Above the bridge
Above the bridge
Episode 156 CHEF MARI WILLIS ( Bitelogic)
From someone who once "couldn't even cook rice" to an innovative culinary force transforming Hawaiian ingredients, Chef Mari's story is a delicious journey of passion and perseverance. She reveals how exposure to diverse food cultures in Los Angeles sparked her culinary awakening before returning to Hawaii to study at KCC Culinary. What makes her approach unique is the scientific foundation beneath her creativity – with a master's degree in nutrition and dietetics, she brings deep understanding of food's impact on our bodies to every dish she creates.
Breadfruit (ulu) emerges as the star in Chef Mari's culinary repertoire. "Ulu is literally my most favorite ingredient to work with," she explains, detailing how this versatile fruit functions beautifully in both sweet and savory applications. Her innovations are practical magic – transforming ulu into Alfredo sauce and gravy without traditional thickeners, creating poi churros that had her culinary students raving, and developing egg substitutes from traditional Hawaiian ingredients during the egg shortage. These creations showcase her gift for honoring cultural traditions while pushing culinary boundaries.
The conversation explores Chef Mari's unexpected path to teaching culinary arts at Kaiser High School, where she commanded a classroom of 80+ students despite having no formal teaching certification. This experience crystallized her definition of what makes a chef: "a leader who inspires people in the kitchen." Now working as a chef consultant with the Culinary Institute of America while building her social media presence, her future vision centers on creating a non-profit cooking school accessible to everyone in her community. Throughout it all, she maintains that cooking is fundamentally about connection – whether through television appearances, Instagram videos shot entirely on her phone, or the dream of a community cooking space that celebrates local farmers and ingredients. Follow her continuing culinary adventures @BiteLogic on Instagram and TikTok, where science and flavor merge into something truly special.
aloha. Welcome to another edition of the above the bridge podcast. I'm your host, dadius park. Thank you guys for tuning in. If this is your first time tuning in, just so you know. You can find us on pretty much every single podcast platform. We're on all the main ones Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch these videos also on our YouTube page, Above the Bridge Podcast, and you can find audio video and whatever links we have on our website. It is atbpodcom. Aloha. Okay, this week my guest you've seen her on Instagram, Kitchen Scraps, and she's kind of been pretty famous on Instagram, I kind of think Like a cooking influencer. I don't know what you would consider that, but, Chef Mari, thank you for coming on my show.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:I have been a fan of your Instagram channel and then we watch you on Kitchen Scraps and my dad was a fan and I think he's super excited to watch this episode Not that he doesn't watch all the other ones, but he's excited for this one. Hi dad, I got to ask you one thing before we get into this. I know you did a collaboration with Stephen Kino, who I had on the show, and he brought some kind of mountain lion or something and you guys made literally cat manapua. I wanted to ask you for how did that take place and all that, but I wanted to know your opinion, how it tasted, because he eats that stuff all the time. But for someone who never eats cat, I wanted to know how, what you thought about that oh.
Speaker 1:So it all happened through an instagram dm conversation between him and chef khaled and I and we wanted to make some type of fun video with Mountain Lion and it was actually Kale's idea. He's like Kat Manapua. I was like, let's do it, I can make the dough, I'm a pretty good baker. So I was like, yeah, we can pull this off. So when we met up with Stefan at Kale's restaurant, kale's Hale, we got straight to work. Stefan busted out this big loin of mountain lion and I was surprised. It looked like pork, so not too far away from Manapua. And then we just threw it in a food processor. I added whatever Kale had at the restaurant. I think I put unagi sauce in it and then I had beetroot powder to give it that red, but it worked. And then I just added, like sesame oil, little oyster sauce, show you a little sugar, and that thing tasted exactly like monopole.
Speaker 2:I was surprised okay, so you would have no. Oh, that's kind of scary, though. That means we don't really know what they're really putting. Monopole man is putting in there cut food costs somewhere yeah, that's gonna be the new thing. If monopole man starts buying beetroot powder, we're gonna know for sure. So it didn't taste any any different than it was just kind of. Oh no, that's scary not at all.
Speaker 1:You couldn't tell the difference, honestly okay, that's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, I want to take a short break and shout out our sponsors. First up, we have defend hawaii. They've been my sponsor from the beginning. They have a store, store in Wynard Mall called no One. You can go on their website, defendhawaiicom. They have a whole bunch of new stuff for the ending of summer. They have a collaboration with Hawaii football UH football. So give them a peek. Go to defendhawaiicom. If you use promo code atb pot upon checkout, you'll get 15 off your entire order. So go, take a look at their website. They have everything on there, all the cool stuff. Go, go, take a look, defend hawaiicom. Back to our show. I wanted to ask this question and I I always forget to ask when I have a chef on Mm-hmm, how do you get the title chef?
