SAVOR THE 2020 HAWAI‘I FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL (OAHU) AND ROY’S GOLF CLASSIC (MAUI)
The 10th annual Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival will feature exciting, high-profile collaborations between local and global chefs at nine Hawai‘i restaurants, with social-distancing and other COVID-19-era practices keeping diners safe, while they delight in the best that our dynamic, multicultural, culinary landscape has to offer.
“Now more than ever, the community must work together to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic that has impacted our everyday lives,” announces HFWF Chief Executive Officer Denise Yamaguchi.
“We considered canceling our events, but have decided to proceed with seated collaboration dinners because our local restaurants, as well as our visitor industry and other small businesses, need the community’s support to survive.”
This year, the festival will be held from Friday, Nov. 6 through Saturday, Nov. 21, on O‘ahu and Maui. On O‘ahu, the eight participating restaurants will follow Honolulu City and County Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s late September guidelines for dine-in meals — limiting establishment capacity to 50%, having customers wear masks at tables when not consuming food/drink and having them sit with up to 4 other members of their household.
On Maui, the 23rd Annual Roy’s Golf Classic, will be held on Friday, Nov. 13, at Ka‘anapali Golf Course, followed by dinner at Roy’s Kaanapali.
At all nine ticketed events, HFWF will pair locally based experts in ethnic fusion cuisines — among them, Ed Kenney of Town; Robert Kealoha Domingo of Nui Kealoha; David Lukela of ‘Alohilani Resort Waikiki Beach; Andrew Le of The Pig and the Lady; Chris Kajioka of Senia; Jonathan Mizukami of Hoku’s (the Kahala Hotel & Resort); and HFWF co-founders and Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine rockstars Alan Wong and Roy Yamaguchi — with guest chefs from the U.S. continent and the world, including Michael Chiarello, Charles Phan, Dean Fearing, Mourad Lahlou, Spike Mendelsohn, Nancy Silverton, and Jonathan Waxman, for thrilling menu offerings.
Participating restaurants offering intimate, pre-fixe, dining experiences include Swell Bar (‘Alohilani Resort), Mud Hen Water, TBD … (Lotus Honolulu), Miro Kaimuki, Roy’s Kaanapali, Maui Brewing Company (Waikiki Beachcomber by Outrigger), Piggy Smalls, Hoku’s, and the original Roy’s in Hawai‘i Kai.
Proceeds of the O‘ahu dining activities will go to the Kokua Restaurant Workers Fund, one of the main beneficiaries of this charity festival, which in 2019 raised $413,580 to help the community, according to the HFWF website.
Even if they cannot attend in person, generous supporters of Hawai‘i restaurant- and agriculture-industry employees and of others working in related island industries (e.g., tourism) can donate online to Kokua at hawaiifoodandwinefestival.com/kokua-restaurant-workers-fund. Proceeds from the Maui golf and dining event will go to Imua Family Services on Maui (imuafamily.org/about-imua/).
“For Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival, our lifeline has depended on our local culinary, agriculture and hospitality industries — and it’s our turn to support the farmers, chefs, restaurants, food service employees, students, and people who call Hawai‘i home,” Denise Yamaguchi says of the festival’s beneficiaries.
Among the innovative offerings is an Indigenous-themed event, “Native Feast,” on Wednesday, Nov. 18, in which Native Hawaiian chef and caterer Domingo will create a menu together with Sean Sherman, founder of The Sioux Chef
(sioux-chef.com/). The paired creators of this unique four-course collaboration between Kanaka Maoli and Native American cuisines, will draw on their knowledge of both cultural-culinary and sustainable-resource practices. Both chefs are active not just in the kitchen but also “in the revitalization of their respective lands and food systems, these chefs are experts of indigenous food culture,” says the HFWF site. They will be joined by Terry Lynch, executive chef partner at the event’s dining site of Maui Brewing Co., as customers enjoy this very special menu alongside local craft beer paired by the Maui Brewing Co. brewmaster.
