Welcome to Nalo Farmhouse Kitchen: The Blog. If this were an episode of a show it might be titled, “The One Where We Survive The Holidays”. The full house of family, surprises, giving, receiving, private cheffing for five families, catering holiday parties, hosting both of my grown daughter’s birthdays and checking off all the special request boxes, lots of time with mom, an overflowing heart, and the inevitable exhaustion in the aftermath; it’s all the best things of life.
Through all of the intensity of the holidays, we launched some new merch, got beautiful reviews from customers, gave thanks that the children are shining, grandma is healthy, and pieces of life are falling into place.
And now, the new year is here, and with it comes the shiny new beginnings, the sparkling potential of what lies ahead, the dazzling beauty of the present moment, and also an introspective look back in time. Seventeen years of Swigs and Grinds have accumulated into the most interesting collection of experiences, meals, relationships, recipes, expansion, and collaboration.
“You should write a blog”, my friend Christine told me after my recent divorce was finalized seven months after I moved into what would become known as the “Country House” in 2008.
“A what?”, I asked. She went on to share with me a handful of her favorite blogs, none of which I had heard of, in fact I didn’t even really understand the concept. What would I write about? Who would find whatever I had to say interesting? How does it even work? I poked around and discovered that the concept and the term had already been around for over a decade, “creating an online space for the sharing of personal musings and links” declared my Google search. I liked the sound of that.
The Country House was my new sanctuary, a forrest green plantation house built in the 1930’s. This old house with its six-pane windows and glass doorknobs and pink (yes, PINK) kitchen opened its arms to me and my children during the most tumultuous time in our lives. I planted a garden and built a pergola and I did the only thing I was sure I could do in that moment: I fed my people and created a new home.
My babies then, were 5, 7 and 9 years old. My photography business had been relocated to the downstairs unit of the house and I found myself working form home and cooking a LOT. Because writing, photography and food have always been my biggest passions, the idea of a blog began to twinkle in the back of my mind until one afternoon with journals piled around me on my bed and a cursor blinking at me from the laptop, “Swigs and Grinds” popped to the surface of my thoughts. Within an hour I had created an account on Blogger and began to write.
Five years later I found myself with a little cafe, a bit of an identity crisis, and a constant stream of doubts questioning not only my decision to take this on, but very much wether I was even qualified for the job. I stumbled and bumbled my way through a grand opening with things burning in the back of the pizza oven, an overflowing grease trap, and my now middle school aged children by my side.
Another five years went by, filled with new relationships and connections, a bit more confidence, some life changing travels to Europe and Mexico, an incredible collection of new clients as well as previous photography clients who, at one time had hired me to photograph their children, now hired me to cook for their special occasions.
After growing up around my mother’s family consisting of ten children who grew up on a farm in Minnesota and later relocated to a tiny lumber mill community in the High Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern California, and then spending much of my childhood around my parents butcher shop and later their restaurant, food was very much entwined in who I was and would become.
However, I wanted to be an artist and live by the ocean. My mind and heart were cracked open after moving to Maui a month after my high school graduation in 1991. It was there that I met the man I would marry and go on to have three beautiful children with and although the marriage ended after sixteen years together, the lessons of reinvention were only beginning to teach me their wisdom.
After five years at the cafe, I moved on and took on a small role in a neighborhood Italian restaurant, creating weekly wine pairing dinners and learning from a hilarious crew of kitchen pirates. Until Covid shut us down.
By then my babies were 17, 19, and 21 years old and all back home to ride out the uncertainty of that time, and so I found myself back in my kitchen, this time a much smaller one in a Kaimuki cottage, again doing the only thing I knew I could do in that tumultuous time: feed my people.
As the world opened up again, I found myself in a new little corner of the food industry, leaning into catering and private chef services and becoming the grazing table lady. And just like that, another five years have passed. The babies have all grown up and are now 23, 25, and soon to be 27 (!!). My daughters have returned from their college years in California, while my son is thriving in Colorado.
Meanwhile, I have settled in after a move to the Waimanalo farmhouse of my dreams, which my kids call the “Country House 2.0”, which contains my fantasy kitchen (and no, it’s not pink, thankfully), and yes, it even has a pot filler faucet above the 6 burner Viking stove, causing me to pinch myself and marvel at the way life unfolds, the way it feels like just a blink ago I was the age that my children are now, just stepping onto the very first stones of the path of reinvention.
Now, in this shiny new month of this sparkling new year, I walk through the Nalo Farmhouse Kitchen and I feel the circle complete. I am home, in my body, connected to this magical land, doing the only thing I am sure I can do: feed my people and create a new home.
The blogosphere is still strange to me and I’m not trying to join the corporate advertising system. I am just a lady living a life around sustainable food systems, farming, and doing what my girl Joan Didion taught me to do: “see enough and write it all down…”
And so here we are. Me, still unsure who, if anyone besides my sister, even reads my posts, yet eager to share a little glimpse into this life of food and family and the business we have built, now headquartered in the Nalo Farmhouse Kitchen, and to connect again through writing and photography. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you will return and become a part of this community where we will share recipes and stories about the ways food connects us.
Cheers to seventeen years of eating, drinking, and being merry - these have been the best years of my life and I am so looking forward to this shiny new year!