Speaker 1:That is a great question and I know people have been asking that all over social media. What is a chef To me? I started off in the culinary industry back in 2008. So I'm not a stranger to the culinary world, but a chef, from my opinion, is a leader, someone who can inspire people in the kitchen. They help innovate whatever's going on in the kitchen and they can really bring the team together to work together to make it happen, whatever it may be. So I really didn't start calling myself chef until I started teaching culinary arts at Kaiser High School, because I had to command 80 plus kolohe students in my classroom to work in a kitchen together, and a lot of them they're all from different backgrounds because it's Kaiser High School know, I get kids with the suburban Hawaii. Yeah, really interesting getting them to work together. But to be a chef, I had to really lead them, show them that they can trust me and like, make them feel comfortable around me okay, so you turn it out at the end of the year.
Speaker 1:We we did so much cooking. We even catered a career fair, so yeah, wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So you definitely earned the title chef. I always thought if you, you had to maybe get go through culinary school or have like a famous chef sign off on you, because I I know some people they just call themselves chef and it's like, okay, well how? But I really like your answer. I really like how you command leadership and that definitely can, because you could be the best cook in the world and if you can't run a kitchen or show that leadership and get people behind you, then you're just a cook right, I feel, feel that way, and you want to inspire the people around you.
Speaker 1:You don't want to make them feel below you, so yeah today. You all work together as a team. It's like a ship. The chef is the captain. You got to make sure everything works smoothly, otherwise the ship will sink. The kitchen will go down in flames, oh yeah that's um.
Speaker 2:That's super cool. You do have a background in uh culinary education, though yep, I went to kcc culinary in 2008.
Speaker 1:Prior to that, I had graduated high school. The week after graduation, I moved to Los Angeles. Oh, wow weekend and I got exposed to so many different restaurants in the LA food scene and that was like at the time where cooking competitions were blowing up. So I was super into the food scene and prior to that I didn't know how to cook. I couldn't even cook rice, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1:Oh, really yeah, I didn't grow up cooking like I don't know why. I grew up baking. So I baked a lot with my family, but cooking I didn't really do. I couldn't cook rice, I probably burned water. But yeah, in LA I got to try all these restaurants, you know, all these different foods we don't have here in Hawaii, like Ethiopian cuisine, things like that, like wild stuff, authentic Mexican, peruvian it's a latina latin flavors. It was just really eye-opening and I wanted to go into culinary. So then my grandpa actually got sick so I moved back home and then that's when I enrolled into kcc culinary and then, yeah, I honestly going to KCC for culinary was like the best time of my life and I got to meet so many cool people. I'm still in touch with a lot of my friends today from that program.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, I actually tried to do that program, but I didn't have the same experience as you oh no yeah, I went like right after high school and I I kind of wanted to be a like a cook and get into that. I was kind of unsure what I wanted to do but I took um, for some reason I didn't take cooking 101, which they kind of is your introductory to it. I took baking instead and I didn't know how to calibrate recipes or whatever. And I was kind of excited. I got the coat and the checkered pants and all that and we had our first week and I think the ending of the first week or the beginning of the second week we had to bake something.
Speaker 2:It was muffins or something, and I'm sure you know you go to each one of the ovens and the chef opens it up and critiques each one and my stuff was everywhere, like it came everywhere and I'm I'm like 18 and I'm like embarrassed. I was so embarrassed and after class I was in the bathroom changing in one of the stalls and these two guys that were in my class was just ripping on me, not knowing I was in there, and I got super embarrassed and mad and I opened the door and they got shocked to see me in there and then I punched one of them and ran out, and then I never went back, and that was it.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry you had to go through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was my culinary arts experience.
Speaker 1:Let's like redo that one day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I still try and cook though. But um, so you went. How long is the program?
Speaker 1:it's two and a half years if you go for the associates. So it's funny, because I had finished all my cooking labs and the baking one too, yeah. And then finished all my cooking labs and the baking one too, yeah. And then my last like I guess my last semester of the cooking portion of culinary, I found out I was pregnant. Oh, I was young, I was only 21, and I had finished. I finally finished all my labs, but then I had to take a break because I had my son and I.
Speaker 1:You know I really wanted to finish the degree at the time, but you know it's hard going to school with a baby and then I had to move because my son's dad was military, so I had to go all the way from here to Georgia, like a town right outside of Savannah, real Southern. My son was only two weeks old, so, yeah, so in Georgia, what a culture shock. I didn't see anyone that looked like us, except if you go to like the Asian market or something.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so big culture shock. The only thing that gave me comfort at that time because I had no family around was baking. Like I started my baking business, which actually took off. I was surprised because it's a small military community. We had like nothing in that town but a Walmart and a dollar general. I swear, oh yeah, um, I did my baking business with my son. He was a chill baby, thankfully.
