(instrumental music) Kalaʻi Miller / Home is Here Aloha, I’m Kalaʻi Miller.

Here in Hawaiʻi, food is such a big part of our culture.

It brings us together, it’s comforting and when it’s good – you can’t get any better.

Here at Fête in Downtown Honolulu, Chef Robynne Maii is trying to bring all of those feelings about food into one place and it’s paying off.

In 2022, she was named one of the best chefs in the country, but as she tells us, her path to success wasn’t a simple one.

Robynne Maii / Chef Owner of Fête My journey with cooking began at home.

Both my parents are very, very good cooks they have different styles.

My mom is a recipe hogger, so she likes to clip recipes.

We grew up with Gourmet magazine and Bon Appetit and Sunset, and all those great magazines where you clip the recipes and you put it in a binder.

My dad likes to be inspired by recipes, but he's much more like free flowing and kind of just creative in the kitchen.

I loved cooking from a very young age.

But having Asian parents that idea of pursuing a career in culinary arts just wasn't in the cards for me until I, until my senior year when I really started thinking about like, oh, no, what am I going to do?

But I saw a brochure in the career office for culinary school and I, it really resonated I thought, Oh, I would love to do that.

That sounds great.

That sounds fun.

Of course, I had to tell my parents that I wanted to go to culinary school and they weren't happy.

And then they said well, you need to find a way to fund it yourself.

So, I started doing research and then quickly realized how expensive culinary school is.

And so, I came back home to go to Kapiʻolani Community College where the program is very, very good and very affordable.

And I was so captivated by the content, everything from the sanitation, to garmache to Asian cookery, to international cookery, and then to the all the everything with the baking and the pastry.

All of it was really, really fun and interesting.

I went to grad school in New York City in Food Studies thinking that I would become a food writer, or I would become a restaurant critic, or write articles for Gourmet Magazine, and Bon Appetit.

During that time, I met my husband, and we fell in love over food and and wine and cocktails.

And, and I think most important entertaining friends at home.

We just loved gathering our closest friends and family and cooking for them and having sort of very, very relaxed languid meals at our house.

And so, it was during that time where we really started talking about opening a restaurant Chuck Bussler / Fête Managing Partner Robynne and I came up with the idea for Fete.

It had been sort of baking and congealing in our minds for a period of time.

It was sort of loosely based on dinner parties that we threw.

Restaurants that we worked at.

The concept of having a dinner party or a fete.

Inviting people in, but also based around a neighborhood place that we wanted to have food, drink, cocktails, wine, all that centered around whatever is going on in your day.

Robynne Maii / Chef Owner of Fête Opening up Fete was a very sort of, not straight path.

When you're raised with Asian parents with, when education is like paramount, right.

So, like, get a good education, get a good job, get married, have kids, buy a house, and then and then it just continues.

But that didn't happen that way.

Life never happens the way that you that you want it to happen.

We really, really wanted to have a family and we weren't able to.

So, once we decided to move on from from having our own children.

Really, the idea of Fete became, like more viable and important to us.

Fete is a new American restaurant.

We like to source as many local ingredients as possible.

But we also very much treat the restaurant like our house.

We cook as if you are coming over to the house.

We cook what we crave and what we love to eat.

And we hope that when people come that they enjoy it as much as we do.

Chuck Bussler / Fête Managing Partner In my mind, what separates us from other restaurants, I would say the collection of our crew.

We empower people to do the things that they're good at.

The thing that Robynne and I and then also chef Emily try to work with is finding that that right spot for each person to shine.

It's rare a restaurant has two partners who are working a lot like Robynne and I do but also to have Emily, who is such an integral part of our system, who is of like mindset of that it has to be done right.

It doesn't have to be done perfect.

You just have to try the best you can.

And to see them work together, it's almost like they got two mamas in the house, I think is what my wife will say sometimes.

Robynne Maii / Chef Owner of Fête I always tell people in order to aptly describe my relationship and friendship and love for Emily Iguchi, we need a podcast.

It gives me chicken skin.

It's quite magical.

It actually makes me very emotional talking about it.

Our relationship and how much she means to to me and Chuck and also the restaurant and also the staff.

It's uncanny and it's, it's like, it's really, really, it's kismet.

It really is.

So, I love her and I mean, even when I say those words, it doesn't even feel like it has enough weight for how, how special she is to, to me and to the restaurant.

Emily Iguchi / Executive Chef of Fête I loved Robynne when I first met her.

You know, after it's been six years, and I think definitely we can finish each other sentences.

And she knows when the cooks say something that I didn't actually say that, that she knows what I was going to say or what I really meant.

