Green Lectures / Sustain Your Brain
Free Public Lecture
Local, Sustainable, Delectable Food
Event ID: EV0010324P
Info: Jun 9 • Tue • 6:30pm • Architecture Auditorium • Free •
With: Hi‘ilei Kawelo, Sean Priester, Laurie Carlson
Learn about good, clean and fair food: good to eat, produced without harm to the environment, and pays producers a fair price. Includes a functioning Hawaiian fishpond that provides limu for mulch and fertilizer, mangrove firewood, and fish in season; a chef who prepares good, clean and fair food; and an advocate for buying healthy, organic foods to sustain our local economy and environment.
Hi‘ilei Kawelo, BA in Zoology, University of Hawai‘i, and 1995 graduate of Punahou School, is executive director of Paepae o He‘eia, a private non-profit organization dedicated to caring for He‘eia Fishpond, located in Ko‘olaupoko, O‘ahu. She previously served as an educator, facilities manager, and coordinator for Paepae o He‘eia`s Ku Hou Kuapa ("Let the wall rise again") program. Raised in Kahalu‘u by her skilled fishing family, she has been a student of the art and science of lawai‘a and the Kane‘ohe Bay her entire life.
Sean Priester, executive chef of Top of Waikiki, has more than 20 years of experience in the food and beverage business. Sean started cooking professionally while in college in North Carolina. He began his Honolulu career at Sunset Grill in 1990, when Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine, with its emphasis on the use of fresh and locally produced ingredients, became an international sensation. By 1998, Sean had established The Wild Mushroom, a social entrepreneurial incubator at the Downtown YWCA that has matured into a popular weekday Jazz Brunch. Sean has also worked at the state hospital, teaching vocational and life skills needed for mainstream employment to a special needs population. Sean`s philosophy about food is based on relationships and the value of supporting local growers to give to the economy from which he and his family benefits. Knowing exactly where the foods he prepares come from also gives him greater confidence in his culinary creations.
Laurie Carlson backed into the natural foods business in the 70s when she began volunteering at Kokua Market. She eventually became the manager of the co-operative. She worked to change Hawai‘i state law to allow consumer co-operatives to incorporate as such. She attended the Yale School of Management in the eighties and returned to start the Honolulu Weekly in 1991. Laurie currently serves as president of Slow Food O‘ahu (www.slowfoodoahu.org), an international movement that came to Hawai‘i in 2001.