TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Food Network will celebrate "Hawaiian Holidays" featuring local businesses and families in an hour-long program to run Dec. 16, 22 and 23. ‘Hawaiian Holiday’
on the Food NetworkAgnes' Portuguese Bake Shop, Indigo Eurasian Cuisine and many merchants in Chinatown share the limelight with Native Hawaiians from Niihau. The uninitiated will also learn of a cacao farm on the Big Island.
Audience potential is huge as Food Network is distributed to 66 million U.S. households. Its programming is also seen in Canada, Australia, France, South Korea and the Philippines.
There will be no worry about some annoying mainland host unable to pronounce their way out of a kau-kau tin.
The familiar countenance of the show's host belongs to Kuualoha Taylor, former weathercaster at KGMB TV.
Shooting for the Christmas special was done before Taylor left Hawaii for her new job and "new" on-air moniker -- "Aloha Taylor" -- at KFMB TV San Diego. "It's just a lot easier to say and still holds the meaning of my name," she said.
The show "highlights our unique culture and food, and the way different ethnicities celebrate the holidays."
Agnes' Portuguese Bake Shop Vice President and co-owner Non DeMello has seen the finished product. "It touches lightly on historical roots," he said, and depicts contemporary ways. "It's like if I went to my auntie's house this is what (Christmas) would be."
Indigo chef and Vice President Glenn Chu led the Food Network crew on a tour of Chinatown markets to show the various fresh ingredients that go into special local dishes, Taylor said. The show also visits Japanese families for traditional foods and takes a trip to a farm on the Big Island where Hawaiian chocolate is grown, processed and shipped out.
Preparation of the luau on Kauai by Native Hawaiians from Niihau -- shown speaking the official language of the "Forbidden Island" -- was "an awesome experience," Taylor said.
Other than that, watching the preview copy she received "made me a little homesick because we go to a few different islands and it's so picturesque," she said.
This morning it was 47 degrees where she lives, but "I love feeling the change of the season," she said.
Hawaiian Holidays airs on the Food Network Dec. 16 at 4 and 7 p.m., Dec. 22 at 11 a.m., and Dec. 23 at 6 a.m.
Back at the radar
Taylor's work toward broadcast meteorology certification has paid off in her new job, covering oddities such as "hail storms with soft-ball sized hail," she said.Still, she reports on Hawaii weather every day and knew as we spoke that it was raining on her former stomping grounds.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com