Aloha and welcome to 2018. All of us at edible Hawaiian Islands wish you excellent health, more happiness than your heart can hold, and continued success.

I grew up in Redondo Beach, California. My mother, Yuriko (Lily) was Japanese and my father, Joseph, was Polish. They were both immigrants and told the story of their family history through the food we grew in our backyard garden and the meals they prepared for our family of five. During meals, we sat Japanese style, or seiza-style, on large floor pillows at a low table. Breakfast, perhaps our most important meal, was miso, teriyaki fish, white rice and pickled vegetables or homemade Kielbasa sausage, smoked in our backyard, with eggs from our chickens.

Moving to Hawaii in 1987 felt like coming home, the cultures here mimicking that of my own upbringing. The foods, families and tradition of learning about family history through the foods we grow, prepare and eat together all felt comfortably familiar. You’ll read stories reflecting these values throughout this issue.

We would like to encourage you to get back into the kitchen, cook dinner, and invite friends and family to your table. I recently had some friends over for dinner at my home, nothing fancy, but the joy of hosting dinner guests filled my soul and it was the highlight of my week. It’s now a regular event, so if you find yourself on Maui on a Friday night, please join us for dinner.

Deep in my being, I feel so blessed to live in Hawaii. As many of you know, though, the islands can easily become isolated in the event of a disaster, natural or otherwise. Please make it a point to prepare your home and family during this unnerving time, when I feel is not a matter of if but when our safety measures will need to be called upon. This is a responsibility we all share living in an island community in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In this vein, we sympathize with the members of our edible ‘ohana who have been struck by natural disasters in California, Texas and Florida, and we hope their communities return stronger than ever before.

With aloha,
Dania Novack-Katz
Publisher / Editor