Speaker 1:I actually would buy like lily koi powder, like passion fruit powder or like they had guava juice. So I try to find ways to make our local flavors in my baked goods using whatever I could find on like Amazon. Amazon was like just starting back then they sold like Mexican markets, so they had guava, so I was able to get a lot of guava. But then, yeah, I baked for three years and then I ended up moving back home because it didn't work out with my son's dad. And then I finally went to finish the associates for KCC Culinary. Oh, wow, yeah. And then from there I went on to UH to major in nutrition because I was like really inspired to do like healthy cooking but making it taste good.
Speaker 2:So oh, wow, do that wow, that's super good, did you? When you were in Georgia? Did you learn how to make grits?
Speaker 1:yeah, I actually did. And collard greens, oh really, yeah, it's. It's a longer process for the collard greens, kind of like cooking the luau like you want to put down, yeah, but then they cook it with ham, hock and stuff to give it more flavor. But yeah, it was. Oh, my god, southern food is amazing, but not for you at all oh, yeah, what grits is what corn?
Speaker 2:cornmeal? Yeah, oh, I had that in iowa, cleveland. In cleveland, yeah, I was thinking like what is this of? They said, just put choke butter because it'll make it. Yeah, so you did food science so, like you understand the nutritional values and all that. Okay, I got some questions for you, because I've been on carnivore diet and, yeah, I lost like 20 pounds. I just got married so I needed to look. Thank you, I needed to look better for my wedding. So, um, I I was on this carnivore diet and everybody's telling me, oh, you can get high cholesterol and all this kind of stuff, but I feel so much better, less inflammation and way more energy. I don't. So, being that you have a background in food science, how does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Oh, why you have more energy, I feel like yeah, a lot of the refined carbohydrates. So that's like your white rice, white bread, pastas. Those things can really lead to inflammation, so when you cut it out, your body doesn't have that extra glucose floating around. So you're eating a lot more protein, especially like meat, so that contains more iron, and then the iron will help provide more oxygen throughout your blood, so that'll make you feel more energized. Yeah, that makes sense and glow because you're saying yeah, it's been.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the other thing. Like it, I feel like my skin is I. Um, the only I mean drawback is the. The bathroom feels like I'm giving birth, but I, yeah, I might have to implement some, maybe avocado or like a little bit of leafy greens, but um yeah, how long did it take to learn all the science behind nutrition?
Speaker 1:a long time. I actually spent seven years studying nutrition and food science. I got my master's degree in December 2022 in nutrition and dietetics. So I spent all those years studying nutrition. Then I took a 1200 hour unpaid internship in nutrition. I did it here, I did it all over the island and then I ended up finishing it. It took me a lot longer than I thought because I had a baby. I had my daughter right before in 2020. So, yeah, I made it a little harder, but I finished and I took the exam to become a registered dietitian and I passed the first try.
Speaker 1:Nice, yeah, so that was a rolly, but I learned a lot about how the how the food we eat affects our body and but, I got really interested in, like the culinary nutrition side because you know my heart has always been in culinary and I wanted to find a way to tie it together. So now I help a lot of food businesses with their nutrition labels. So Noms is probably my biggest client here, so I do all the Noms candy Okay.
Speaker 2:Oh, so you kind of analyze and break down their food so they can put that thing?
Speaker 1:on the labels yep, I make all those little labels oh okay.
Speaker 2:Well, how do you analyze the food? You have a lab or no?
Speaker 1:so um, because they can provide me their ingredients. That's already been analyzed, and then there's a database through the usda. So I just kind of, you know, use what they give me, and then I use the nutrition database from the usda, and then I do have to do math though, because I have to do all these conversions yeah, that sounds kind of fun.
Speaker 2:I'm a lab tech so I I work as a medical lab technician for cancer research so I'm oh yeah, that's my nerdy side I, um, so I work with a lot of numbers and and kind of conversions and stuff and for me that's kind of fun because it's numbers don't lie, so it's always you can figure it out. I always thought that that was fun, but it's. It's kind of cool to know that there's actual people doing that kind of stuff, because I use the Yuka app and I can just click on it and then it's like okay, don't eat that. But I want to take a short break and shout out our sponsors, medicinal Mushroom Hawaii. They're our locally based medicinal mushroom company, based here in Hawaii. They grow all the mushrooms here. You can check out what they have. They have lion's mane, chaga, turkey tail, red reishi and cordyceps mushrooms. They extract it and they put in these tinctures.
