Nalo Greens - Edible Aloha

Photos courtesy of Nalo Farms
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Winter 2008
edible hawaiian islands
`Aina Honua
DEAN OKIMOTO CAPTURES
TASTE OF THE ISLANDS IN NALO GREENS
Photos courtesy of Nalo Farms
BY MARI TAKETA
A gentle mist drifts down from the Koolaus as Dean Okimoto surveys
his terrain. On this modest piece of windward O`ahu, acres of baby
greens stud the earth like strands of rubies, emeralds and jade, their
evocative names spanning the globe: Lolla Rossa, tatsoi, Kyona mizuna,
Red Russian kale, French sorrel. Personally selected by Okimoto for
their taste, color and nutritional value, his signature Nalo Greens have
become a staple of Hawaii Regional Cuisine.
“On the mainland, salad greens are usually grown in cooler conditions,” he explains. “Ours grow in volcanic soil, in 70- to 90-degree
weather. The flavors are much bolder and zestier.”
Okimoto leans back in his folding chair in an open-air shed, surrounded by stacks of produce boxes. His shorts and sneakers are clean
and white against the dirt of a working farm. Today the 53-year-old
owner of Nalo Farms leaves the bulk of day-to-day operations to his 15
employees and spends half of his time as president of the Hawaii Farm
Bureau, lobbying legislators, supermarket executives and the community on the benefits of sustainable local agriculture. The ring of his cell
phone interrupts his thoughts every few minutes.
It wasn’t always so. When Okimoto joined his dad, Charles, on the
family fruit and vegetable farm in the 1980s, it was almost as penance.
His parents had put him through prep school in Honolulu and the
University of Redlands in California, and then, in applying to law
school, the brash Okimoto had missed the deadline by one day. When
he was growing up, weeding had been his punishment for breaking
the rules. When he missed that deadline, he had dirt caking his nails
every day.
But he stayed. When his dad retired, Okimoto took over and
planted his acreage in herbs. Most of the land, in fact, was planted in
basil in 1989, when the Fusarium wilt fungus decimated the crop and
left 90 percent of his fields fallow. By then Okimoto was married and
the father of a toddler.
“I was ready to quit. I would have gone on food stamps,” he recalls. “Then a friend of mine brought Roy over, and Roy told me to
plant baby greens.”
Roy was Roy Yamaguchi. One of the founders of the fledgling
Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement, the young chef had recently
opened his first Roy’s restaurant in Hawaii Kai and was looking for
some multi-flavored local salad greens. Okimoto had nothing to lose.
Together with one employee he started planting, cutting, packing and
delivering a variety of greens, tailoring the mix to Yamaguchi’s requests.
As Roy’s took off, so did Nalo Greens, which began appearing on
menus throughout Hawaii. An invigorated Okimoto looked up menus
of top restaurants across the country, and when he stumbled across an
unknown green, flipped through his catalogs, ordered the seeds and
experimented. Over time his four acres would eventually grow anywhere from 35 to 40 varieties of lettuces, microgreens including peppery Roquette arugula, red mustard and curly cress, and delicate corn
and pea sprouts.
Then master sommelier Chuck Furuya—the friend who had introduced him to Yamaguchi—invited him on a trip to California. They
rented a car and spent 10 days tasting their way through vineyards from
Eureka to Santa Barbara. Revelation came to Okimoto somewhere in
between, when Furuya had him taste two Chardonnays—one from a
sea-level vineyard, the other from grapes grown at 3,000 feet.
“This was exactly the same grape, but the difference was dramatic.
The sea-level Chardonnay was pungent and bold. The one from the
higher elevation was buttery and mellow,” Okimoto says. “Chuck said,
‘What is wine? It’s farming.’ I thought, ‘Yeah!’”
