Ha Ha Ha!

The Women of Hamakua Springs, & Tilapia

Richard Ha writes:

Last week we gave our workers fish from our first tilapia harvest. 

Farm Manager and Son-In-Law Kimo, Grandma (my mom), my daughter Tracy, and my wife June

We are convinced that oil prices will keep rising, and that it will cost more and more to bring fish to Hawai‘i from all over the world. 

Grandma, in the middle of the action 

We are trying to fit tilapia production into a zero waste program. Since tilapia is a vegetarian fish, we will be experimenting with how to utilize our waste bananas as well as vegetables. We want to be prepared for when it might be profitable to produce tilapia commercially. 

June has a full net

For those who have not tried locally grown tilapia, I can tell you that I was so surprised myself to find out how good this fish is. Chef Alan Wong serves it in his restaurant. That is how good it is.

And it's heavy!

One of my favorite ways to prepare it is to get a smaller sized fish, deep fry it very crispy and eat the whole thing.

Grandma giving some fish to Aurellio

Farming is a tough business. We'd like to raise our workers' pay but are finding it very difficult to do so right now. June is the one who made sure we are growing fish for our employees. We are committed to doing this from now on.

The women of Hamakua Springs

Honolulu Magazine Article Singles Out Hamakua Springs Tomato

For your reading pleasure, an article about Alan Wong's Restaurant in Honolulu that opens with "one perfect red tomato from Richard Ha’s Hamakua Springs Farm on the Big Island."

Read the Honolulu magazine article here.

Learn more about Alan Wong's Restaurant here. (Hey, Richard's picture with Chef Alan is on the home page now! That's new since last I looked.)

Review how Richard got named "Uncle Tomato." (Call him that at your own risk if you are more than 2 years old. Well, 5-1/2 now; that's an old post.)

- posted by Leslie Lang

Chefs A' Field

Richard Ha writes:

The national PBS episode "Chefs A' Field," which Chef Alan Wong did with Keaukaha School, will air on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 5 p.m. It will also run on Saturday, November 21 at 6:30 p.m. and on Monday, November 30 at 9:30 p.m.

Chef Alan is just great with the 6th graders. I didn't realize how animated the students were until I watched the trailer. I can’t wait to see the whole thing myself.

PBS Program

If you click here, and then on "Episodes," and then "Episode 9," you'll find the Chefs Afield segment called "Sustainable Hawaii."

It's the program we wrote about awhile back. The one where they didn't try very hard with their Hawaiian pronunciations, and PBS Hawai‘i refused to air it unless they fixed the audio.

They did.

Have a look at the trailer. It features Honolulu Chef Alan Wong, and Richard and the farm are on it too.

- posted by Leslie Lang

Alan Wong at the White House

Our friend Chef Alan Wong is cooking for President Obama on Thursday night. It's a White House lu‘au on the South Lawn for the President, his family and congressional delegates from all 50 states with their families.

Read more about it here.

Last year when Chef Alan made his annual visit to Hamakua Springs Country Farms, he and his chefs and restaurant staff cooked a huge feast for all the Hamakua farmers who grow and produce what he uses in his restaurants, as they do every year. And last year for the first time, there was an imu.

Chef Alan did some interesting things with that imu! For instance, I remember him wrapping long Wailea Ag Group hearts of palm in foil, with taro, and cooking it in the underground oven. All the food was just delicious.

This year, fish farmer Roy Tanaka told Chef Alan how good tilapia can be, and Chef Alan prepared it at our most recent cookout. Now he's fixing it at the White House. 

What other interesting and delicious foods will he prepare for the Obamas on Friday? Will their imu look much different than ours? Where are they going to get the right kind of rocks? Will there be a guy in jeans and a white t-shirt keeping flies away with a branch? I cannot wait to hear.

- Posted by Leslie Lang

Kailiawa Coffee in Ka‘u Places 7th in International Coffee Competition

After Chef Alan Wong and his crew did the cookout at Hamakua Springs last month, they went down to Ka‘u to meet some of the farmers there.  Alan tasted the coffee that Thomas “Bull” and Jamie Kailiawa grow and harvest, and he immediately said, “Hey, send me some.” He ordered ten pounds on the spot. We all know that Chef Alan has a special talent in terms of tasting.

Last week his taste buds were validated –  Bull and Jamie Kailiawa’s Ka‘u coffee placed in the Top Ten in an international cupping competition held by the Specialty Coffee Association of America in Atlanta.

Their coffee was the only coffee from Hawai‘i to place, and it was up against the finest coffees of the world – coffees from Colombia, Panama, Ethiopia and other renowned growing regions. Their Kailiawa Coffee ranked seventh best in the world.

Imagine – a coffee growing in the hills of Pahala ranking as one of the world’s finest coffees.

