More specifically, his mission is to find something worthwhile to do with the by-products of fishin', namely the bones.
See, you're sitting there thinking you know just about everything there is to know about Hawaii and you had no idea that 15 million pounds of perfectly nutritious fish bones are either thrown away or turned into fertilizer each year.
Deese knows this kind of stuff. He's a fish freak. He has a master's in business and a bachelor's in zoology and he has been working for the Hawaii Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism's Ocean Resource Branch (try to fit all that on a business card, bub) for 10 years.
Now, aside from his "offishal" work with the state, he has been pushing a radical idea to put fish bones on the menus of local charity agencies.
Deese's dream is to see the Institute for Human Services "Peanut Butter Ministry" become the "Fish Bone Soup Ministry."
"Fish soup is a lot healthier than peanut butter," Deese told me, causing an inadvertent gag reflex caused by my extreme dislike of anything fishy. As I've said before, I love the entire concept of fishing. I have a little problem because fish tastes like fish and not, say, chicken, like every other critter in the animal world.
"Aren't people going to think you're nuts?" I asked in my most sensitive and sincere voice. "I mean, you got some guys who are down on their luck. They are homeless, out of work and you want to stick some fish head soup in front of them. Are they going to go for that?"
"There's a percentage who will like it and some who will abide by it," he said.
And then, I suspect, there's a percentage that will hop an airplane to San Francisco where they at least get something edible like Rice-A-Roni.
Not everyone feels the way I do.
Deese has been talking to both fish processors and people in food relief agencies. Both sides have sort of taken the bait.
THE fish processors pay 2,000 bucks a month to have fish bones hauled away by fertilizer manufacturers. If fish bones suddenly became a hot entree on the local relief scene, the processors could give the bones away.
Under Deese's plan, the bones would go to a local food bank, which would distribute them to relief agencies.
The problem is that most of the cooks think fish bones belong in the sports pages. Wrapped in the sports pages, that is.
"We need to show them that fish bones are very nutritional and how to cook with them," he said.
And that brings us to the point of this whole column: Deese wants you fish bone connoisseurs out there to send him your favorite recipes. He wants to put out a small cook book showing how yummy and versatile fish bones can be.
Personally, I find the whole project just this side of revolting. But Deese says fish bones have always been used for cooking in certain cultures, like in the bouillabaisses of France and fish soups of Portugal.
"The idea I'd like people to consider is that we are throwing away something valuable," the fish flaunter said.
So, if you don't want to see Deese's vision flounder (gotta have at least one fish pun in there), send him some nifty ways to cook up batches of bones. (Howard Deese; 45-353 Namoku St.; Kaneohe, Hi.; 96744). If he likes your recipe, he'll stick it in his little cookbook and, who knows, maybe you'll become famous and end up whipping up some kind of Fish Bone Fricassee on the Cooking Channel.
I'm going to reserve judgement on the matter. Until Deese can come up with a type of fish that tastes like a teriyaki cheeseburger with fries, I'm not hooked.
