 Hello, everyone, and welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer series. My name is Stephanie Mock and I'll be your host today. Our series usually talks to farmers, restaurateurs, chefs, and those who are helping farmers to secure Hawaii's agricultural future and food system here in the islands. Today we have a very special show called Hi-Pie, Local Ingredients for Local Business with a very close friend of mine, Casey Burns, who's the owner of Hi-Pie. Casey and I met at a farm festival a couple months ago where we looked at each other and we were like, we know each other. How do we know each other? And we realized that ag community can be quite small sometimes. And we met through a mutual friend and she had been to our original Parade of Farms event back in 2016 and that's how I remembered her. So it was awesome to connect with her again here in 2018 and talk about what she's been up to with her business Hi-Pie as owner and head baker of that business. Casey is known throughout the ag community, especially on the one word side because she uses local ingredients for her local business. She's most well known for her poi banana bread and her famous pot pies, which can be found excuse me in Kakaako. So today I invited Casey on for Hi-Pie Local Ingredients for Local Business and we'll talk about how she got involved in baking, how she came to Hawaii, and how she uses those local ingredients here in Hawaii to promote local business that supports our ag community, but also local enterprise. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Casey today. Thank you Casey for joining us. Thanks for having me. I know you're a close friend of mine, but I do appreciate the favor of you coming on to our small little show here about food and farmers. So basically we'll jump right into it. Sounds good. I want to hear about where you're from originally, how you came to Hawaii, and why are you a baker? So I'm from Wisconsin. I came, it'll be five years this summer, and it was, I was kind of ready for something new, an opportunity presented itself to move to Hilo. And I took that opportunity and I was there for about a month and then I couch surfed to Oahu and kind of hit the ground running with getting a job right away at the Hawaii Convention Center was actually my first job that I got. And then from there, quite a few other jobs all came together. And I spent my first year kind of just traveling on the bus and working. And I landed a job at the Beatbox Cafe where I kind of started my North Shore life. And from there, I, once I got to the North Shore and kind of like got settled, I knew that I wanted to start my own thing, my history. It has been in culinary for many years. I started out cooking, line cooking when I was young. And then always had a passion for the restaurant world, for cooking. And anyway, so I just kind of moved around with that and stuck with it for a while. While I was in my early 20s, I thought it was probably time to go to school. So I went to school for tourism, travel and recreation. But while I was going to school, I continued cooking. So from there, when I was in North Shore, I wanted to see about starting something that was mine and doing something with food just made the most sense to me. And having a love of pie, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to give it a shot with that. So I started, I was working with Paul who owns Uncle's Ice Cream Sandwiches. I was helping him on his hydroponics lettuce farm and then also helping him make ice cream and cookies for his ice cream sandwiches. And I asked him if he would be willing to share his booth with me at the Waimea Farmers Market. So he said that that would be fine. And so I went and just one day a week would sell pies from his booth. And then somebody referred me for a position at the Island Vintage Coffee Shop while I was on the North Shore as a manager. And so I went to that interview and they asked me what other jobs I had. And I told them that I had this very tiny baking business. And they were like, well, we need baked goods. And I was like, okay. So they gave me a list of things that they wanted me to prepare and to bring back to next week. And one of those items was, she asked if I could make taro bread. And I was like, sure, sure, even though I had no idea what taro was at the time. So I looked up some recipes, found one that I really liked and kind of put my own spin on it and brought those items back that she had asked for. And they loved it. And they were like, how soon can you get into all the stores? And I remember leaving that interview and going into my car just crying. I was so happy. I was like, no way. This is crazy. So it went from really just kind of out of my house and doing catering events and doing functions with friends and so on. And one day we hit the farmer's market to having a pretty significant account. And now it's been a little over three years that we've been with Island Vintage and so much has happened and grown. And that opportunity, that platform has given me the opportunity to make those connections and relationships