Speaker 2:I take it religiously every day. I take the first three in the morning and I take it with my coffee. Helps get my day going well. I take the red ratio at night to sleep and the quarter steps I take before I work out to give me a little boost of energy. But if you don't know the medicinal properties of these mushrooms, go to their website at med mushroom highcom and if you use promo code ATB pod on checkout all capitals you'll get 45% off your first tincture of extracted mushrooms. So give them a look. It's pretty cool. I, like I said, I take this stuff religiously all the time. I take this stuff religiously all the time Medmushroomhighcom.
Speaker 2:Now back to the show. I noticed that you do on your Instagram, that you do a lot of cooking, and what I noticed the most which resonated with me is you use a lot of ulu and I grew up on that stuff my dad like made. He used to slice them real thin and make ulu chips and till this day is one of my favorite snacks. Um, he would make ulu salad, like potato salad, but with ulu and and stuff like that. So I I never yeah, I never seen anybody use ulu like how you use it.
Speaker 1:it's kind of cool yeah, ulu is literally my most favorite ingredient to work with, because, it can be sweet or savory and that's like a perfect ingredient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I um had ulu poke recently too at winter mall. Yeah, and what? It's? Just breadfruit, right, that's the Haole name is breadfruit.
Speaker 1:But yeah, when it's like mature so that's when it's not ripe it's like a potato, so you can cook it any way. A potato could be cooked and I've even turned it into Alfredo sauce. Oh really, it's so good. I make it into gravy. The best part is because it's so starchy. You don't need to make a roux, so like. You don't need the butter and flour mixture, so you can thicken any type of sauce with steamed ulu and you just blend it with whatever stock you want to flavor your sauce with and it's like a perfect thickener and it adds more potassium and fiber and it's just like the best ingredient ever.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, that's good to know. So like I made gravy last night for my daughter, them, and I put cornstarch and mixed it in so I could blend ulu and use that as a thickener.
Speaker 1:Yep, no need the cornstarch, oh wow.
Speaker 2:That sounds more healthier too.
Speaker 1:It is yeah.
Speaker 2:What other ingredients do you like to use? That's kind of more locally based.
Speaker 1:I've been trying to innovate poi lately so I found that poi really makes a good egg substitute in whatever I'm making. So, like pancakes, you don't need eggs. It came in handy because during our egg Shortage I was like Testing pancake recipes and you know, like the eggs gives it that Fatty mouth feel, but they were expensive. And I live really close to Himea Ono Poi and I'm a Kaneohe oh, me too.
Speaker 2:I live by Kapunahola, we're like almost neighbors, yeah that walk bridge between, and that's the where I originated. The name of my podcast is that walk bridge oh, I love that yeah, I'll tell you about it after. But yeah, I didn't know. You're from kaniyia, born and raised. I grew up here. Oh no, we gotta talk man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, okay, sorry to interrupt so, yeah, poi, I, I go to hemea, ono poi all the time. I even got the poi friend discount course. So I, um, I started playing with poi and I made poi pancakes. Then I made a poi churro and that thing came out so good. So I made that recipe back in February and, just like trying to innovate poi recipes, and it turned out so good. I mean it didn't look like super beautiful, but it came out really good and then it was so, so delicious. I had my culinary students recreate it and they all nailed it. So I I'm definitely putting that in my cookbook whenever I make one.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:And then I I've made um Poi Arepas with my friend Chef Omar Lise. She was just on the latest episode of Kitchen Scraps.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, kitchen scraps, I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, that looks super good, so good. It's like a fluffy dough, I don't know. It's just so good and you can fill it with whatever. Yeah, the poi, just you can do anything with it, like to substitute eggs, all right.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you brought that up, because I wrote it down and I was thinking I was gonna butcher how to say it, but that thing looked amazing.
Speaker 1:And you guys put cream cheese in the middle and yeah yeah, and we loaded it with um mango because it was like mango season, peak mango season at the time oh, that's super cool working with um all those kids, so you was that like your first job after you graduated, other than doing like the labels and stuff. Oh, so after graduating my master's.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh no. So I started my ByteLogic business. Oh okay, okay yeah, from there I yeah. Then I actually moved to Vegas.
Speaker 2:I moved around a lot wow, vegas is a good place for food, though it was.
