Family Ingredients
Thursday, August 22 at 9:00 pm

Family Ingredients is an innovative show that blends food, travel and genealogy. It follows the origins of a featured guest's favorite meal - and the family roots associated with it. It showcases Hawaii's multicultural communities, as well as the far-off lands of ancestors who brought their recipes to Hawaii.

"When people talk about cooking shows, people instantly think that we're cooking a dish in a kitchen," said Executive Producer Heather Haunani Giugni, creator of Family Ingredients. "We are definitely following a dish, but it's so multi-layered. That's what makes it all so fun. That Japanese dish that everybody takes for granted, like raw egg on rice, is not as simple as it looks - it has a huge history to it."

One essential layer to the Family Ingredients project is the team behind it, said Giugni. Hawaii food activist and advertising consultant Dan Nakasone is the show's producer, while filmmaker Ty Sanga (Stones) directs. Ed Kenney, head chef at TOWN Restaurant in Kaimuki and a local sustainability champion, hosts the show.

The pilot features another renowned Hawaii chef, Alan Wong. Through a family recipe, Wong traces his roots.

The show begins in his hometown of Wahiawa, Oahu, where the oldest tofu manufacturer in the U.S., Honda Tofu Factory, is based. It's also the home of Petersons' Upland Farm, a 100-year-old egg farm.

Wong and Kenney travel to Japan, where Wong was born. They tour Tokyo's markets and farms, visit legendary sushi chef Jiro Ono's restaurant, then meet several organic farmers in Tokyo's rural out- skirts. Much like the family businesses found in Wa- hiawa, they come across an organic farming couple in Japan who grow produce and raise chickens on a 400-year-old farm that's been passed down through the generations.

"The idea is to bring our communities together – to have communities outside of Hawaii look at us as home, and for us to see those communities as home, as well," said Giugni. "I think that this show will resonate across the country."

Hawaiian Airlines, Pacific Islanders in Commu- nications, HMSA and Matson are the sponsors of Family Ingredients.