Lilikoʻi, li hing mui and macadamia nut.

“Totally Hawaiʻi,” Relle Lum tells judge Graham Elliot, as she makes her lilikoʻi bars on the Season 2 premiere of “The Great American Recipe,” a cooking competition show on PBS that celebrates the different cultures and flavors that make up America.

“People from all different walks of life, all different ethnicities, come and compete to create The Great American Recipe, and the precipice of this whole thing is that America is like this melting pot, which is totally Hawaiʻi, right?”

Lum, 35, was born and raised on Maui where she’s a nurse practitioner by day, a self-taught home cook during her spare time and a full-time mom raising two adventurous eaters.

And to her thousands of followers, she’s known as @KeepingItRelle who teaches hundreds of recipes that are meant to be easy to make and tasty to eat. From poke tacos and shrimp tempura udon, to mochi waffles and ube cheesecake – she’s got it all covered.

Meet the contestants on Season 2 of “The Great American Recipe” on PBS. (Courtesy of PBS)

“You know in Hawaiʻi, everything is potluck, right?”

Lum’s family would always bring dessert, and each time someone would ask for the recipe. The requests came so often that she decided to create a place where everyone could find what they were looking for. In 2019, she built her website, learned how to take photos and edit videos, and now she’s someone who even gets recognized on the streets of Japan.

“And then it kind of blew up into something a little bit bigger than I ever thought it would. I thought it’d be my family and friends, and then now, there’s people from halfway across the globe looking at my things,” said Lum. “I’m just like, wow. And it’s still very, very humbling.”

Her kids think it’s the funniest thing. “Do they think you’re so cool?” they ask her.

Well, her 73,000-plus followers on Instagram seem to think so! And it’s even where she got the attention of recruiters for the show who sent her a direct message. Her hard work has certainly paid off.

While competition is second-nature for Lum who grew up playing sports, having cameras in your face while you’re trying to race a ticking clock AND make something delicious is a whole other ballgame.

“You’re not in your normal elements,” said Lum. “You got to be able to transition and just make things work, even though it’s not necessarily how you want it to be… I put a lot of pressure on myself, I think, to do well. I just really wanted to make Hawaiʻi proud and my family, my kids.”

Thankfully, she said, it’s not a cutthroat competition. There was a general sense of camaraderie in the kitchen as they all learned about each other’s cultures.

“These people brought in ingredients that I’ve never heard of,” said Lum, “and I thought that was really, really cool.”

It was also a great opportunity for Lum to educate people about Hawaiʻi, including the judges.

“I mean, they’re professional chefs, right? So their palate is amazing, and they know a lot of things, but some of the things I had to teach them about… so that you don’t get, like, dinged for something because they think it should be another way,” Lum explained.

Maui native Relle Lum showcases her lilikoʻi bars to the judges in Episode 1 of “The Great American Recipe” on PBS. (Courtesy of PBS)

There’s a difference between Hawaiian food and local food. Putting pineapple on your pizza doesn’t make it a Hawaiian pizza. And Hawaiʻi is not a tropical paradise where people dance hula all day and drink out of Tiki mugs.

“So there’s a lot of education, which I’m super happy for this platform because there’s a lot of misconceptions about Hawaiʻi,” said Lum. “I think that was cool to be able to tell people these things because they don’t know.”

And what better way to educate people than being on a national cooking competition show?

With her platform, Lum hopes she can continue to perpetuate Hawaiʻi’s culture through her food. She has traditional recipes for kalua pig, kūlolo and haupia, as well as modernized versions. These are just a few examples of recipes that reflect the different cultures that make Hawaiʻi what it is today. And if you take a look at her own background — it’s a mixed plate!

Relle Lum has hundreds of recipes on her website. (Courtesy of Relle Lum)

“I’m mixed, you know, so I’m Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, pōpolo. So I have a well-versed background,” said Lum, “but you know, I’m not Filipino, so when I cook Filipino food, which is very popular here in Hawaiʻi, I always get a little bit nervous.”

Lum always wants to be respectful when she’s making a dish that’s outside of her culture, but she also wants to remind people that everybody has their own way of doing things, and this is just how she does hers. If you don’t like it, that’s fine!

“That’s the best thing about recipes is you can change it,” she said. “If you don’t like that ingredient. Leave it out… You like it? Add more.”

The ultimate goal is to inspire more people to cook, something she describes as a lost skill, and she gets messages all the time from her fans thanking her for showing them that it’s not so hard.

“I tell people all the time, I’m not a chef, I’m just a mom that likes to cook,” said Lum. “And if I can do it, you can do it.”

Tune in for the Season 2 premiere of “The Great American Recipe” on Monday, June 19, at 9 p.m. Hawaiʻi time. Lum will be joined by cooks from across the country as they prepare for this week’s challenges: creating something that defines who they are and where they came from. Let’s see how the judges like Lum’s lilikoʻi bars! Click here to watch a sneak peek.