Speaker 1:So I didn't plan to move to Vegas. This was in 2023. So right after I passed my dietician exam in the beginning of the year, my husband he does elevator. He's an elevator mechanic. It was slow here for elevators. So he's like you know, I don't got work. I think I got to move to Vegas because we have family. Like half our family had to move. Our son of Paradise moved to Vegas, so he's like let's just go to vegas. There's a lot of work. A lot of elevator guys from here moved over there and they are loving life. They all bought houses. They're like come on, do it. So I was like okay, it sounds so nice because that's the dream right to have your own house.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I was like that sounds so great. So I got there in December 2023 and it was so fun at first, but then it said it. I'm like I don't got no ulu to work with anymore. I was so sad because that that's literally like my favorite ingredient. I didn't have like the green that I'm so used to because, like, I can go outside here and kind of in my backyard it's green. There it was bricks. I'm not bricks and rocks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no more coal laws.
Speaker 1:And my skin. It just like cracked every day. Oh yeah. No goodies, and it was great there though, but yeah, the food seemed amazing, but I was so homesick so I ended up moving back early oh nice. I need to go back home and I moved back home. I actually took a job, like whatever job I could get, and I took the first job. That was a dietitian at WIC in Waianae.
Speaker 2:So you had to drive from Kanu to Waianae.
Speaker 1:I did and I hated it. It was so far. I love the Waianae community because I took my dietetic internship in Waianae. I did my whole clinical portion there and the community was amazing. I even did a lot of cooking demos at Waianae Comp oh nice. Like I did a Ulu burger there oh nice. So I love the Waianae community. But when I started working as a dietitian I was like I'm not complete, I need to cook. I miss being in the kitchen. So I left the job after three weeks.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then, it's crazy, this photo on Instagram for the KCC Culinary Instagram account said Culinary Institute of America training apply. Now I was like, what is this? I was like, oh my God, it's a sign. I applied. And so it was a new program from Chef Roy Yamaguchi, who took over KCC's Culinary Institute of the Pacific, the new one at Diamond Head. So I was like, oh my God, this is I got chicken skin. I was like I'm applying. So I applied.
Speaker 1:And then I you don't hear back until a while for those. So I applied for that. And then the following week I was like, what am? Am I gonna do with my life if I don't get in this class? And then I saw the Kaiser high school culinary teacher job open. I saw it on um, what is it called? Indeed, oh, really, yeah. I was like no way. And Radford too. I applied for both Radford and Kaiser. And then Kaiser called me literally the next day when can we do an interview? So this was literally last July, like a week before school started, and you never taught before. I. I mean, I've done like teacher assisting, but I never taught, not high school oh wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So then I, I got the interview. I went to Kaiser later that afternoon after my interview they're like you got the job. I was like, oh my god, I. And then I cried because, like I always wanted to teach culinary. Oh yeah, like that was always something I wanted to teach culinary. That was always something I wanted to do on my bucket list of jobs. So I was like, wow, okay, I'm ready, I don't give a crap if school's starting next week. Whatever I get into the classroom the following day roach infested.
Speaker 2:Oh, for a cooking class.
Speaker 1:So now we know kaiser get roaches I know castle get yeah but it was like no one touched the classroom for like three months. So I get in there they scatter. I go in there. I'm like I did a bun and I start scrubbing and then I wait. My one of my teacher friends was like have your students clean it. I was like oh, that's lesson one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah I get in, I start very intimidating going into a classroom of like cause I taught 10th through 12th graders. Oh my God, I haven't been in a high school in like 20 years. Yeah, the students, they instantly welcome me. I bribe them with cookies, I bake them chocolate cookies, smart, and it worked. And they, they did it for like just like one cookie. I was like, okay, let's do this. So, yeah, good to know so how was teaching?
Speaker 2:did like, do they give you a curriculum you got to follow, or you could just come up with whatever you wanted.
Speaker 1:I was winging it week by week. I'm not gonna lie. Um no, they didn't give me a curriculum. They gave me a guide, like hey, you can use this if you want. But they didn't give me any resources and they gave me a very minimal budget, which is to be expected with doe, but I didn't. I was just so happy to be there and, like, have this opportunity and I put a lot of love and my own money into that, you know that whole year, but it was so well worth it and I think I learned a lot about myself teaching, because it's a lot when you are thrown into this, this world. I didn't get a teacher certification, like I didn't go to school to be a teacher. I went to school to make a diet.
Speaker 1:So it was weird, but like combining my nutrition with my culinary background. I just had to remember what did I learn when I went to KCC all those years ago and I kind of just built off of that and it worked. Like that's super cool. It got better and better, like more efficient, more clean. The students got better at cooking, more confident.
Speaker 2:It was just yeah, it worked out see, that's the stuff people gotta teach in schools. I mean, you learn history and all this other stuff that you don't remember, but cooking is something, is a life skill you'll need for your whole life. I think that. And banking, they should teach how to do your finances.