Another once-in-a-lifetime dining experience — with very limited seating — is “The Spice of Life: A Tribute to Floyd Cardoz,” which commemorates the culinary contributions of the late Floyd Cardoz, the leading Indian chef in the United States, on Sunday, Nov. 8, at chef Vikram Garg’s Diamond-Head TBD…restaurant. Join HFWF in honoring Cardoz, a HFWF veteran who passed away in March and who compassionately gave his time and talent to the Festival every year, traveling from NYC to Hawai‘i.
In his tribute of an elegant, four-course menu, Garg (once executive chef at the Halekulani hotel where he oversaw La Mer and other delicious dining establishments) shares his appreciation of this world-class culinary star with the Cardoz ‘Ohana — Floyd Cardoz’s wife Barkha and sons Justin and Peter — for their husband and father’s lifetime achievements.
Prices of the three weekends of dinner menu sets start at a two-seat table for $400, but run to larger tables at some participating restaurants. Not all sizes of tables are available at all times at every establishment, so buy your tickets now!
Online tickets, which began selling on Sept. 19, are largely still available, with some of the more popular options already marked SOLD OUT. See
HFWF.me for the event schedule which includes ticket information. [As of our press date, information on tickets for the Maui golf event is not available; email Aya Leslie for more info at
aya@hawaiifoodandwinefestival.com.]
The festival has been a must-do on the calendar of every industry leader, society person and community professional who is a fan of Hawai‘i’s vibrant food scene. In the past decade, the HFWF has gone from a modest, three-day weekend series of events in Waikïkï with only 30 chefs, to the state’s largest food and wine event, usually drawing more than 150 worldwide and Hawai‘i culinary talent and spanning restaurants across three islands, through the month of October.
Festival lovers who are not able to reserve a table this year, can help secure HFWF’s future by giving online to charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/hawaii-food-and-wine-festival-donation.
MAUI OKINAWA KENJIN KAI (HUOA) GIVES OUT TWO $1,000 SCHOLARSHIPS AND A $500 SPECIAL AWARD
This summer, the Maui Okinawa Kenjin Kai of the Hawaii United Okinawa Association announced its two scholarship winners for 2020, Sarah Fusato of King Kekaulike High School and Jayda Cortez of Baldwin High School. The Wailuku-based community non-profit, which supports activities that perpetuate the culture, heritage and arts of Okinawa, offers $1,000 awards annually to help Valley Isle high-school graduates attend college.
Okinawa Kenjin Kai)
Fusato, the daughter of Dr. Ryan and Kara Fusato, plans to attend the University of Hawai’i at Mänoa (as one of 19 UHM Regents Scholars for 2020) and to apply to the Shidler College of Business. Daughter of Joel and Danise Cortez, Cortez will attend Chapman University as a Presidential Scholar, with the goal of studying the health sciences.
MOKK President Christine Hondo says, “Each year the Maui Okinawa Kenjin Kai is extremely proud and happy to reach out to graduating high school seniors who have shown academic and leadership qualities in school and the community. We look for those that have become aware of their heritage and have reached out to learn more and to stretch and embrace their Uchinanchu culture.”
The two Okinawan American students have proven outstanding leaders in their Maui high schools, with Fusato serving as King Kekaulike’s National Honor Society President and Student Government Vice President and Cortez as Baldwin’s Student Body President.
They both grew up being influenced by Okinawan cultural organizations and community artistic practices, as well. Granddaughter of former MOKK President Roy Fusato, Fusato was junior camp leader in the MOKK Children’s Camp and learned Okinawan udui with The Maui Bunka Club and Jimpu Kai USA, dancing at the Maui Matsuri. A former participant in the Miyakojima Exchange Program, she reciprocated by hosting Okinawan exchange students at her home.
Gosei Cortez, descended from Okinawan immigrants to the Big Island, grew up watching her grandmother play and perform paranku, and herself trains in tap and jazz at dance studio Judy’s Gang. She belongs to the second generation of her family to receive this award following her mother, MOKK scholarship recipient Denise (Miyasato) Cortez.
