Maddie's Cookbook Review - Ohana Style and Cook Real Hawai'i by Sheldon Simeon

Chef Seldon Simeon is signing books at Knifewear Vancouver September 27 and Toronto October 4. Sign up here!

I was so excited when I saw that Ohana Style and Cook Real Hawai’i had come into the Toronto store. Chef Sheldon Simeon will be signing books here on October 4th, and we have all been chatting excitedly about it. I really couldn’t imagine a more fun way to start Knifewear Toronto’s first book signing!

Reading both books has been a wild ride; they really make a great set, playing off each other in a really unique way. Cook real Hawai ’ i feels like a first cookbook, and is definitely where I recommend starting. As I read, I am left with a wonderful impression of Chef Simeon. It feels like he invites us, selflessly, into the rich food culture he grew up with. He explains so much about the history of Hawai’i that I hadn’t realized, and you might think it’s not very important to a cookbook -  you will be surprised just how relevant it becomes. The history tells a story, a story of resiliency and cooperation between a more significant bundle of cultures than I had ever imagined. It takes fusion to such a creative place.

That mix of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Portuguese, and indigenous Hawaiian (also known as Polynesian) is brought together in this series of Islands. Chef Sheldon explains that he is a third-generation Filipino from Hawai’i, an important distinction that both respects the indigenous people of his home and acknowledges his position as a local. 

Reading Ohana Style, it’s the second child. Equally loved, but the advantages of the learning curve the first time around show through. While Cook Real Hawai’i is the playful beaming party book that it is, Ohana Style screams relatability, home, and family. Chef Simeon gives us a glimpse of what it was like to own restaurants through the pandemic, showing what it took to survive those weird years. Community was more important than it had been before. If there is any theme the books share, it is community and family—the real meaning of Ohana.

“Food makes family, families make food. There is no one without the other”

I wanted to review both books together, both to save time and, more importantly, because they work so well together. As I read them, I can really feel the experience and the journey. It feels like you have been invited into his home kitchen, with the uneven table surface that survived childhoods and lifetimes. You are drinking from glassware that has seen inside jokes and memories, and eating food that keeps homesickness at bay.

That is a feeling I relate to quite a bit, as I make the food I grew up on to help my family feel closer, even though we’re 5 hours apart. I love that Chef Simeon’s books bring that feeling up for me: food to heal your heart. He talks about the struggles of getting home and still cooking good food after everyone has had a long day, and how his father was the pillar of their community for cooking. I find myself imagining how he has taken up that mantle, just like I took that role on for my Toronto family after helping my dad all these years be that for our family. 

Much like in my family, he talks about how his family of foodies was headed by their “designated cook of the community” - his dad. Just like me and my dad, up in the early hours of the day to cook for hours, preparing for everyone to come over for dinner. Now Chef Simeon’s dad was cooking for 300-400 people for big events; it makes me grateful that Dad and I are usually cooking for 12-15 people! (And that my mom already worked her magic getting dessert ready.) I look at so many recipes and think about how much fun it will be to get home to Ottawa and make so many of them for my family. In the meantime, my roommates have been the ones enjoying the rewards! 

While I was reading these books, a lot of recipes stuck out. I’ve made the huli huli chicken, and the loaded mandoo dumplings have become a favourite in my apartment; I am told they must be on the regular rotation. The chocolate birthday mochi were a great deal of fun; I admit I will now always mix Pop Rocks into my sprinkles. But the one I decided to include in the review is the Hurricane Corn Elote! I have had lots of fun with this recipe; I did meddle with it slightly- I am that person who will stain every shirt if I try to eat corn off of the cob while it is loaded with tasty stuff. So, I cut the corn off the cob after grilling it. 

I like to think Chef Simeon wouldn’t mind. I love that as I go through his cookbook, he is so helpful with substitutions you might have to make. Especially as I certainly had to make a few little switches through both books, as he tells us his dad never thought less of a recipe because it used something that came from a can- “what matters is that it’s delicious.” Even if I couldn’t find calamansi, I could hunt down a key lime! And there is no question, it was very, very tasty. I couldn’t help but recruit my roommates to help with cooking this one; I wanted to be true to the books and the chef who wrote them. 

I love the toasty corn bits; I loved watching my roommates try to steal bits of corn while I stirred it all together—the crunch of the rice crackers and bright flavours of cheese and Korean chilli paste mayo. Even the nori provided balance. It is the kind of party food I would make with friends coming over. But guard it well; it may not make it to the plates if your friends are anything like mine.

The only advice I would give when tackling this cookbook is that some ingredients were a bit harder to find than I expected. I spent many evenings at my local East Asian supermarket, and twice went and bugged my coworkers about how on earth to find or substitute for shio koji paste. So, I would recommend finding your local Asian supermarket and going on an adventure. The flavours you will get from doing the extra legwork will be more than worth it.

There is something about Chef Simeon that I can’t quite place; it’s that feeling you get when you see a character on TV, and they seem almost too real. Like, you can’t quite figure out how they landed on this survival show; they seem like someone you would run into on the subway, not some media personality. He seems like the kind of person I would invite over for dinner, making a batch of my dad’s creole (think gumbo without the seafood) and cracking a beer to discuss food, the universe, and everything. I really look forward to meeting him, and I suspect any of you who come in to see him will be very glad you did too.