Empty Bowl Hawaiʻi returns after six-year hiatus

With 15 participating local chefs and 3,000 ceramic bowls to choose from, guests can expect to fill their stomachs while helping feed Isle communities, through the return of Empty Bowl Hawaiʻi.

The event presented by Hawaiʻi Potters’ Guild is back after a six-year hiatus, slated from 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center. Funds raised will benefit the Feed the People Hawaiʻi program, a partnership forged between nonprofits Chef Hui and Aloha Harvest that began out of necessity during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“When the schools were closing because of Covid, the best thing we could do was to bring our partners together into a bowl, so to speak, and quickly figure out our strengths,” Chef Hui co-founder Mark Noguchi told Aloha State Daily. “We put the word out that we were aggregating local ingredients for chefs to create [culturally relevant] meals for communities, and in that first week, we processed half a million pounds of food.”

He credits his wife and Chef Hui co-founder, Amanda Corby Noguchi, and community partners, for bringing the event that started in Michigan in the 1990s to Hawai’i in 2009. This year, The Hawaiʻi Potters’ Guild is reviving the nationwide movement with thousands of hand-thrown bowls crafted by local potters and students.

Mark Noguchi told ASD he doesn’t dabble much in ceramics.

“As a young cook, I appreciated the discipline of fine dining, but I knew it wasn’t my calling. That style of food was never going to be what I made my career off of. I know my lane is behind the stove, but I can admire and appreciate art,” he said with a laugh. “Empty Bowl was the starting point over a decade ago of falling love with handmade art and bowls.”

Thanks to proceeds from Empty Bowl Hawaiʻi, Feed the People Hawai‘i will expand this fall, “integrating fresh, rescued and pantry ingredients into meals and meal kits, while continuing hands-on activities that equip families with cooking skills for long-term impact,” according to Chef Hui.

When asked what he’s most looking forward to at this year’s event, Noguchi said, “It’s going to be great to see everyone again. Soups and stews are some of my favorite things I love to eat. I love the concept because even for my family, staff and partners, bowls are our predominant eating vessel. Most if not all the bowls in our house are from Empty Bowl.”

But beyond its physical usefulness, a bowl is also “a great metaphor,” he noted. “When you eat in a bowl, it’s all just together — everything has to hang out. The empty bowl now brings together all our different partners. Everybody’s there to complement one another like stew and rice.”

For Noguchi, Empty Bowl is also a personal reminder of how far he and his wife have come.

“Amanda was volunteering for this event even before we got together, and that was 15 years ago. We’ve been married for 12 and our anniversary is next month,” he said. “Our relationship started pragmatically, as a slow burn. … We started our family and business all within a three-year period, and so it moved fast. But 15 years later, our love is consistent. I feel lucky to be a parent, where you just have to balance it all. Even with my girls, we’re in this together. … Just like a bowl, we all get to hang around each other, whether we want to or not.”

His best piece of marriage advice? “Remembering we are on each other’s team and that we can trust one another,” Noguchi said.

“Empty Bowl is about showing up for one another,” he continued. “We’re not trying to feed the world. Our mission with community partners are to feed the small pockets in Hawaiʻi. We made this promise to our partners and these relationships weren’t formed through a DM or money. They are formed by friendships.

"In it and of itself, it’s kind of a marriage. Because even if things are rocky with our partners, we still hold space for them, right? If Iʻm cranky, my wife holds space for me in the best way that she can. Holding space for someone authentically requires you to put a little of yourself to the side. It requires you to temper your ego, to be empathetic and understanding  in that moment, and to not make it about you. If everybody could hold space just a little bit more, the world would be a better place.”

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit emptybowlhawaii.org. Make sure to follow @emptybowlhawaii, @chefhui and @alohaharvest on Instagram!

Previous coverage by ASD of Aloha Harvest's mission, here.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros can be reached at kelsey@alohastatedaily.com.