Speaker 2:That should be something that they how to invest or how to like that kind of stuff, life skills that you're gonna need. I don't need to know who fought World War 2, you know what I mean. Like it's not gonna kind of stuff, life skills that you're gonna need. I don't need to know who fought world war ii, you know, I mean like it's not gonna change my life in the future, but anyway, um, what is one? What is the craziest things that happen in your class?
Speaker 1:because you get some moknalo boys in there trying to cook like something must be going nuts oh my gosh, it was because I was in a classroom with knives, like some of the boys make trouble, like what you say. They got a little crazy. Um, I handled it, but, um, yeah, it was always entertaining. Um, never a dull moment. I even ran like an unofficial soup kitchen during lunch to feed the kids, because a lot of them put on fourth school lunch. So I'm like, okay, I'll just bring whatever I've left at home that's going to. You know, I'm not going to use it. And I'm like, okay, students, here's your mystery basket. Oh, like, chopped, we would take turns cooking meals for like maybe like 10 to 15 students that would pop in during my lunch and like, yeah, they would cook, or I would cook, we would take turns. And then, yeah, they'd all clean. I'd be like, hey, you're gonna eat lunch in my class, you better clean.
Speaker 2:And then they did, oh nice they must have enjoyed you as a teacher, for sure. So you stopped kind of teaching. Now, right, you moved on to something else.
Speaker 1:So I recently started my job with the Culinary Institute of America, so I'm working as a chef consultant with them.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, you sound like, sound like what Kanye girl with ambition?
Speaker 1:oh too much. Sometimes like I overload myself that's.
Speaker 2:That's kind of cool. How? How do you find time to do all your Instagram and influencer stuff?
Speaker 1:Thankfully I'm part time, so when my kids are at school and I'm not working, I'll try to squeeze it in. Or if I'm making dinner, I'll try to tie it into whatever I'm cooking, to make it into a video. Or if I'm baking something for, like, friends or whatever, I'll make it into a video.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's cool. How did you know that you were comfortable in front of the camera?
Speaker 1:I okay, this is kind of funny when I was living in LA I moved with my gay best friend so we moved from here to LA and we started a YouTube channel. This was back in like the beginning, like the baby YouTube days. So we used to just start doing skits and stuff and, um, at one point we were like number 99 beauty guru in the world. Oh really, we were like going somewhere and then me and him had a falling out and he's a channel.
Speaker 2:Oh so we can't go look at it now. No, it's gone, oh no oh, that worked.
Speaker 1:I'm glad because it it was cringe. Um, I actually didn't make videos for the longest time. And then I met Chef Kale at that Culinary Institute of America class last September. He said, hey, mari, you got to do social media, it'll help you take off. Because I was telling him about my business and he said, yeah, just do it, just start, you got to start somewhere. So then I did and he helped me out in the beginning, and him and Stephen, they played a huge role in why my account started to grow. They both gave me so much recipe Like what you're making this week, how does this look? What could I do better? Like we always help each other with that, so I'm very happy to have them. They're like my big brother.
Speaker 2:That's so cool. They are as advertised, like I had both of them on my show and, yeah, I got to. When Stefan came to Whiskey Smoke for the collaboration he did with Corey, I went seeing Kanye. I'm like, okay, I'm going to meet him in person. And he was as advertised, all aloha, full of love and open.
Speaker 1:And he was excited to see me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like, yeah, those guys are super cool and Chef Kale is as silly as he is off camera and, yeah, both those guys are super cool people and they are definitely the definition of Aloha. Yeah, it's cool. I got to meet him in person because, same thing, it was just DMs. Hey man, I see what you're doing. Uh, I would wonder if you and he was all about it and the time difference. He stayed up late up there and came on my show and, yeah, somebody had a lot of a lot of love for their. Those guys are cool.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, I want to take a short break from our show to shout out IREP Detail Supply. They're one of our sponsors. They're your one-stop shop superstore for everything you need to detail your vehicle. They have a store Temple Valley Shopping Center. They also have one in Vegas. You can go on their website, irepdetailsupplycom. If you use promo code ATBPODUPONCHECKOUT, you'll get 15% off your entire order. If I were you, I'll go to the store. They got a lot of cool stuff there and their staff is very knowledgeable and they'll explain to you everything you'll need or whatever answer whatever questions you have about how to detail your car. So give them a look. Iripdetailsupplycom. Aloha, you seem naturally like kind of in your element in front of the camera. I wanted to ask you do you edit your own stuff, or how does the process work?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I edit everything. I am probably my harshest critic, so I am very meticulous when I'm editing my videos, especially like getting the right shots of the food, the lighting. What do you use? You know, to be honest, I've been using my phone to make all my videos. Stefan did give me a camera, but I haven't been able to use it because my computer doesn't have enough storage. I'm just rolling with my iPhone 16 and she gets the job done, and I use CapCut and it works.