Bull was born and raised at Mill Camp in Pahala, graduated from Ka‘u High School in 1981 and worked at the sugar plantation as a harvester and later a crane operator.

Jamie and Bull Kailiawa, with nephew Lyndon "Baba" Kailiawa-George in center

When the sugar plantation was poised to shut down, Bull moved to Hilo where he worked as a crane operator, operated his own landscaping business, and worked his way up the ropes to head security at Hilo Pier where cruise ships come in. He and his wife also ran a catering business, and he worked nights at restaurants, doing cooking, cleaning and security – but all he wanted was to go back home to Pahala.

When his aunties needed help with their coffee farm at Moa‘ula, they went, and ultimately the aunties turned the farm over to him. It’s a beautiful farm, with views of the ocean and steep hillsides, and an imu and waterfalls and rushing water.

“One thing good with my field,” he says, “is that my trees always get something to drink. Before noon there is mist and in the afternoons, it rains most every day.” Where they are, he says, the season is long, and while most farmers are pruning their coffee trees, his coffee is flowering again.

He says he learned about growing coffee by asking questions of other coffee farmers and putting it all together. This season, they netted almost 5000 pounds of parchment.

Bull acknowledges his nephew, Lyndon “Baba” Kailiawa-George, a ninth-grader who Bull says “has been my partner in work from the very beginning.”

The Kailiawas also do ranch work, raise chickens, and trade coffee for beef and pretty much any other food they need.

“It’s terrific that the highest ranking coffee in the state, the coffee recognized as having the highest quality, is grown by this Hawaiian guy,” says Richard. “And he’s just a regular guy. A former sugar cane worker who hunts and fishes and that kind of thing. Not a gentleman farmer.”

Congratulations to Bull, Jamie and Baba!

- posted by Leslie Lang

Part 2: And Then They Cooked For Us

(Part 1 is here: We Took Alan Wong To See The Tilapia)

Richard Ha writes:

And then, everyone just pitched in to prepare the food. Chef Alan took charge of the seafood bouillabaisse, while others inside the green shack started preparing salads and other dishes. People just seemed to do whatever needed to be done.

Every once in a while someone would come up to Chef Alan with a spoonful of something for him to taste, and he would taste it and tell them to add this or add that.

Outside, Conrad jumped in and started to scale the fish. Tilapia is a very spiky fish, but Conrad did not even consider using the neoprene glove I had available. People just jumped in and backed him up. 

Conrad Nonaka - Director, Culinary of the Pacific

Kevin Hopkins donated a five-pound sturgeon, and Chef Marc from the Pineapple Room did the honors.

Marc Urquidi

Then it was time to fire up the grills – one for steaks and another for fish. Conrad put two fish on the grill and told us something about leaving it for four minutes, and then he left to go help inside. When he came back out, instead of using a spatula he rocked the fish back and forth with his bare hands and flipped it that way.

I was amazed.

Inside, they used what they had and improvised. It was amazing to see.

Then Chef Alan asked me to come and taste the spicy bouillabaisse. He said he was thickening it with the tilapia meat, while the sturgeon would hold its form and stay firm.

He told me to try the red ketchup made from my grape tomatoes. “Make a fist,” he said. “Try this.” And he put a spoonful of the ketchup on the back of my fist to taste.

Next, I tried the orange tomato ketchup and then the goat cheese ketchup. He said, “Try the namasu made from your Japanese cucumber.”

He said, “You can make all that.”

I thought, “We really do need to build a certified kitchen so we can do value added production.”

Dinner was served with matching wines. Some of the people attending were Bob and Janice Stanga; Michelle Galimba and Chris Manfredi from Ka‘u; Chef and Mrs. Allan  Okuda; Kevin and Dayday Hopkins; my sister Lei and her husband Dennis Vierra; my Mom Florence; June; my daughter Tracy, her husband Kimo, their daughter Kimberly and their son Kapono and his friend Matt; as well as Chef Alan’s staff and friends.

left to right: Tracy Pa, Chris Manfredi, Janice Stanga, Ellis Hester, Laurene Oda, Chef Alan Wong, Kathy Kawashige, Leigh Ito

Left to right: Dennis Vierra, Leilani Vierra, Grandma Ha, Kimberly Pa

Ua and Michelle Galimba; Roy Tanaka; Kathy Kawashige

We sat there and ate and ate. We all had a great time chatting and talking story. Chef Alan Wong believes in sticking together through thick and thin. This was the fourth time he has done a cookout on our farm, and this time was very special. It was a great way to end a wonderful day of camaraderie.

Thank You, Chef Alan and crew!

We Took Alan Wong To See The Tilapia

Richard Ha writes:

Chef Alan Wong came to our farm and cooked an unbelievable meal for his Big Island farmer friends this past Friday.

