A Lucky Belly Connection

Lucky Belly in Chinatown - Honolulu, Hawaii

Connection.

 It's a theme I have been giving attention to in my life. It's one of my favorite things in the world, and maybe even THE most important thing in my world. When I was a portrait photographer, I began to see the beauty and the purpose in connecting with other people. I learned that capturing a good photograph happens by making a connection to the subject and capturing that moment.

I heard mothers tell me that if there were a fire in their home the two things they would grab on the way out would be their hard drive and the photos I took of their children.

That is a pretty beautiful connection.

When I began to make mixed media art and furnishings,  I saw it again. And I learned that

 it is way more purposeful to work at something that I am connected to because it attracts people who will love and appreciate it and find their own connection to something that I have created.

And that's a really cool connection too.

When I started to photograph and write about food I didn't expect to find that same connection with a subject I could EAT after photographing it, but guess what?

 I remembered how much connection there is that happens around food.

We all have endless memories centered around meals and family gatherings. The connections that happen between teaching children to eat, meals with girlfriends, date nights, cooking at home for someone, weddings, funerals, sad days, or happy days alone.

Connecting with someone who feeds you, or someone you have fed, or someone you share a meal with, holds much of the magical stuff of life: the connection we crave and seek and discover and share.

 The connection we find over food and drink and adventure.

Sometimes the desire to fly away and experience these things in a far away place is incredibly strong, and sometimes when that happens, a whole new world opens up and the experience is life changing. Sometimes that same connection can happen at the kitchen table, or at that cool little place down the street over a drink and something great to eat.

I am beyond lucky to live in Hawaii, a place where people save money their whole lives in order to come visit. I am fortunate to be able to work with food in a place that is bursting with new and creative places to savor those connections and I am lucky enough to be right in the middle of Chinatown, where there is a literal buzz on the streets with all of the new and exciting places that have come to the neighborhood.

I opened up my photography studio in Chinatown, right across from the historic Hawaii Theatre in 2005. At that time, much of the neighborhood's shops were covered in papered windows, empty and waiting for the area's revitalization to be realized.

Over the years, the neighborhood has blossomed with fresh new places to eat and drink, blending in with the places that have been around for decades and standing arm and arm with the ever present crazy side of Chinatown.  

Chinatown has always been the seedier side of Downtown. 
And honestly, this is why we love it. It's on the edge, but just enough to make it unpretentious, artsy, and a mecca for creative culture. 
 

Since the 1800's when sailors first began to use the harbor for shipping  and docking large vessels, which also meant the arrival of sailors and harbor workers to the area, offering migrant plantation workers the opportunity to settle in the area and open up shops and bars, Chinatown has had a rich history and made way for it's colorful inhabitants today.

And as for connection, the business owners in the area have an almost familial connection, and for  the people that visit these merchants, it is easy to feel the connection to them and their product. 

I recently sat down with Dusty Grable, co-owner of Lucky Belly, located on Hotel Street and was not surprised that our conversation centered around this very thing. The connection that happens through food and drink. 

Lucky Belly

 Dusty opened Lucky Belly nearly three years ago, along with co-owners Jesse Cruz and Mary Tess Calad, in the heart of Chinatown and has become one of my favorite spots for lunch, dinner and of course cocktails. 

Lucky Belly is a spectacular combination of Asian influenced dishes with a definite local flare and is riddled with both Jesse and Dusty's determination to do things in their own style. The result is a comfortable, modern-rustic place, that is putting out some seriously sexy food, centered around the concept of hospitality found by sharing a meal. 

The Lucky Bowl

Among their amazing appetizers, salads, special plates and their signature ramen, are my favorites and the items I order over and over again: 
the amazing Pork Belly Bao, 
their seriously sexy Shrimp Gyoza with edamame avocado puree and ponzu, 
the best Beet and Spicy Greens salad anywhere 
and of course, their giant Lucky Bowl.    

Beet and Spicy Greens Salad with goat cheese, candied pumpkin seeds and pomegranate dressing

A new menu item - Scallop Risotto in a cone sushi shell

Although Dusty is a certified sommaleir, and their sake selection is amazing, I can never order anything to drink except The Aviation - a cocktail made with gin, elderberry flower and citrus, OR their smokey Old Fashioned where they smoke a piece of kiawe under the glass before pouring in the cocktail to give it an amazing smokey flavor. 
But if for some reason you need a non-alcoholic beverage, the Chinatown Swizzle will make you feel like you've got the real deal in your hand. It's made with galangal, kaffir lime, lemongrass, drinking vinegar and coconut juice.  

The Aviation

The Chinatown Swizzle

And to make things even sweeter, for our late night needs there is the Lucky Belly Window. A little walk up window on the street where only on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10pm-2am you can grab one of three $5 plates to sop up any late night booze after carousing at the many bars and clubs in Chinatown. The menu changes weekly and is actually something we plan our schedules around.

The moral of the story? 
Chinatown, with all of it's whackiness, is home to places like this; where great food is taken seriously, but not too seriously and where the most important factor is connecting to the place, the food and the people you are with. Take it from all of us, who's bellies are lucky on a regular basis, Lucky Belly needs to be your new favorite spot and Chinatown needs to be on your list of places to visit on Oahu.

Are you a believer in connection? 
What are some of your memories that center around food and drink?
Cheers to places like Lucky Belly and blogs like this where we can share in a meal, a cocktail and an experience!
I love to hear from you!

