Fifty years of cooking taught me how to feed a body. One awakening taught me how to nourish a soul.

Food has always been my language

I have been in the kitchen for over fifty years. I have cooked for families, for strangers, for celebrations and for heartbreak. Along the way I was recognized as an award-winning chef and inducted into the Hawaiʻi Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. But the achievement I am most proud of cannot be placed on a trophy. It is the moment when food stops being just food, and becomes a doorway to something deeper.

Food was the way I showed love, built community, and made sense of the world. But somewhere in the middle of my career, something shifted. Not in the kitchen. In me.

I was introduced to the concept of energy in the 1990s, became a certified Healing Touch practitioner, and began studying Self I-Dentity through Hoʻoponopono, where I had an awakening experience. I learned to cleanse my thoughts, to sit with silence, and to work with my inner child, the part of me that had been quietly carrying old stories and old wounds.

As I did that work, something unexpected happened: my cooking changed. The flavors changed. The intention behind every meal changed. I wasn’t just feeding people anymore. I was helping them heal.

“My work is not about fixing people. It’s about helping people remember who they are.”