He does this every year, bringing along staff from his Alan Wong’s Restaurant as well as the Pineapple Room, and it serves several purposes. Touring farms and breaking bread with the farmers gives his staff a totally new confidence level when they describe the ingredients that make up dishes on the menu. Instead of just a word on the menu, the ingredient becomes a product of a friend.

And as for the farmers, Chef Alan and his staff have become our friends. Can you imagine it? Chef Alan and his staff cooking for the farmers?

Farmers look at the people they supply as the customer. Customers are never wrong! And so farmers are always attempting to please the customer.

Chef Alan reverses this role. And the farmers are very, very grateful. Now, we all want to try even harder to make sure everything we supply to Chef Alan is absolutely top notch. I know I speak for all the farmers when I say this.

For all us farmers, Alan Wong’s Restaurant is no longer an abstraction. It is made up of people—real people.

We went together down to Roy Tanaka’s tilapia farm, and because it was drizzly and muddy Chef Alan had to choose between wearing slippers or waterlogged shoes. Who knew that Chef Alan wears slippers! Chef Alan and his staff are real people; they did not let a little Hilo rain stop them from checking out the fish. It impressed me and I know it impressed Roy.

That's Alan Wong in the blue jacket; Roy Tanaka with hand on fishpond

Richard (left) and Roy Tanaka

Roy’s farm is elegant in its simplicity. Water from a waterfall was piped into a series of tanks, each one dropping to the next, aerating and cleaning as it passes by. His plumbing joints were not glued so draining his tanks was just a matter of disconnecting some joints or repositioning angles. Harvesting the fish was simple when the water level was lowered to a manageable level. Alan’s crew enjoyed talking to Roy. They got it that there was definitely more there than meets the eye.

Alan Wong with tilapia

Leigh Ito of Alan Wong's staff

Chef Alan and Leigh Ito had too much fun catching dinner. Chef Alan and his staff cooked the tilapia for us that night.

Thanks to Roy, we are setting up a similar system on fish farming at our farm. Since we have a difficult time raising our workers’ pay, we are attempting to grow food for our workers. Every Thursday we distribute fruit and vegetables to them.

We have running water going into our reservoir, so we diverted some and utilized the same principle that Roy uses.

Tilapia at Hamakua Springs Country Farms

Tilapia fish are vegetarians and we are attempting to feed them some of the waste stream from our operations. And their waste goes into the reservoir that we use to irrigate our crops. We may then be able to decrease a certain amount of fertilizer input.

Roy Tanaka 

Our objective is to see how much of a zero waste farm we can achieve. Thanks to Roy Tanaka for helping us. He even gave all the tilapia fish for stocking our tanks.

Stay tuned for Part 2: "...And Then They Cooked For Us."

Richard in Islands Magazine

I was sitting at my breakfast nook table, looking at Islands magazine, when I came across this article about Chef Alan Wong. 

As I read, I saw that its writer interviewed Richard as well.

...Wong speaks about him with so much enthusiasm that I immediately book a flight to see him. Ha's Hamakua Springs Country Farms is a 600-acre slice of land in the rather unassuming Pepe'ekeo. When I arrive to the town, no signposts guide my way to the farm where that miraculous tomato was harvested. Only a few wild chickens on lush green hillsides (parts of this island receive nearly 300 inches of rain per year) alert me that there's taste-bud-blowing agriculture brewing nearby...

Good writing. Good article. Have a look.

- posted by Leslie Lang

Alan Wong's "Farmers Series" Features Hamakua Springs

Richard Ha writes:

June and I went to Alan Wong’s Restaurant on Monday evening, when Chef Alan featured Hamakua Springs Country Farms. We were the third farm in their Farmers Series of special menus. The food was unbelievable – beyond words. We also chatted with the guests and it was a great experience.

Today we received an email from Arizona. This is what it said:

I was in Honolulu last weekend and had the great fortune to dine at Alan Wongs. The server indicated that the produce used in the dishes at Alan Wongs came from your farm. I was so smitten with the food at the restaurant that I purchased the cookbook.

That said, I will be having a dinner party next month at my home and it is my ambition to use recipes from the Alan Wong cookbook. I think the best way of achieving the level of quality that I experienced at the restaurant would be to use the really extraordinary produce that I enjoyed during my meal. I am not sure whether or not you have the ability or the interest in selling and shipping your produce to the mainland but, if you do, I would celebrate the opportunity to order all of the products that I need from your farm and have them shipped to me via overnight for use in my attempt to replicate the wonderful food at Alan Wongs.

Unfortunately, we are unable to ship to the mainland due to quarantine restrictions. We also chatted with a couple who told us that they had just been to Monaco and Paris and that Alan Wong’s Restaurant had the best food by far. June and I could not believe they were talking about the four-course dinner featuring tomatoes that came from our farm.

See the amazing Hamakua Springs Farmers Series menu