with the farming community and with poi and with bananas mainly. And then it's just given more of an opportunity for me to get to know how much more I can grow and how other areas I can get involved in, be of use not only myself but the business and community as a whole being in Hawaii and wanting to really put roots down and be a part of what's going on and help better individual lives, my own, my business, everybody around me and kind of what I represent as wanting so much to be a part of what's going on, piece of it and continue to let that grow. Wow. You just told us your whole life story. I'm sure I missed a few things. Maybe a few things. I really like the fact that you were talking about, you helped on the farm, you were helping sell at farmer's market and you were helping with that value added chain of making ice cream sandwiches and also making your own baked goods. I think it's important that a lot of times we focus on ag here, especially myself, I tend to focus on farmers, farmers, farmers, but without those existing markets and those existing outlets and locations at sell, the farming is not really necessary, right? So I like the fact that you're like, oh, I worked on a farm and here's the value added and now here's the market and kind of creating in one of my trying to say collecting that experience and when you start your own business, you're like, this is what I'm looking for. I know how hard it is to grow these things, maybe not taro itself, but understanding that it is a process and you have to create a schedule. So yeah, so I forgot to mention that high pies currently available in 11 locations. Yeah, 11 already is. I mean, maybe you can name all 11, but can you name a couple besides island vintage at high pies, poi banana bread and pot pies can be found in. So yeah, island vintage coffee, although all the locations on Oahu and then kalapua market, Waimanala market, co-op, kakua market, butterfly ice cream sells. He's so creative and such an amazing guy and he made poi banana bread ice cream. Nice. And then he also does the brownie ice cream sandwiches and we do some cookie bars for him. And then the pot pies are at village, bottle shop and tasting room. And we do, yeah, all the pot pies are there. And then we do a monthly rotating special with them. So definitely go check them out. And he has an array of craft beers and wines. And then Hayip here also sells the poi banana bread. So that's kind of our backyard. Our kitchen is in key project is the commercial kitchen that we use. It's a community center. It's where is it located in Kahelu. And it's just a super great community center with a lot going on for Kapuna to Keiki and a lot of different ways to get involved. They're actually one of the oldest, they've been around 50, they're celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. So really awesome for a nonprofit community center. So I'm really stoked to be a part of them, of what they have going on. And yeah, it's been amazing to be in that community because of all the farming, the farming community that exists there, which has been really wonderful to be able to access so closely. And those relationships to be growing and building and of course being in such a small place and having access to all that just kind of makes the island more accessible as well. Because once you're meeting and getting to know more people, it just extends. The opportunities just keep you. So you were talking about you started on the North Shore and now you're mentioning you're on the Windward side. And obviously the great community center that is key project. I was wondering, did you just walk up one day and say, hey, I want to use your commercial kitchen? How did that relationship come about? So I started on the North Shore and from the North Shore went to, well, I met so many little steps to get places. But from the North Shore, I went to Kukua Market, which is on South End University. And it's a great co-op. It's such a little gem in Honolulu. But when I started working there, the reason for me even beginning that position was they offered me the job to be the baker for the store. And at that time, I really didn't think I needed a job because I was kind of busy with high pie. And I had some small jobs that were seemingly enough to get me by. And then they offered me the position. And I said, well, because I don't really need this job, would you be willing to let me run my business from this kitchen? And they were like, sure. And I was like, this is crazy. Who says yes to that? So easily, too. So yeah, I was like, OK, sounds good. And so I started that following week. And it was such an amazing opportunity to be able to. That was how I met Paul and Charlie Rapoon and how that relationship started with just bananas. They would sell me bananas for the Poy Banana Red. So I would bake for the store during the day and then bake for high pie at night and then disperse from that kitchen. So it was awesome. So I learned a lot. And I grew a lot as a baker and my own skill level. And developed some recipes while I was there. And some of