Speaker 2:That's insane. It's crazy to me to think how, like a few years ago, nobody would have that technology to do that, and especially when we were younger. Like there's, like editing a video, there's no, I wouldn't even fathom how to do it and we could do it, like at a red light waiting for your. It's crazy, yeah, that's insane. So everything you do is on your phone, then that's that's insane. That's that's. People are building brands just with that kind of technology. And I do love your innovative way to cook. I've seen two that were just I'm Korean and your bibimbap pizza. I just was thinking, how did anybody come up with that? Because, like you said on the video, like the best part of that is the crunchy rice. But how did you even think like, oh, I'm going to make a pizza out of that?
Speaker 1:I think just getting inspiration from other food cooking content creators Like Stefan made some crispy onigiri spam waffle and I'm like, oh, I've seen them play off of that. So then I talked to him and, like we always brainstorm with each other. So I was like I'm gonna make a pizza with the rice. He's like what. I'm like let me try. And it was so good, like the crispy bits of the creamy gochujang, and then I put gruyere cheese and I broiled it. Oh my gosh, it was so good with gogi so how do you come up with these ideas?
Speaker 2:because you incorporate a lot of different things with even your baking, and so that's what got me hooked on stefan's videos. It's like what, how do you, even just in your head, just be like, oh, I'm gonna do this? I'm like, does it make sense?
Speaker 1:but it works I think just I'm an art person, like in high school I was the artsy kid I did like painting and I also played music for 16 years, like I played piano. So I'm almost like I'm very creative in that aspect. So the way my mind works is like whenever I come up with a dish, I'm like composing it. So you find the base and you're like, okay, what will make sense with that base? Like pick a protein and what sauce can balance that protein? Or like just like creating like a song, basically so finding the different elements that work together, and then you can create whatever. Like I could come up with the most wackiest dish if you give me like five ingredients and I'll just turn it out because it's just finding the balance, like balancing flavors, the textures, um, and then yeah, temperature, acidity, all of that, oh, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Have you ever made something and was like, oh no, this isn't it like something just?
Speaker 1:there's a lot of flops. That's why I don't post every day.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm gonna make a video today and they'll say oh no, I cannot post this yeah, that's happened many times super cool. What kind of things are you gonna try in the future?
Speaker 1:you know, I just want to continue to highlight our local ingredients. Um, it's honestly grown in like my passion in supporting local farmers and promoting local ingredients as much as I can. So I just want to make more recipes utilizing what we have here. So, like I work with sumida farms recently and then I turned it into a mojo sauce which is like a latin chimichurri, it's like with citrus, and I used the sumida farms watercress and it like really made my chicken pop. I was like, wow, this is delicious. Like you don't need to just use cilantro, use what we have here, like watercress.
Speaker 2:I've seen that video it's crazy because I've seen that video and I know exactly the farm in by um, pro um, by pro ridge. Right, you go more down, it has that little hut. Yeah the hut, there's nothing. Oh oh, you got really got to go in there. But I make pork watercress so I like watercress, but how you made that sauce it looked refreshing like oh, that might that, that might taste super good and they have a lot of farmers. Markets in hawaii is so diverse, we have a whole bunch of different kind of ingredients. But do you ever sell your, your um creations?
Speaker 1:no, I actually don't. I only give it to friends and family. That's not fair. When are you selling? I might do some pop-ups with friends. I do want to do a pop-up restaurant one day, because that would be really fun.
Speaker 2:It's definitely something for the future? Yeah, because you can't just put all that stuff on Instagram and nobody can get it like everybody wants to try, I guarantee I do want.
Speaker 1:Maybe, like if I could do a night market in kaneohe because it's close to home, I'd be down.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll remember you said that and then when you do, I'll definitely be there, I'll let you know. Yeah, I think the innovativeness is probably what catches people the most and because of that you got invited to all kind of different tv stuff and um, how's being on tv, and especially competing on tv?
Speaker 1:oh I it. I don't know like it unleashed something in me that I just want to do more TV stuff. I love like showcasing you know my passion on TV so I can cook for people and they love what I make or they enjoy it. Or if I get feedback, I'm happy because I'm able to show my love on a plate. And I think the hardest part about competing on live tv is there's no redos, you gotta just go with it like option scraps.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, our first season we only had 15 minutes to make the appetizer and no joke it was to the t, other than when you have to grab the ingredients and put in the basket, that's, that's it. They pause it just so you can grab it and then it's go time. So that's like the hardest part is no, like you can't redo anything oh that's crazy, and you were picked fan favorite for the whole thing.