In an unexpected act of generosity, one of the MOKK scholarship judges donated $500 to the organization to furnish a special award to applicant Angela Mu, also of Baldwin High School. The daughter of Yeong Woei and Jessica Mu, Mu placed third in the competition where the cultural organization had planned to grant two official scholarships. However, her interest in Okinawan culture and community activities so inspired the anonymous judge, that the latter donated the money to support Mu’s dream of attending UHM where she hopes to major in secondary education.
A past volunteer with the Maui Okinawan Festival through her BHS Manga-Anime Gaming Club, she originally encountered Okinawan food at that festival, where she enjoyed her first taste of pig’s feet soup and andagi. Since then, Mu has taken classes in sanshin and played the traditional instrument at MOKK’s 2019 Okinawan Festival, as well as performed dragon dance at the Paia Rinzai Zen Obon.
“In finding these extremely talented individuals, we award them and wish them well as they continue their educational journey, with the hope they will return and again be an active participant in our community and our Maui Okinawa Kenjin Kai activities,” encourages Hondo.
Two scholarships are awarded by the kenjinkai each year to high-school seniors who are either of Okinawan ancestry or who are MOKK members, stated a press statement from MOKK, which has awarded over $70,000 to deserving Mauians since 1977. Applicants are evaluated for academic achievement, school and community activities, financial need and connection with Okinawa, the statement says.
Scholarship application forms normally can be picked up at the MOKK office (688 Nukuwai Place, Wailuku), or in most high-school counselors’ offices on Maui; however, before visiting, check with these organizations for safe, COVID-19-era, pickup rules. Applications this year were due on Mar. 25; for information on future scholarships and their deadlines, call Darren Konno at 633-4439 (Maui) or email him at dskonno@hotmail.com.
HUOA offered a special Ippei Nihei Debiru (thank you) to the anonymous-judge donor, as it congratulated these three talented young women.
The Herald would like to celebrate the achievements and cultural commitments of Sarah, Jayda and Angela!
ENTER MAUI ARTS & CULTURAL CENTER’S SCHAEFER (STATEWIDE) PORTRAIT CHALLENGE 2022
Do you have an eye for people? Always sketching faces, sculpting bodies in clay — even cajoling friends to sit still, as you brush their likeness across a canvas in oil paints? Here is your shot!
In June, the Maui Arts & Culture Center put out its call for original portraiture in the Schaefer Portrait Challenge 2022. Held every three years since its start in 2003, this statewide juried contest and MACC exhibition aims to “support artists in their exploration of new and innovative work,” according to Neida Bangerter, director of Schaefer International Gallery at MACC. The “signature event” of the Japanese American-created culture center, SPC 2022 “ encourages participation from artists state-wide, to capture the diversity of our community so that we may present a broad view of cultures, places and people as we move through time,” Bangerter explains.
In addition to two generous cash prizes, this triennial “Challenge” has helped diverse local artists gain recognition in the global arts community. SIG, which organizes SPC 2022, welcomes all artists from all backgrounds and their choice of portrait subjects, as it hopes to promote inclusivity and diversity in the museum arts. Bangerter observes that “All the awardees…have seen career bumps in the prestige of being selected.” Examples of past SPC winners from the Hawai‘i Asian and Japanese communities include Toni Rose, People’s Choice Award 2018; Kirk Kurokawa, Jurors’ Choice 2006 and People’s Choice 2015; Jonathan Yukio Clark, Jurors’ Choice and People’s Choice 2012; and Hanae Uechi Mills, Jurors’ Choice 2003.
A range of style and interpretation of portraiture is welcomed — for instance, representational, experimental, self-portraits, etc. But all entered artwork must be one-of-a-kind and original — and also newly created specifically for the 2022 exhibit over the past three years (i.e. it has to have been made some time from Oct. 2018 to Oct. 2021).
This means that the entry should not have been exhibited anywhere else, or displayed in any other exhibition or showing — whether in a gallery, art or other venue, website or even social media.
Why is this a “Challenge” rather than a “contest”? “People tend to think of portraiture as paintings on canvas. We used the word Challenge to inspire artists who normally would not create portraiture,” Bangerter elaborates. “Some past … memorable works were done with alternative materials such as steel, shells, and Styrofoam.”