Robynne Maii / Chef Owner of Fête One of the reasons why Emily and I bonded over working together in the kitchen is this idea of mentoring people.

Because I think that we have a lot to share.

And it always really just rubbed me the wrong way when chefs would say, well, I, I’ll share the recipe with you but then I'm gonna have to kill you.

Because I just don't think that that is what makes good cooking.

There's no such thing as a perfect recipe.

It really does take care, dedication, presence to cook well on a daily basis.

And I think that people who covet and, and really sort of like, believe that this one recipe is so special that they can't share it with anyone that well, what's the point of cooking then?

Really what what is the point.

So, for us, it's about developing cooks who are curious, and who really, really, really love the process.

Emily Iguchi / Executive Chef of Fête My favorite part of working here is the people that I work with.

It's like family.

It’s nice to be able to help the young, new generation and teach them new skills.

So that's really exciting.

There's always something there's something new every day.

Chuck Bussler / Fête Managing Partner The James Beard award basically is a, an award that is a recognition of culinary skill set, but also it recognizes community outreach.

It recognizes programs you have going for in your restaurant.

It's more holistic than just a good job on the food.

So, in 2022, we were super surprised to be nominated.

I texted my wife, I called her, texted her, called her no response.

So, when I got to work, I walked downstairs, I looked at my wife and I, I'm, I'm like about to burst inside.

And I was like, did you not see your phone and she's like, what happened?

What's going on?

And she thought something bad was happening.

No, we got nominated for a James Beard Award.

And she looks at me sort of matter of factly like okay, I got a lot of prep to do I gotta go back to work.

Robynne Maii / Chef Owner of Fête When we got nominated for the semi-finalists, we were just over the moon, we thought like, okay, that's like enough.

Like, that's enough.

Like we were so so blown away just by getting the getting to the semi-finals.

And then when we got to the finals, I just it was like, almost too much.

It was too much.

I was like, okay, this is like for sure enough.

So we went to Chicago, just sort of as a big celebration for the restaurant.

And so, when we actually did win, that's why I still have, I still don't know what to do, like, and so when people say congratulations, and they say thank you, and they're like looking at me, and I'm like we're super happy.

We're super excited.

But yeah, I still I still think it's amazing.

I think I think I'll always think it's amazing.

And, and one of these days, the true weight and gravity of it all will finally sink in.

And I don't know.

I don't know.

It's so, it's so crazy.

It's so crazy.

We're so happy.

Yeah.

Chuck Bussler / Fête Managing Partner I look up to my wife in so many ways.

She is an organizer.

She is a master of engineering and figuring things out and putting things together.

She's a master of internal internalization to be a better person to manage things better.

But seeing her growth, I feel is has been super rewarding.

And for her to win the James Beard award.

I can't tell you how many times I cried about that.

I was just so happy for her.

But just having this restaurant, having Fete and seeing that person who comes in who enjoys their, their food and their drink and the responses we get from our guests.

That to me is the biggest reward.

Robynne Maii / Chef Owner of Fête We feel very, very privileged every day to do what we do.

Every day, even if I'm tired, even if I'm like angry because of something dumb, as soon as like, I come to work I quickly sort of snap out of it like that because I realize how lucky we are to be doing what we're doing.

Kalaʻi Miller / Home is Here For those of a certain age, you may remember the column in The Honolulu Advertiser called Today’s Thought.

The author was Reverend Paul Osumi.

For more than 35-years, readers resonated with his short writings of encouragment.

After Reverend Osumi’s passing, his son discovered things about his father he never knew, and he wants to share his father’s story and timeless messages.

(instrumental music) Norman Osumi / Rev.

Paul Osumi’s Son We can do anything for one day.

Let us forget yesterday with his mistakes and failures.

Let us not waste our time thinking of tomorrow's burdens.

For one day let us be happy.

For one day let us not hurry, worry, fume or fuss.

Let us be kind, be cheerful, find no fault and live our best today.

I'm Norman Osumi.

I am the son of Reverend Paul Osumi.

My father is, is well known for his Today's Thought that he wrote for the Honolulu Advertiser.

Growing up as a child and all even through after I got married, I didn't really read his articles.

I knew he was writing in the papers.

I knew there were people reading it.

But I really didn't feel that I needed to read his articles.

I didn't get to really understand his articles until after I retired.

And when I started to go back and read his articles, that's when I started to feel he did have a great impact to the people in Hawaiʻi.

I wanted to know about my father's life, because I was told fathers of that generation didn't talk to their children about their life.

And that's true with my father.

He hardly talked too much about what his whole life was about.

