This Chef Cooks the Food I Want to Eat Forever

Sheldon Simeon shows that Hawaiian food is accessible — and, of course, incredibly tasty

I have never watched an episode of Top Chef. I am a typical white person who went to Hawai’i on my honeymoon. I loved it, and I loved the food. So when I heard about chef Sheldon Simeon’s now incredibly successful cookbook, Cook Real Hawai’i, I was intrigued, despite not being as aware of him as I should have been. (And after talking with him, I’m even more embarrassed.)

The book arrived, and I was immediately captivated. Simeon is in love with his home — he was born and raised on the Big Island — and that love flows from the pages in his introduction and his history of Hawai’i, both of which I eagerly read in full. It almost reads like a mini-memoir; it’s transporting.

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