the things that are in some of the locations came from that time. Tim and Darren approached me to do the pies for Village because I was at Cuckoo Market for one year. Anyway, so in that time, I developed a lot of the pot pies and got everything ready. So Cuckoo Market was kind of like the sampling space. I could just have free reigns to create whatever I wanted. And I really just blew out the bakery as far as like, I couldn't make enough stuff. I was so excited to have this access to all of this local produce. And everything that was in there was, OK, can you use this? Can you use that? Can you make something with this? So I really, really got into quiche. And I got into just doing sweet and savory baked goods, like, so much stuff. And so that was really fun. And then the relationship with Paul and Charlie grew. The bananas. And then it turned into tarot, or it turned into poi. And then towards the end of that year, I was kind of like, OK, I think I'm ready. And I was getting busier. And Village was about to open. And High Pie was kind of ready to stand on her own. So I mentioned to Paul and Charlie that I was looking for a space. And they were like, oh, let's call our brother John, who used to be the director of Key Project. So I met them at the farm. And I met John. And then I met the kitchen manager at the time. And everything just came together. They got the equipment I needed, the mixer. And they had an oven brought in. It was amazing. It all came together really quickly. And it's been just such a blessing and such an amazing series of events that have like, I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. I think it's really, I feel reassured of that on a regular basis of like, this is where I'm supposed to be. And this is what I'm supposed to be, the work that I'm supposed to be doing. And I'm constantly growing. And I'm constantly learning. And it's just like a labor of love. And it's been so much fun. So yeah, definitely seeing those opportunities, but also taking advantage of them with your existing skills, but also expanding, utilizing that tight knit community to not only find local ingredients, but help build your local business, but also support the community at the same time. And keeping those values at the forefront of your mind for your business, but also your life as well. So we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back after our break, we're going to learn more about how Casey makes poi banana bread and pot pies. We'll share some photos, excuse me, from her kitchen. So we'll see what she does behind the scenes in making that poi banana bread and pot pies. And we'll just talk a little bit more about what her day-to-day life is and what she needs from you, the audience, and all those farmers, especially bananas. So we're going to be talking about bananas, poi banana bread, and baking. We'll be right back. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Code Green, a program on Think Tech Hawaii. We show at 3 o'clock in the afternoon every other Monday. My guests are specialists both from here and the mainland on energy efficiency, which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket. Hey, aloha, standing energy man here on Think Tech Hawaii where community matters. This is the place to come to think about all things energy. We talk about energy for the grid, energy for vehicles, energy in transportation, energy in maritime, energy in aviation. We have all kinds of things on our show, but we always focus on hydrogen here in Hawaii. Because it's my favorite thing. That's what I like to do. But we talk about things that make a difference here in Hawaii, things that should be a big changer for Hawaii. And we hope that you'll join us every Friday at noon on Stand the Energy Man. And take a look with us at new technologies and new thoughts on how we can get clean and green in Hawaii, aloha. Welcome back. We are joined by Casey Burns, owner and head baker of High Pi for our show today titled High Pi, Local Ingredients for Local Business. The first half of our show featured Casey's background, which utilized a lot of opportunities that were provided to her and she capitalized on them from coming to Hawaii, utilizing her culinary experience and kind of just word of mouth and seeing what opportunities were out there for her famous baked goods such as poi banana bread, pot pies and a diversity of other products that she's able to make. The second half of our show we're gonna feature more behind the scenes look, see how she makes them and talk about how did she come up with the recipe and basically what she needs from you, the audience to help her business grow and how we can also support our local farmers in that endeavor. So we're gonna pull up some photos right now and just give you behind the scenes look. All right, Casey, so obviously we see a bunch of bananas. Yes. Can you explain what this is besides the obvious that they're bananas, but also why do you have so many? And that's not, yeah, that's seemingly a lot, but really it's, we go through quite a bit of bananas each week. What's quite a