Accepted media include drawing, painting, textiles, sculpture, printmaking, and mixed media, with the last type being the only way that photography and computer-generated imagery will be allowed. “Multiples,” where physically separate pieces orient together as one collective piece, will be considered but must follow SPC 2022 rules. MACC will provide platforms for selected works.
Non-accepted media include photography, photographic reproductions, video, computer-based digital art, and inkjet prints.
Two cash prizes go to the top artists: (1) the Jurors’ Award ($15,000), which is sponsored by Jack and Carolyn Schaefer Gray, and judged by this panel of jurors from three different islands —
• Carl Jennings, associate professor of art and creative thinking at Kap‘iolani Community College on O‘ahu, who is also an established painter and artist (cjennings.com/);
• Codie King, director of the Wailoa Center on Hawai‘i island, which describes itself as the “largest venue for showcasing the work of local artists, community groups and cultural events” on that island (wailoacenter.com/); and
• Jan Sato, veteran art teacher at Baldwin High School, and respected mentor to three-plus decades of young Maui-grown artists (baldwinartalumni.wordpress.com/) This award will be presented at the artists’ opening reception.
And (2) the People’s Choice Award ($5,000) is the popular category for which gallery visitors vote during the run of the exhibition, to be awarded at a gallery reception on Sunday, Mar. 13, 2022.
The Schaefer Portrait Challenge is open to all artists 18 years and older who live year-round in Hawai‘i as a local resident. Entrants will be asked for an official Hawai‘i state ID or driver’s license during artwork registration; college students must show one of the forms that document their residence, listed in the SPC 2022 prospectus.
The application entry form includes an artist’s statement of 50-150 words, describing the subject of the portrait, the artist’s inspiration and any special aspects of the work. It also asks for an artist’s bio of not more than 150 words, covering art/s background, exhibitions, education, awards and so on.
The subject, whose permission must be documented in this form, must have a direct relationship with the artist, if the artist wants to do a live sitting to create the portrait. This is because, according to MACC’s SPC 22 website, “We encourage less reliance on copying from photographs and more one-on-one time spent with the sitter, for better results in capturing the vital essence of who they are.” The sitter must use this same entry form, to confirm their having sat with the artist.
For the first jurying round, to occur in 2021, artists must bring their works to a designated receiving place on their island by the stated dates/times, then pick up the entry at the same venue, usually a day later. Receiving places include Wailoa Center on Hawai‘i island (Saturday, Sept. 25, from 9 a.m.-Noon for receiving the artwork; Sunday, Sept. 26, from 9 a.m.-11 a.m. for artist pick-up); the Alexa Higashi Waiting Room of MACC on Maui (Saturday, Oct. 16, from 9 a.m.-Noon for receiving; Monday, Oct. 18, from 9 a.m.-Noon for artist pick-up); the Honolulu Museum of Art School on O‘ahu; and Kaua‘i Community College on Kaua‘i (for the last two islands, receiving and artist pick-up dates/times and rooms are TBA).
Semi-finalist works from this first round will be digitally photographed by MACC and go on to the second, final, jury round on Maui. Results will be posted on Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021, on mauiarts.org/spc2022.php. Until these final decisions are made, all entrants are asked to keep their entries out of sight from viewers and audiences, including public exhibitions, social networks and social media platforms, and websites.
Entry exhibition rules, including those for framing, hanging, size, weight, printmaking, and sculpture, as well as acceptable materials, can also be found in the SPC 2022 prospectus (the rules also state that violating any of them may result in disqualification of the portraiture). They additionally specify shipping responsibilities to and from MACC, as well, in the event that an artist’s work from neighbor islands is chosen for an exhibit.
Artists may submit up to two works for consideration, but must use a separate entry form for each one. A non-refundable entry fee of $30 will be charged per work entered and collected at the time MACC’s representatives receive the entry. MACC will handle exhibition sales and encourages artists to offer their work for sale (at fair-market prices).
For more information, including the entry form and prospectus, see the SPC 2022 website at mauiarts.org/spc2022.php. Or email SIG Director Neida Bangerter at neida@mauiarts.org.
