozen recipes in each issue. And I was just on Oahu this weekend and ran into a reader and she said, Hey, I had a problem making one of the recipes. And I stood there, got on my phone, we got connected with a chef. We all started talking and we found out what happened and what went wrong. And it was so satisfying to see and hear somebody made something, had some issues, but we solved it. It was a great publisher's moment. So again, you saw your first issue of Edibles you saw in Portland and then did you take the initiative to start it here in Hawaii? Yeah, somebody had just bought it like a month before. And it was during the recession that, you know, a really difficult time in the economy. So I just reached out and I decided to learn as much as I could from her. She was fabulous. Her name was Gloria Cohen. And she published the magazine for seven years and I worked for her the entire time learning as much as I could, selling advertising, honing my social media skills, building my clientele. And then about three and a half years, almost four years ago, she decided to sell the magazine and offered it to me and I jumped at the chance. So I've been owner publisher now for, we're starting our fourth year. Oh, awesome. Congratulations. Were there any personal kind of initiatives you spearheaded when you kind of took over as the publisher owner? That's kind of, you can kind of claim as your owner? We did a few things and I think that the first, the first thing was that I grew the magazine. We added pages, we added distribution, and we fine tuned our social media skills. And the reason is, is that, you know, I print 20,000 copies and that's statewide. And, you know, they don't last long. So, you know, if you see them at one of our advertisers, like at a town restaurant or Mahinan Sands or Cocoa Head Cafe, you know, it's, it's limited. And once the magazine's gone, you can't get it there. You can subscribe. So we really, I really wanted to work on our subscription base because that can really carry the whole cost of the magazine through subscribers. And that's what we've done too. We've increased our advertisers. And then when the magazine is, you know, you can't find it anywhere, you can always jump on to our website or engage with us on social media. And we have statewide food events, we talk about recipes, we engage with other chefs and farmers. So we try to make the magazine, I mean, I love print and I think print is forever, but there's also that social media side that really adds another dimension to what we're doing. Because, you know, some people love to print and love to read, other people like the digital copy or their, or they're just visiting and they're on Twitter and they find us and they ask us for recommendations. So it's really a, it's just a really well-rounded family, the edible family. Cool. Daniel, let's transition and talk a little bit about Farm Day, which is, this is going to be the fourth annual Farm Day coming up on Saturday, yeah? Yeah, it's Saturday, May 20th. And Farm Day is always on the third Saturday of each May. And what we did, we, one of the most popular pages in the magazine was our Farmers' Market Guide, not only in the magazine, but also on our website. And what we decided to do was turn that attention into an event. And then I thought to myself, it's really hard for me to be in four islands at once or seven islands at once. So we decided to use social media as a vehicle to connect people and farms, farm tours, and not only here in Hawaii, but it's all across the nation, actually in the world. Last year we had about three and a half million impressions on social media. And we had about engaged users here in Hawaii. Plus we had some really loyal readers that were on vacation in Japan and Israel and Brazil and Paris. They were all going to Farmers' Markets in those countries and taking pictures and sharing what was fresh and local in their area and using the hashtag EHIFarmDay16. And it was really incredible to see all this food being grown all over the world. So it's a day where we just ask people to turn off the TV, grab their family, go out, shop at a farmer's market, take a farm tour, or visit a farm and thank a farmer. And it's really grown into this really wonderful, wonderful event. That's awesome. It's great because I know a lot of people there's more and more interest in supporting local, buying local, and you guys are really providing a detailed list on here's how you can do it and then having a specific day to really encourage people to go out and do it. Who else are you partnering with for this event? Well, in the magazine, in the spring issue, and anybody can get a copy of the spring issue, they can email or tweet or call us. But what we want to do is it's expensive to print, it's expensive to ship. We all know that in Hawaii. We have three really incredible sponsors and helpers with this event. Number one is the Kohala Village Hub in Havi. And if you've never been there, it's the old Jack's Inn. And it's a really, really wonderful place. You can spend the night, you can take a hula class, you can read books in their library, you can pound paeae, you can eat in their restaurant. There's an incredible farmers market right across the street on Saturday, the Havi farmers market. And they're on the big island. And then on Oahu, we partnered with Farm Lovers Markets. And you know, it's the one at Pearl Ridge and Award Center. They have four markets and Pamela and Annie do a phenomenal job with their strict rules. It has to be local. It has to be fresh. You can't come in and sell something that you bought at a big box store. And I appreciate everything that they've done to grow their business. I think they have five markets now. And then on Maui, we have Ocean Vodka. And Ocean Vodka is the only organic vodka in the state. And they have a beautiful farm. And not only do they grow sugarcane, but they grow taro and sweet potato. And they do tours like every 20 minutes, they have a tour and a tasting. And they do an incredible