bit? What's quite a bit? Well, so we get about 100 pounds right now from Kualoa Ranch that gets delivered every week. And then from the local backyard farmer, whatever they have, they'll bring to the kitchen and drop off and last month we were kind of, we were short for a lot of the months. There wasn't enough bananas. So there's either a feast or famine these days with like, there's so much or there's not enough. And so I always encourage anybody who has, even a few trees in their yard or has a few hands at a time if they wanna have a little quick cash, they're more than welcome to come to the kitchen and I'd be happy to buy them. But that's a locker. Actually, that was like an office cabinet and I initially was gonna spend some money on like a ripening locker. Right. Or a, yeah, some fancy thing. And Charlie was like, well, I have this cabinet. What do you think about trying that? I was like, yes, sounds good, let's do it. So maybe we could pull up some other photos. Here's Kasey actually at a recent banana workshop that was hosted by my organization, Oahu RCD. And we had a banana workshop at Key Project which she's been talking about, basically connecting local banana experts with gardeners and local farmers who are interested in controlling bunchy top virus of bananas, but also just learning good techniques and stewardship practices for bananas. But here's Kasey specifically with her famous poi banana bread that was provided to our participants at the Oahu RCD workshop. And I must admit, I took this photo. So kudos to me, I guess. Not a bad shot. Yeah, so that's poi banana bread. That's poi banana bread. Our participants absolutely loved it. And you also have a very active Instagram which that photo I took from your Instagram. Just kind of sharing where you are and what kind of products you have. And actually all the photos today were from your Instagram. So let's look at some of the others to see your staff. So we have Nikki, a.k.a. my dough darling and Olivia who, Nikki's been with us a year and Olivia's been with us for six months this month. They're both so fun and have brought just immense amount of entertainment and skill to the kitchen. So when Nikki came, she actually had a hard time even cooking at home. And now I taught her how to make dough and she just crushes it. She does such a good job. And Olivia is amazing. She does great prep. She's great at helping me develop new stuff and loves to do like a healthier style baking. So she really loves the vegan gluten-free stuff. So it's just been a joy to have both of them. And we're growing and looking for new talent, new skill. Yeah. Yeah, so maybe we could pull up a photo of the poi banana bread. I love this photo. So you talked about, this is what it's sold at Island Vintage, right? Yep, at all the locations. But Island Vintage sells it by the slice as well as... So people can get a taste there and then where can they buy loaves? Yeah, they can buy loaves at, so this is Hayyapir in Kaneohe. And then there's Kalapawai Market, Waimanawa Market Co-op, Kukua Market. And then at Butterfly Ice Cream, he also sells it by the slice, so. And so how did you come, I mean, did you come up with the idea for poi banana bread? Did someone mention it to you? How did you decide? Yeah, so it was when I was, Island Vintage was like, could you make a taro bread? And that was when I looked around and found a recipe, tweaked it, made it what I made it, you know, made it my own, and people love it. People really love it. And I was always surprised how, that it didn't already exist. You know, it's such a good idea. I'm surprised. I'm sure there's like home bakers who have done it, but there hasn't been a commercial enterprise of it yet. So I'm glad that you've been able to capitalize on that. And it's something that sticks in people's minds, because I feel like everyone grows up with banana bread. If you're from the mainland, if you're from Hawaii, like everyone knows this, but then then have that really local poi banana bread, it's definitely an identifying marker of Hawaii. And I think too, the fact that we use really good poi, you know, arguably the best poi in Anahu, maybe in all of Hawaii. There you go. You heard it here. The Rappoon, Paul and Lori make the Waihole poi, and then Kakaweevi is the other source that we have. And then on the off times that they don't have enough taro to make the poi that we need, then we do use taro brand poi on the rare occasions. But using those sources that are made with such loving attention and generations of skill and talent. And keeping that enterprise in the community, right? Yeah, absolutely. All that business isn't being exported elsewhere. It's really providing community opportunities, like you said. And that was really a point, and that was really an intention in the beginning of once it started, and once I started to, those relationships started to form. I mean, I grew up in Wisconsin. I grew up working on dairy farms as a child. And what that means, you know, like that having that community, having the family all rooted together, you know, creating, growing, being