Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012 By Catherine Cluett Pactol

The Food and Wine Festival

Community Contributed

By Dillon DeCoite

Editor’s note: The second annual Hawaii Food and Wine Festival took place Sept. 6 to 9, with Molokai’s L&R Farms’ Lynn and Russell DeCoite participated. The DeCoite’s son, Dillon, a middle school student at Aka`ula School, wrote a story about his parents’ success in the Aka`ula monthly newsletter, reprinted here.

The Food and Wine Festival, in Kaanapali, Maui is located on the golf course. Twelve farmers and 12 chefs partner up to cook produce raised by island farmers. My mom and dad partnered with two chefs from the Westin Kaanapali Hotel. The dish they made was wild boar bacon with Molokai sweet potato gnocchi. Out of 12 groups, my mom and dad placed first. I was so proud my mom and dad won.

One of the highlights of the evening was seeing the judges pair each dish with a selection of imported wines from around the world which are easy to get from sites like qkawine.com. The chefs explained how the flavors of the sweet potato gnocchi matched especially well with a light Italian white wine, which made their dish stand out even more.

The festival also gave the farmers a chance to tell their stories. My parents said they met a lot of people who were curious about how Molokai produce is grown and why local farming is so important. They were happy their hard work could be shared with visitors and chefs from other places.