For 13 years, the Kualii family has turned their occasional lu‘au catering business for family and friends into a full-blown cookout of massive proportions for the Merrie Monarch Festival. ADVERTISING For 13 years, the Kualii family has turned their occasional
For 13 years, the Kualii family has turned their occasional lu‘au catering business for family and friends into a full-blown cookout of massive proportions for the Merrie Monarch Festival.
They work tirelessly from morning until night to feed lunch and dinner to the thousands of locals and visitors that flock to the Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium craft fair by day and the competition and Ho‘ike by night at the Edith Kanaka‘ole Multipurpose Stadium.
It’s a family affair with patriarch Andy Kualii, 72; his wife, Janice Kualii, 71; son, James Kualii; daughter, Pualani Kaho‘ohanohano; son-in-law Gary Kaho‘ohanohano; and four grandchildren all doing their part.
Last year, 28 family and friends assisted in the process, from prepping food to cooking to delivering the ono grinds from a temporary kitchen built on the backside of Aunty Sally Kaleohano’s Lu‘au Hale to the civic and stadium.
“Every person has their job,” explains Janice, a retired police operations clerk. “We have a system so there are no mix-ups.”
It’s a lot of coordinating and preparing that starts a year ahead. This will be ‘Ohana Kualii’s 14th year with the festival.
“We keep stats,” explains Janice. “I will keep track of how many cooks we do and what’s left over, and then we use those numbers to judge what we order the following year.”
You might guess that cooking delicious food in mass amounts in a hot kitchen 18-plus hours a day would be the most difficult part of this job. However, Janice says judging how much food to order is the most challenging aspect. It’s a tricky guessing game since she never knows which items will be most in demand that year. She’s also careful not to overorder and let food go to waste.
Last year they sold out of sweet-sour spareribs. Another year, they ran out of kalua cabbage and had to run to KTA Super Stores and buy an additional 250 pounds of cabbage.
Food preparation starts a month before the festival, including roasting the pork for the kalua pig in a family-built brick imu at the back of the Kualii’s property.
Easter Sunday is spent down at the temporary kitchen, complete with prime rib dinner and an Easter egg hunt for the family. Most of the food is prepped beforehand: meat is browned in giant woks and veggies are steamed in triple-tiered steamers — the biggest ones you can buy — then items are cooled before weighing and portioning out each ingredient separately. Everything is stored in a 40-foot reefer until it is used to cook dishes including the popular kalua pig and cabbage for the Hawaiian plate, sweet-sour spareribs, beef stew and chili.
“We portion things out ahead of time so that everything is consistent and every recipe is cooked the same every time,” explains Andy, a retired cable splicer for GTE Hawaiian Tel.
Part of the Kualii’s system for running things smoothly includes recipes taped to the wall above each wok station, the same person cooks the same dish every year, and only the men do the cooking. The family utilizes son James’ and son-in-law Gary’s talents to take care of any electrical, plumbing or construction needs. Daughter Pualani oversees the women who make the salads and lomi salmon, as well as package poi and Janice’s secret recipe for haupia with sweet potato. The only item on the menu not made by the family is the Spam musubi. All 2,800 are made by Keaukaha Sports.
Each year, ‘Ohana Kualii also offers daily specials Thursday through Saturday. This year, fried chicken with gravy, smoked meat and onions, and traditional chicken and pork hekka are on the menu. Also new this year: potato macaroni salad available on all plate items.
With not much time for rest, Janice and Andy sleep next to the kitchen all week in a trailer that James converted into a bedroom for them. Andy, who jokes that he is second in command to Janice, is up before the sun at 4 a.m. during festival week to get things started for the day.
But it’s Janice who is planning year-round, critiquing her previous year’s execution, studying her stats, obtaining permits, determining specials for the next year and testing the recipes in small batches at home. She says there is always something to be improved upon.
One of Janice’s many tasks includes taking orders from the visiting halau hula who purchase meals through the Kualiis at a discounted price. She noticed that the dancers would get their meal and sit on the curb to eat it. So the next year, Janice arranged for tables to be set up outside so the halau members could be comfortable.
Twice, ‘Ohana Kualii took a one-year break from preparing the food for the festival.
“We missed it,” admits Andy. “Our kids were asking, ‘What are we going to do now?’”
“The key to all of this is help,” adds Janice. “If you don’t have people to help, it’s an impossible task.”
The very first year the family cooked for the festival, it was difficult, says Janice. “We went in blind and we cooked everything. But then we figured things out and made changes as we went.”
One thing that will never change, however, is the price of a hot dog at the festival. “The first time I went in and met with Auntie Dottie Thompson and Luana, I’ll never forget what Auntie Dottie said,” recalls Janice. “She told me, ‘You can cook whatever you want, but your hot dogs must not go up in price. They must always remain $1.’ She said, ‘People who come to the Merrie Monarch come to see the festival but they may not have a lot of money to buy food. But they might have $1 to buy a hot dog to eat if they are hungry.’ From that day on, we have never raised the price of hot dogs.”
About ‘Ohana Kualii, festival President Luana Kawelu says this: “They are irreplaceable. They sacrifice so much of their family time to do this, but they also make it a family event. They work together. It’s so wonderful to see.”
To ‘Ohana Kualii, it’s a labor of love — for community and for family. Andy, who was born and raised in Hilo, learned how to prepare the traditional Hawaiian foods from his own parents.
“I learned to do this the same way our kids and grandkids have learned to do it,” he says. “It’s part of our culture, and it has come down through the generations. My hope is that one day our children and grandchildren will want to take this over.”
