“Do not dream of influencing other people … Think of things in themselves.” - Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

I can’t remember how old I was when I began to embrace the adage the journey is the destination, but I know it took a while. I was born in 1981 when MTV was revving up and Saturday Night LIve was in its prime. My dad was a musician and my mom was an aspiring actress turned school teacher and Lakeside, California had about as much possibility as my eyes turning from brown to blue. What would I do with my life? I never knew. 

In all this time, I’ve never considered waiting for the answer of what to do next. I was privileged to be born a lifelong learner and steadfast pursuer of purpose. Charmed by those who show a passion for life, I follow stories, unconventional ideas and my intuition. This has led me to live in some of our country’s greatest cities, work with renowned chefs and be published nationwide. All this and the chance to travel the planet tasting the cuisines of many cultures, listening to live blues in neighborhood bars, surfing the waves of four seas, sipping wine in old and new worlds, leaving offerings at ancient temples, climbing rice paddies and icy mountains and the stairs of grimy subway stations. Most of all, traveling to simply write about it. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the easiest, not to know. The transitions can be brutal. But it has been my path towards all of the versions of me: line cook, bartender, chef, consultant, entrepreneur, virtual assistant, tour guide, program manager, writer, marketer, server. From my teens to late thirties cooking disciplined me with its army brigade order and track star pace and gave me the opportunity to put my OCD to good use. More recently, it gave me the foundation to write freely about food, restaurants and the people wrapped up in all of it. 

I thought I’d live in San Francisco forever, but ended up on an island in the Pacific. I thought I had found my partner for life, but our dream did not stand the test of time. I thought I’d grow old in kitchen clogs and snap front polyester shirts, but things change. People change. 

The most important stories I’ve written in my life are still waiting to be told. I’m proud of covering a story about chefs cooking for displaced residents after the Maui fires and a story about the working class neighborhood I live in and how it healed me after a painful divorce. I’m proud I get to champion the hard work of farmers, chefs and mom and pop spots in Hawai’i on Forbes.com. 

In San Francisco my work often landed me in the home kitchens of some of tech’s most powerful people. In Honolulu it humbly puts my feet and hands into the earth, ripping out weeds and planting seeds, knee deep in muddy taro patches or on long hikes through the aw and beauty of Oʻahu’s ʻāina. For a story about Waialua I got to physically trace the tunnels and reservoir system built along the broken Ko‘olau watershed that was used to divert water from Hawaiian homesteads to sugarcane fields. 

Someday my stories of eating awful meals in Paris, finding my inner rhythm in Tokyo and getting separated from my brother in who-knows-where Mexico will make it into printed pages. Meanwhile, there is a lot of writing to do. 

My love for the hospitality industry has always kept me with one foot in the restaurant business. Needing stable income to support my writing habit, I began waiting tables in 2021. As often the oldest person on the floor, my experience lends itself to giving pretty good service. It’s never about how much money I can get out of someone – almost 20 years cooking professionally just for the love of it sets me apart from most servers – so my connections with people tend to be more genuine and I donʻt mind all the little side tasks that go along with the job. Still, the older I get the harder it is for me to sustain eight hours on my feet running back and forth. Other than that itʻs the perfect side gig for me. 

I have never thought of any other profession I’d like to do other than be a photographer or bookstore clerk, but I do know that continuing to travel the world has to be on the agenda. I still have natural wine to drink in Georgia (the country, not the state), noodles to slurp in Vietnam (while sitting on a tiny, plastic stool) and trails to walk in Japan (Craig Mod style). 

When I was a chef people always asked me what my speciality was, now they ask what my favorite restaurant is. For someone who has done this their whole life it’s not about limiting things down to one, but sharing the abundance of dishes, meals and foods I’ve experienced. For a while I was cooking seafood every night. Then I was breaking down whole pigs every week for charcuterie. Then making large batches of Jambalaya and pizza dough. I even did a stint making pastries. At home I make spaghetti with meat sauce at least three times a month, but usually its vegetables from the farmers market and a simple pan-roasted protein. I love the taqueria’s in my hometown of San Diego as much as the izakayas in Tokyo (or Honolulu for that matter). I love six-course meals in fine dining restaurants as much as a slice of pizza standing on a street corner. “The best” is always subject to the moment in time. One of my favorite meals was eating huli-huli chicken, poke and mango bread off the bed of a pick-up truck on Kaua’i’s north shore. When it comes to drinking I’ve tapered way off in my 40s. If I’m going to partake, it’s a funky low-intervention wine I’ve never heard of, a shot of a highly-botanical-ed gin with a large ice cube or a whiskey cocktail by a respectable bartender. 

Other than that I devour books and magazines, scarcely looking to video or even movies. I haven’t owned a TV in over five years. I’d rather stretch out with the Sunday New York Times, anything by Haruki Murakami or any number of classic novels –– I like that there are so many I probably will never be able to finish reading them all in my lifetime. I love the library, love a good book store even more. I will never leave either empty handed. 

Turns out, my ambiguity is what enabled me to reinvent myself again and again to survive the changing times. Not to mention, surviving financially or from sheer boredom. The throughline to all of this has been constant motion. Never pausing to wait for a big break, never putting off the things that light me up and never settling for a so-so situation. Life is long, but it’s too short for that. 

–Sarah

Image by Isle of Photos