With that, Okimoto came home and started buying salad mixes
everywhere he could find them, including Costco. All were from the
mainland; salad greens were considered non-mainstream, diversified
agriculture in Hawaii, and no grower had the production capacity or
the processing facilities to meet the food safety standards required by
most supermarkets. Okimoto found that the taste differences between
his warm-weather, sea-level produce and the mainland imports were as
dramatic as those from Furuya’s Chardonnay lesson: his cresses and
arugulas popped off the plate with their pungency, anchoring the
sharper side of his flavor profile and balancing out the softer red and
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green oak leaf lettuces and the sweet bursts of his Swiss chards and
Bull’s Blood beet leaves.
The flavor distinctions sharpened his marketing. Okimoto’s
greens, grown with organic pesticides and tons of compost, commanded high prices compared to mass-produced mainland imports.
He had on his side the powerful arguments of freshness (Nalo Farms’
mission statement: “We cut in the morning, we deliver in the afternoon, and it’s on the customer’s plate that night”) and local sourcing,
which island chefs liked.
Now he could add terroir: the presence of the Waimanalo climate,
soil and landscape in the taste of his greens. His land was in the shadow
of the Koolaus only a mile from the ocean, catching the northeasterly
trade winds and the rain from the clouds that stacked up against the
green-curtained peaks in the winter and spring. He even began to notice that the peppery microgreens he grew softened their flavors during
the cooler months and roared back in the heat of summer.
Those who liked to eat noticed the differences as well. The popularity of Hawaii Regional Cuisine percolated from upscale down to
mid-range and even some mom-and-pop plate lunch eateries, and
helped spur a resurgence of farmers’ markets throughout the state.
Okimoto made sure Nalo Greens were a fixture at every level. He
brought back herbs and braising greens to his offerings, and found they
did well too. With Yamaguchi, now a good friend, he recently launched
Da Farmer and The Chef, selling salad dressings through supermar10
Winter 2008
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kets in Hawaii and California (dafarmerandthechef.com). And when
his processing facility is completed this month, Nalo Greens should
become available on more supermarket shelves on O`ahu and other islands later this year.
Okimoto glances out over his fields. Today’s misty drizzle follows
several days of pounding rains. It’s been another rainout day, when
drops push tender leaves into the soil and fleck them with dirt, killing
some and making the rest impossible to harvest. He knows that
throughout the state, other farmers are looking out over waterlogged
crops and calculating their losses as well. As president of the 1,600member Hawaii Farm Bureau, he’s grown into the habit of thinking
collectively, and has plowed his marketing energy into forming Local
Island Fresh Edibles, which uses Nalo Farms’ infrastructure to distribute other growers’ Hau`ula Vine Ripened Tomatoes, Kahuku Super
Sweet Corn and Kula Country Strawberries to restaurants in Honolulu.
Okimoto’s political energy, meanwhile, is focused on sustainability. He worries that the high cost of agricultural land and infrastructure
is a disincentive to would-be farmers. He worries that only 4 percent
of the gross state product comes from agriculture, even as demand for
locally grown food continues to rise. He worries that if he and others
fail to raise the alarm with legislators and the public, Hawaii in the future will become even more dependent on imported foods.
“If I walk into a place and see they’re already using local greens, I
don’t even try to compete,” he says. “As long as they’re buying local, we
all win.”
DEAN’S AWESOME TOMATO SAUCE
15 pounds vine-ripened tomatoes (Dean takes home castoffs)
2 medium onions, diced
2 bell peppers, diced
3 Tbsp. minced garlic
Olive oil
Salt to taste
1 bag Nalo Farms Spaghetti Mix herbs (oregano, basil, thyme, parsley)
Cut tomatoes in half, remove calyxes, throw skins-on into large
stockpot with olive oil and everything except salt and herbs.
Simmer uncovered 3–4 hours, stirring occasionally.
Throw in bagful of Nalo Farms herbs and let simmer 15 more minutes. Add salt to taste. Purée in blender. Freeze most.
To serve, sauté spicy sausage, stir into sauce and serve over pasta.
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