YEAR OF INGREDIENTS

In 2018 I chronicled a different local Hawaiʻi ingredient every day on Instagram. Each profile includes a few facts, cooking suggestions and sourcing details.

Find the completed project on Instagram @yearofingredients

Year of Ingredients

2018

On January 1, 2018 I took on a personal project called “The Year of Ingredients.” The goal was simple: Find 365 ingredients grown and/or made in Hawaiʻi.

I chose Instagram as my platform. My job was to post an image of a different ingredient every day with a caption of what it was and how to cook with it.

I had just moved to Honolulu from San Francisco the year before. 2017 was a year full of new discoveries, but I had only begun to scratch the surface.

A Year of Ingredients was inspired by the talented Bay Area artist, Windy Chien, who introduced The Year of Knots in 2016.

Windy surprised me in 2017, the day before New Year’s Eve, by showing up in Honolulu and gifting me one of her famous knots. And not just any knot, the star knot. A knot she admittedly had such a hard time learning she had to resort to watching a YouTube tutorial before throwing in the towel. At the time, I marveled at its beauty but hadn’t yet realized its significance.

After hearing about Windy’s journey of committing to her art every day without fail for an entire year I sprung out of bed the next morning knowing in my gut what I needed to do.

I needed to commit to my passion for local food on another level, in order to become the expert I wanted to be.

The ingredients could come from anywhere in Hawaiʻi. They did not have to be organic, they just needed to be locally grown or produced with local ingredients.

I gained a lot from this project. I formed relationships with Hawaiʻi farmers, learned about ingredients I had never seen or heard of before, discovered local markets – such as The Locavore Store in Hilo – and toured farms that often aren’t open to the public. It also helped me establish a daily writing routine. Sometimes on tough mornings, when my internal forecast was looking cloudy and grey, writing my daily Year of Ingredients post motivated me to start my day.

By completing this project I found that there are way more than 365 ingredients growing in Hawaiʻi. We can grow practically anything here with the right location and a strong enough desire. More small farms are stepping up to this challenge every day. Crops such as peppers, once notoriously difficult to grow, are popping up at farmers markets and in locally made hot sauces for example.

I enjoyed hanging out with the farmers who were working the Go Farm program in Waimānalo, sampling ingredients ripped right out of the ground in front of me. Bryan and Natalie from Dela Mesa Farm, Priscilla from Vida Farm, and Jacey and Miles from Roots and Remedies Farm showed me how rewarding it is to be stewards of the ʻaina and grow your own food.

I learned about new crop varieties being developed to thrive in Hawaiʻi’s growing conditions at The Variety Showcase, I toured MAʻO Farms, spent hours photographing flowers and kale at Counter Culture Farm, learned about canoe crops at the Mānoa Heritage Center, attended farm-to-table dinners at Mohala Farms, sourced ingredients from all corners of the island from my laptop thanks to Farm Link Hawaiʻi, and got to taste freshly harvested honeycomb from Tolentino Honey Company. I also learned about the struggles of processing meat and raising chickens in Hawaiʻi and the need for harvesting wild axis deer, boar and taʻape to help manage invasive species.

Hawaiʻi’s farmers, ranchers, fisherman, and small business owners generously and humbly shared their bounty and knowledge with me. Their dedication to nurturing the land and waters of Hawaiʻi goes beyond simply talking about sustainable practices, it is their life’s work. Getting to know them and their stories was the most rewarding part of the experience.

After a year of hunting for ingredients I now have a good understanding of what is available locally and where to source what. Most of all, I have an insurmountable feeling of gratitude for the people who produce them.

The Year of Ingredients inspired me to keep searching, shopping and eating local.

I hope it did for you too.