     

I Love Your Face

"Mi piace la tua el faccia"

Cheat sheet

I have been a photographer my whole adult life. I have photographed thousands of people. I have found it so easy and fulfilling to photograph children, but adults are usually a little trickier. However I am always confident that I will get the shot. Part of the reason is that I have mad connecting-with-other-people skills. I really do. But one of the ways I am able to make a connection with someone is by talking with them.  

When I first landed in Italy, I instantly fell in love a hundred times before I even left the airport. But not with another person, necessarily but with the language tumbling off their tongues, with their fashionable outfits, with their architecture, with their laid back rules, with their appreciation of everything beautiful, with their food, drink, way of life and their FACES. 

I knew right away that my first sentence I needed to learn was going to be, "I love your face".

Fast forward to a beautiful afternoon in Pisa, my eyes bulging from the beauty, my jaw dragging on the ground, my words not even coming out right in English because I was so speechless by the things I was seeing. I was focusing my camera down a spectacular street across from the tower to get this shot:

Then I noticed the two guys waving at me in the doorway, so of course I had to go make friends. Before I knew it a group of them had gathered in the door and I needed to tell them that I loved their faces!

   Luckily one of them spoke a little English and translated my sentence for me while the others flirted and surely thought I was a crazy American girl while I photographed them. 
And so I learned my only Italian sentence:
"Mi Piace la tua el faccia".

And another thing I learned was:
Adults love to hear that you love their face. 
Every person who heard those words from me beamed. They laughed at my poorly pronounced Italian, they blushed a little, got a sparkle in their eye and I got the shot. 

Here are some of my favorite faces from my journey:

  And one more thing that I learned from speaking 
my new sentence: 
I need to keep using it. I want to continue to see into the faces that I pass in the street or interact with during the day. I want them to know that I love their face. I want to give them the same smile and sparkle in their eye and a little boost of love to carry them on their way.
Hey you: 
I love your face.
Pass it on...

quote of the day:

“His dress told her nothing, but his face told her things which she was glad to know".

A.A. Milne

I'm having this dream...

Central Park NYC - 3.2015

I'm having this dream. It begins like any other day. I kiss the faces of my three amazing children, I am kissed by an amazing man that has fallen out of the sky and into my cafe and my life. I work, I feed people, I make art, I make connections. I am fed by nature and love. Things are good and pretty simple and a lot of fun. It is always warm and there is always someone around to laugh with. A dog sleeps next to me in my mushy, comfy bed. Life is really really good. And still I know that there is a whole world out there full of even more of the same goodness that already fills every day of my life. I know that I have a hunger for it. I know that from somewhere deep within me, I have a craving, a calling, an itch, a need. 
And here's where the dream gets crazy...
I'm on the streets of New York City. The wind claws through the layers of sweaters, jackets and scarves and bites down on skin, heart, blood. But not viciously - it's a sexy bite meant to say: You are alive, flesh, blood, bone. My eyes seem to open wider and I actually see more. I look into the endless river of faces that flow past me on these frozen streets and I see them. Our eyes are not supposed to meet - some rule I heard about long ago - but they do anyway. And I see humanity, a story, a life being lived. And then they are gone, floating away on their own path. More flow to me. Old, young, angry, busy, fancy, important, insecure, confident, young, old, young, old...
And I am cold. But the cold on my skin makes me know that I am very, very alive. And then I realize that I have walked all the way to Times Square, where everything is larger than life. TV's on the sides of buildings broadcast 100 foot tall images: faces, products, places. They flash in an endless reel of lights and colors. Below, cops congregate on the corner, protestors gather for peace, steam rises from below the streets. People continue to rush from here to there, there to here. And I stop for a glass of whiskey. 
And then suddenly I am in Central Park and everything is this amazing stark palette of white and grey and brown. There is snow everywhere and none of the trees have their leaves. Their branches like arms spread to the heavens. And I am there in the midst of this whole other world. I walk and walk and walk and I am wide open, and it fills me and some of it spills out of my eyes because I simply can't contain it. There is too much love to keep it all in. There are words of appreciation and birthday wishes and praise and well wishes that have also been poured into me and I am this vessel that begins to overflow right there in Central Park.
And then I realize that I am not alone. The man that kisses my face has led me here. I see him walking next to me for blocks and blocks past rows and rows of buildings and stores and the endless sea of people and I feel like it's all for me and I can't figure out why. I spend a lot of the dream somewhere between being completely in the moment, to watching it all from a distance. I feel incredibly connected but equally far away. 
And then I wake up.
The wind is raging outside my window and I can tell that the air outside of my heavy blankets is cold. The shutters bang quietly inside but somewhere outside things crash in the wind. I step out of bed and my bare feet touch the cold stone floor of a castle in Italy, on the hillside in Tuscany. I stumble around trying to find a light. I layer on shawls and scarves and walk out into my quarters. There is an unfinished bottle of chianti on the counter, a row of white espresso cups line an antique hutch and the wind continues to rage in the courtyard. 
I pull out my journal and write about driving too fast down ancient streets of Florence, eating fresh pasta recommended by a waiter named Rafaele and feeling the rain coming down from the Italian sky. And I realize It's only been one day. The dream is my reality. I breathe in the cold air and I exhale a breath of pure life. I am filled with gratitude like I have never known. Thankful for all that exists in my world and the world that I walk through. Thankful for the arm that hooks into mine and leads me through streets and adventures. I decide to absorb every moment of this dream and we set out to dickwolf Italy...

Castle Rooftop - Tuscany Italy - 3.2015

Castle Rooftop - Tuscany Italy - 3.2015