So, after he passed away and my mother passed away and I started to look into his files.

When I did do all this research, I really felt, he, he had a very difficult time in this life.

But he was over overcome it.

He was born in Hiroshima and he came to Hawaiʻi when he was the age of 14, by himself.

He had a father here who was a cook at Shafter.

The surprising thing is that his father went back to Japan and left him here.

And from my understanding, he never saw his parents again after the father left him here when he was 14 years old.

He had an older brother that had a Japanese saimin restaurant by Aʻala Park side.

And he stayed there for a short while.

After that, he got into Mills Institute for Boys.

And it was a Christian boarding school and he stayed there and that's where he got his high school education.

Mills Institute for Boys combined with the Kawaiahaʻo Seminary for Girls, and now today it is called Mid Pacific Institute.

He did very well in high school.

He was an outstanding student.

He went on to the University of Hawaiʻi here.

He graduated here.

He got married to my mother, and he started to serve Waipahu YMCA with the youth program.

At this point in time, I'm not sure what the reason he did it but they both went to the mainland to Los Angeles, and he attended the University of Southern Cal and he got his master's degree in theology.

Once he got his degree, he came back to Hawaiʻi.

He served first at the Hilo Japanese Christian Church.

Then he went to the Lihue Christian Church in Līhuʻe, Kauaʻi and that's when I was born back then.

And so, I'm a Kauaʻi product.

And at this point in time, this is where the turn of his life.

On December 7, when the war broke out, he was one of the men that were picked up by the government and he was interned on the mainland for during the war period.

He was a great community leader.

People on Kauaʻi just loved him.

They wrote even letters to the government stating that he should be released because they would vouch for him.

The government never responded.

But because he was born in Japan he was well educated, bilingual, and a leader in the community.

He also wrote to the Japanese Consulate.

And I always wondered why he was writing to the Japanese Consulate?

Well back then, the Japanese people that made up about 30% of the people in Hawaiʻi.

When anything happened to the isseis, death or marriage or whatever happened, their family, they wrote to the Japanese Consulate because the Japan government was keeping track of historical records of all the people here.

So, he was writing letters.

And from my understanding, once he wrote letters to the Japanese Consulate that put a red flag to the United States government.

So, he was one of them picked up for those reasons.

He didn't do anything wrong.

And all through his internment, he wrote to the government couple of times, and it's asking them, you might have made a mistake.

What did I do wrong?

Because I he couldn't figure out why he was interned and sent to the mainland.

Of course, the government never responded to his letters.

So, he had to spend the first time in a prisoner of war camp, which was Lordsburg internment camp in New Mexico.

From there, he was able to go to Gila Relocation Camp through a minister, Christian minister that wrote to the government and asked the government if they could parole my father from the prisoner of war camp, internment camp to go to Gila Relocation Camp, where all the various Japanese families on the West Coast were taken besides Manzanar, Tule Lake and all the others.

So my father was able to go there and he was able to now start practicing the church, to help the church and the Christian people that were in, in the relocation camp.

During his stay there he came down with valley fever, which is, it hits your lungs.

It's like a pleurisy he got he got very, very sick.

My mother, my brother, and I were living here with her parents.

This family that was taking care of him, wrote to my mother and said, 'You better come to Gila Relocation Camp because your father is very ill and he may pass away here.'

So, my mother packed my brother and I and we went and we joined him.

So, I was in the relocation camp for about a year.

And he made a comment in one of the newspaper articles he said, he believes that going through that, being sick and helping the people that were desperate in the relocation made him a better minister.

After that he understood things about life.

(instrumental music) He came back to Hawaiʻi after the war, and he served at Waialua Pilgrim Church.

Then he was moved to Ewa Community Church where he served for about nine years.

And from there, he became the minister for Nuʻuanu Congregational Church where he served close to about 18 to 20 years at Nuʻuanu Church.

Back in the late 1950s, eight different faith, faith ministers were allowed to write articles for the Honolulu Advertiser.

The other seven that were writing, they were writing about their theology.

He was not writing about his Christian theology.

He was writing about how people should live their life every day.

And because of that, so many people attached to his articles, and it lasted for about 35 years.

My father passed away in 1996.

He was 90 years old, and he had strokes and the strokes immobilized him and he passed away.

My mother passed away a few years later in 2003.

I didn't realize it until I retired back in 2003, and I started to get involved in all the files that were left behind that he had in his folders.

And I started to read some of those Today's Thoughts.

I started to at that point in time realize that what he was writing in the newspaper for 35 years, did have a lot of impact to us so many people because he was writing to everybody.