job. It's centrally located. This year, we didn't have a partner, a sponsor on Kauai. But just in the last couple of days, I spoke to Marta Lane, who owns Tasting Kauai, which are incredible local farm tours. She's a farmer's market tour. She'll take you to a farm. You could pick fruits and vegetables, go to a restaurant that she designates in that area, and then they make lunch. And then they talk about education and growing food. So we're going to do a little something with her just on Farm Day. But it's a great day for everybody to come together. You can even not be on social media. Just get out there, go to a farmer's market, buy something fresh and local, cook with your kids, cook with your friends, and eat together. Awesome. So is this the big event you guys do every year? Or do you guys have another series or different things you do out in the community? Or this is kind of the big one every year? This is the big one that we do every year. And we've also partnered, I've partnered with Amanda Corby and Gooch from Peely Group. They're incredible, incredible. And she's been helping me get the word out. We've been working together with the media to try to share the information about Farm Day. And I have phone interviews, radio interviews, every day on each island. I guess that makes us part of the media because that's how we got connected. I love radio. I love radio because it's sustainable. And a lot of people are driving and it's just a great vehicle to get the message out. So we only have a couple minutes left. Is there anything, what's your long-term vision with the publication? It sounds like we've got a lot going on. It's successful. A lot of people are reading it and interested in it. What's kind of next or new coming up for the magazine? Any new initiatives? Oh, great question. Okay. So you're going to hear it first. Exclusive. On Think Tech Hawaii. Several years ago, I started a pop-up restaurant called Kupu Maui. And it was because the magazine was quarterly. And I wanted something to do on those months where, you know, we upload to the printer and we kind of take a few weeks off. I started doing pop-up dinners. And we were doing dinner for 50 people on a different farm. And then after about three years, I decided to sell the business and focus on a few other things in my life. And now I'm coming back. And I've just started a company. Actually, my website is not ready today. Hopefully by farm day it'll be up. But the new business is called Lave Lave Hawaii. It's L-A-W-E, L-A-W-E. And we're going to be doing social events related to each issue when we announce and we release each issue. So it's season by season. We're going to try to do something on each island. And so, you know, maybe the poo poo cocktail. We're going to make food that the recipes that are going to be in that issue and drinks that are going to be in that issue will probably do it as an advertiser to support them. And then after towards the end of the year, we're going to start doing dinners that are going to be a little bit different. But I think that the marijuana laws are going to relax here. In December, I went to a marijuana dinner in Los Angeles, and it was a really incredible experience. I personally don't drink or do drugs or smoke pot, but the food was delicious at this table with 20 other people that were engaging in THC and things like that in their food. It was just an incredible experience. And I'd love to bring that to Hawaii, of course, when it becomes legal. We should definitely host that event at the Food Hub Warehouse over here on Oahu. So we have a space for that. Yeah, so we have the Oahu Food Hub and Amanda and Gooch work out of there as well. So it's like a shared use food community processing space. So next time you're on Oahu, come visit us, and we'd love to host one of your pop-up dinners there. Wonderful. Well, I'll be there next weekend. So we'll connect when we get offline. And thank you, Matt. That's great. I've heard about it, but I've never been there. Yeah, it's kind of been under construction for the past year. And yeah, it does a lot of interesting things happening. Okay. Is it open to the public? I mean, it is. Right now, it's kind of like cold storage and a shared use kitchen and warehouse space. So it's not exactly set up for public activities, but we've done like a yoga night there. Cocoa foundation, different groups that kind of need space. We've let in and used the kitchen. So Cocoa Foundation has done a class there. So good space. Nice. Well, you know, it doesn't have to be fancy with Edible and our readers. We just need to be together, and we need to have good food around us, and everything else just kind of works out. So that sounds great. Yeah. So remember, the magazine comes out each season. So our summer issue, which I'm working on right now, will be out on June 20th. And it'll be in subscribers mailboxes. It'll be in your email inbox. And it's a beautiful, beautiful issue. I'm really proud of it. Right on. Congratulations. Well, that's exciting to hear about your new venture. Excited to hear more about that. And just so before we sign off here, what's the hashtag again for Farm Day? E-H-I Farm Day 17. Okay. So for anyone who's participating in Farm Day, hopefully everybody is, make sure you use that hashtag with all of your social media. You're not really, well, guess you do Instagram. So everyone make sure you use that hashtag and get out and visit your farms and go to restaurants and farmers markets. Daniel, thank you so much. It was great having you. Yeah. Real quickly, they can go to the website and download the Farm Guide as well. And if they, you know, they don't want to search for a magazine or buy it, they can always find it online. Yeah. I did that today. I did that today with all the farmers markets and stuff. That was great. Cool. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks, Daniel. All right. I'm hungry. So I'm going to get going. Yeah, yeah. Time to start getting ready for dinner. All right. Okay. Thank you. Aloha.