a part of it is like, there's nothing like that. And so for me, it's such a big part of my own value system and what matters to me. So there are times that you have to spend a little more to get good quality, to give back really ultimately to create something you're proud of, you know? So it's not, it's an investment for a happy, healthy life. There you go. You know, I don't know, I think it really is. I really like how you're talking about this tight-knit community and creating this community essence, but you've done that with your team at Hy-Py. You have your own dough, darling, you mentioned, it's Nicky. You know, you've created a little family there. You have a family kind of community with the ripoons and sourcing local ingredients, but then you're also all those relationships that you've built with all the local outlets you were talking about, those 11 locations. And it's only going to expand. So really utilizing that word of mouth, but also capitalizing on those existing relationships and seeing where they can take your business to the next level. So I thought we could talk a little bit about the pot pies now. So I think we have a photo of the pot pies. So aren't those delicious, everyone? I think everyone needs to go to Village. Yes, you must go to Village, yes. And that's the only place people can get pot pies right now. They can come to Key, but we're kind of working on doing, being able to order offline. So it's something we're working on right now, and hopefully that will be up and running, but the Village creates the ambience they have an amazing selection of craft beer and wine on tap. And so please go there and we do some special, we do specials monthly for them. What's the current special? So we just wrapped up Buffalo Chicken, which is like a riff off Buffalo Chicken wings. Turned out awesome, nice and, I don't even know if I made it to the heat level that everybody wanted it to be, but it did that last batch. I think we got, it was good. Definitely, you felt like you ate a wing. And then this next month is gonna be Shepherd's Pie, which is a crowd favorite. Everybody loves the Shepherd's Pie. I think it's, my opinion is it's because it has mashed potatoes on it. Anyway, to eat cheesy mashed potatoes, you're doing okay. Yeah, and are you trying to source as many ingredients for your pot pies locally as possible? I know you can't get 100%. Yeah, so we, that's something else. I, we don't do a lot of sourcing with farmers for that. And mainly what we use all the time are carrots, celery, potatoes. Those are some main ingredients that we're, that we use every week, that we constantly need, onions. And we currently, like I said, we're not sourcing those, but I would be totally willing and open to sourcing them. Yeah, we just started doing kabocha from Dave, got some of Dave's kabocha. But yeah, I mean, I'm, I'd love to do a lot more of that for the pies as well. So, yeah. Do you have any kind of like crazy ideas for pies that are coming up? I know you said Shepherd's Pie is a local favorite, but what's like your, do you have any ideas brewing right now? Well, so every summer I do a summer tasting, and it's like a way to say thank you to the people that I do business with, the friends that have supported me. And so this year, it's every summer, last year was at the Rupoon Farm, the year before that was on the North Shore, this year probably gonna be a kakoeve. And we're gonna hopefully do a, what we were talking about killing one of the sheep on the farm and doing some really classic, traditional like Australian meat pies. So I'm kind of excited to play with some of those like traditional staples of, you know, where the whole meat pie comes from, playing around with that. But as far as what's to come, we have, we're gonna do a, what do we have? We have the whole year, the rest of the year set. All right. I would stay tuned, you know? Stay tuned. Check out Village and try something over there. Yeah. And people can let you know if they're interested in certain, you know, types of pies or they, you know, they really want a certain type or hey, Casey, experiment with this. Yes, oh yeah, for sure. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I mean, you're a great friend of mine. I wish we could chat all day. Yes. We can't do it on camera though. So I wanna thank Casey Burns from HiPie for joining us in the studio today for our show HiPie Local Ingredients for Local Business. We talked about her experience here in Hawaii starting a business that uses local ingredients from farmers on the windward side and throughout the islands as well. So HiPie can be found in 11 locations. They sell poi banana bread and they're also known for their pot pies at Village in Kakaako. So we're gonna throw up some of their information on the screen right now, their website which is HiPieHawaii.com and they also, she has a great Instagram. I encourage you to follow her and like everything that she posts, she posts a lot of things about upcoming events and that's at HiPie underscore NS. We'll see you next time on Hawaii Food and Farmers. Mahalo.