Speaker 2:That's cool because if people are voting and they've been watching and honestly, my dad is the one that like like you the most and I was thinking like, oh, that's kind of cool, but that means your personality is coming across on camera, and especially if if it's um, in a competition sense. So I think maybe what if you were on like chopped or like the big ones that I would love to, you would get nervous. Were you nervous before?
Speaker 1:like during oh yeah, of course, like I couldn't even eat breakfast, like I was nervous and they like bought all like breakfast burritos and stuff and I was like I'm too nervous to eat. But, um, I would totally go on chapter bigger competition if I can make it past the whole. I don't know what is it?
Speaker 2:the casting director's final cut I think you've got a chance. You're personable and like you can cook, that would be, or or like the baking ones or those you never know. Yeah, it's weird Cause my daughter loves watching those shows. So I ended up watching it and I had Sam Choi on my show and he talked about chopped and he was a contestant and he said it's pretty legit Cause I was like Brad, he really timing you, is it? Do you really not know what the ingredients are? And he's like it's pretty legit and you think you could do that on the fly, like just someone, basket full of stuff and just okay, go.
Speaker 1:I would love it. I feel like I think that's the competitive side of me I am always down for like some type of cooking challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, competitiveness yeah, that's definitely a Kaneohe girl of me. I am always down for, like some type of cooking challenge. Yeah, competitiveness yep, that's definitely a Kaneohe girl yeah, I was trying to compete like that like so in your future, what would be like your goals? It seems like you change your goals kind of often. I'm wondering if you have any long-term ones for the future.
Speaker 1:You know I've pondered this a lot. I think what would make me happy is opening up some type of non-profit cooking class for our community. I feel like if anyone can have access, like of all ages, to these cooking classes, baking classes and highlighting our local farmers, so bringing in their produce, or local food manufacturers and bringing in their products, and just supporting local all around while giving these people the essential skills of cooking, that would be a dream come true. So, so if I could ever get an investor, let's make it happen.
Speaker 2:I'd be down to take a cooking class At least now as an adult, I won't hit anybody and I can talk to the teacher. I think I would, I would, I would, yeah, I would. I always wonder I don't know if they have it in Hawaii, where they have those date night cooking classes Kind of like from the movie Hitch, where you bring your wife and you guys cook together and learn. I don't know, do they have that in Hawaii? They do.
Speaker 1:I guess it's not promoted as much, but there's a place called Hana Kitchens. I guess it's not promoted as much, but there's a place called Hana kitchens and they'll bring in guest chefs to feature whatever cooking class, and it's really popular with couples. So I would love to do that one day too.
Speaker 2:Oh, that'd be super cool. If you do, I'll go take that class.
Speaker 1:I'll let you know my wife.
Speaker 2:Yeah, would you ever consider having your own local cooking show?
Speaker 1:You know I would. I I need to get more efficient at being on camera. But I've been meeting so many people Like I just met Lanai recently and I've watched him on the TV and heard him on the radio for years so like yeah, I could learn a lot from him.
Speaker 2:I think you'd match doing a cooking show and they have. You could do another YouTube channel and start off that way. I don't know, I think that you're kind of more drawn to being in the public. I think that's gonna be where maybe you'll shine the most and, honestly, if you could start getting your baking stuff out where people try it, that's gonna be a huge selling point, because once you taste it because I see it on instagram I'm like oh, I really wish I could have that right now.
Speaker 1:Like well, I can, just we can meet up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll break my diet for that thing.
Speaker 1:Like a couple of those videos, yup.
Speaker 2:Well, we've been going for about an hour. I definitely appreciate you taking time. Where can people find you on social media?
Speaker 1:So on Instagram and TikTok, I'm BiteLogic, so at BiteLogic.
Speaker 2:Where'd you come up with that name? That's kind of a cool name I think that's the nerd in me.
Speaker 1:I love science and I wanted to create my business around helping science and I wanted to create my business around helping food businesses with their nutrition. So I'm like, hmm, something short, that's not too complicated to say so. I'm like bite logic. There's logic behind every bite, so that's where it came from oh, that's super cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I appreciate you taking time out of your day. Um, I definitely wouldn't mind having you back and if you make it big on food network and all of those kind of platforms, just remember me and definitely come back of course.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. This has been fun talking story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely enjoy talking to you, especially now that I know that you're a Kaneohe girl. That makes me happy. I love watching people from where we're from, just kind of thrive and change the dynamic, and I love seeing Kane, love seeing people just succeed. It makes me happy right on. Well, shakas for the cameras. We're out. Shout out to the artist group network aloha, aloha.