Because my father's article touched so many people, the editor or from Fairbanks, Alaska, asked my father.

So, my father was sending his articles to Fairbanks and they were reading it.

Hawaii Hochi which was a Japanese paper in Hawaiʻi during that period time, was also right, printing his articles in Japanese for the Japanese community.

I was surprised that his article even reached people on the mainland.

While going through his files, I read many letters from people from the mainland writing to him.

I have a whole box full of folders for people from not only from the mainland all over from Hawaiʻi, even some of the foreign countries too that came to Hawaiʻi and was reading his articles.

There were people even from the prison here in Hawaiʻi.

They were reading the newspaper, and they needed his advice too.

Although he was not a psychologist, or psychiatrist, he was just a minister.

But because of his articles, they wanted to talk to him and ask him questions about you know, their life and how they should live their life.

Over the 35 years that he wrote, I had to find out, where did he get all of his articles.

He was getting it from everywhere.

Sometimes late at night, he would get up and he got a thought he would write it down.

During the day he had a thought he would write it down.

He took it from life, real life situations where he met people, and what they told him about their ailments or things, he turned it into thoughts, because these people were so encouraging for what they told him about their ailment.

So, he took it from all over books, movies, people he met, things that he just came up with, he just got.

So for 35 years, I was surprised because that amounted to 1000s of thoughts.

He talked about health, he talked about marriage, he talked about work, he talked about death, he talked about it.

He talked, he talked about anything about life.

And you can find an article that he referred to in life in general principles and how to live a meaningful life.

My mother did one thing my in helping my father.

And she kept a perfect record of all of the thoughts that he wrote, from the day one that he started to write these thoughts.

She would clip the his articles, the Today's Thoughts out of the newspaper, and he would paste, she would paste it on an eight and a half by eleven paper, she would date it put the day it was done, the year it was done.

So til today, I have all of my father's thoughts for 35 years.

It's surprising because the problems that we were faced back in the late 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, it's the same type of problems that are occurring today.

That's why I look at his articles and I really feel his articles are timeless.

Growing up with my father there were three things that I think I learned from him.

And the first thing was your health.

He mentioned your health is the most precious thing you have in life.

All the money, all the fame, whatever you have, does not have any meaning if you lose your health.

The second thing is that he kind of mentioned and this is more from, I guess, growing up under him, he always kind of mentioned to me think positively never think negatively.

Always think positively.

When you do things, think on the positives and never say I can't do it, or I won't be able to do it or things in that nature.

Say Yeah, I will do it.

I can do it.

He always felt you have to carry a positive attitude in life.

And the third thing which he didn't really talk to me about, but it was reflected in his ministry is to be a giving person, to help people.

So, those are the three things that I feel my father passed on to me from a father to son.

You know, at my age right now, as I'm getting older, I feel people need help.

I mean, people look toward you know, some kind of guidance and what my father was doing all of his life, helping people writing his Today's Thoughts articles.

He was helping tremendously, because I constantly get people that come up to me and talk to me and tell me that, you know, what he wrote in the paper was so meaningful, so helpful toward them.

And to me, I would like to see that carry on.

Because, like I say it's timeless and I wish I could carry this whole thing on to the next generation and the future generations because what he wrote is so valuable.

That's why I'd like to see it carried on somehow, but I won't be able to carry it on after I pass away.

Kalaʻi Miller / Home is Here Thank you for joining us.

Go to pbshawaii.org for bonus features from this episode, including Reverend Osumi’s ten commandments for a happy marriage.

Plus, the five ingredients Chef Robynne says everyone should have at home.

For Home is Here, I’m Kalaʻi Miller, a hui hou.

I guess we have fish on the menu tonight?

Fresh opakapaka.

Wow there are beautiful.

Look at that.

So gorgeous.

Robynne Maii / Chef Owner of Fête My first food cooking memory was insisting to my grandmother that I wanted to make my own scrambled eggs.

I was four years old.

And um, I was just enthraled by the idea of like whisking, whisking, and then seeing the egg transform in the pan.

There was a stool involved.

There was very much.

I’m very stubborn so I wanted to do it myself.

Norman Osumi / Rev.

Paul Osumi’s Son He started the Japanese couple weddings in Hawaiʻi.

The couples that were coming from Japan to Hawaiʻi, he started that whole thing.

And it started with just one couple coming here that they knew from Japan, and going through a Christian church ceremony, and being dressed up in the Christian, you know, gowns and suits and everything.

And it started with a couple.

And from that couple, they went back they told their friends and their friends came and started to contact my parents.

And their when they went back, and it was a word of mouth and it started to grow.