Aolani Dunlap-Speed was born in Upland, California and spent her young life in the greater Los Angeles area. After graduating from Pasadena High School, she received a degree from the Gros Bonnet Culinary Academy in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has worked with storied chefs such as Anne Burrel, Roy Yamaguchi, and Fred DeAngelo and has staged at many restaurants, including Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy.
1) Tell us about your journey to becoming a chef.
Cooking has been a center piece of my entire existence. I come from Filipino and Louisianan cultures, so I grew up eating étouffée but also sisig. Anyone who cooked in my family always taught whoever was sitting at the counter how and when to put spices in the dish they were preparing.
After my experiences in high school I realized that I wouldn’t be able to be a scientist at NASA as I had dreamed as a child—so I moved to Hawaii to figure out what I was going to do with my life. Luckily, my last few years of high school were filled with even more new food experiences. My foster mom prepared meals that were home-cooked but so complex and delicious.
I continued these good food practices when I was a nanny in the town of Kahaluu, Hawaii. I learned how to make challah and brioche and even handmade pasta, and I figured out that I actually knew how to bake pretty well. I applied to work at Heeia Kea Pier to have extra money and to learn from the Michelin-starred chef heading the Pier’s general store/deli. My experiences there were some of the hardest I have ever endured, but I learned and grew so much !
I applied to culinary school immediately after that and put that first chef as my reference. I received a full scholarship on the condition of working right after school in a bigger restaurant in Honolulu. I ended up cooking well enough to be asked to Food And Wine Festivals.
After graduating, I made sure to stage at different restaurants in order to acquire more skills, like fish prep or vegan baking. After a while, I was confident in calling myself a chef with assurance! I was also a baking assistant for The Polynesian Cultural Center and The Laie Marriott and thoroughly enjoyed it.
In 2019, I moved back home to work with the Recipe Development and Pastry team at Salt and Straw Ice Cream. I’ve just ended my employment with them but again, I learned so much because of the amazing people I got to work with every day.
Now I’m freelancing in the Pacific Northwest and cooking for the homeless on weekends—which is exactly what I wanted to do from the beginning. I love using my skills to help people that are food insecure. I hope someday to open a small-scale farm and restaurant so that I continue this journey. I don’t want to be the only one benefitting from the harvest and preparation of food. I’m sure Heavenly Father has more for me to do, so I’m just riding along on this road that He has paved for me.
2) That is all remarkable! Describe how you go about developing a recipe.
Recipe development is one of the hardest things about being a chef. It all starts with an idea. What is it that you want to cook, and how? Once I have that in my mind, the next thing is what goes with or on it.
My mind is constantly expanding recipes and coming up with different flavors to pair. You have to expand your palate so that you can incorporate different tastes, and you also have to experiment—both on yourself and on other people. One thing I’ve had to accept is failure with certain combinations. Failure is a huge part of recipe development.
I also look to my chef heros or browse through cookbooks that I enjoy. I watch videos to know what to do and what not to do. I’m always open to the tasty, the dry, the juicy, and the nasty.
3) I love that. What cookbooks are you recommending to everyone these days?
Either one of these cookbooks is a work of art. *Chefs Kiss*
In Pursuit of Flavor: The Beloved Classic Cookbook by Edna Lewis
Geechee Virginian cuisine is so basic but so good. I have every recipe practically memorized. I read it like a storybook any time I can’t sleep, because it releases my creativity in a simple, soothing way.
Chrissy is one of my favorite irreverent home cooks out there. She homes in on making old-school favorites gourmet enough to say "oh dang," while keeping them homey enough for affordability. My go-to recipes are her Dutch Baby or her mom’s entire Thai portion of the book.
4) Sounds delicious! What's your best advice for people on cooking from what you already have in your kitchen?
Cooking out of the cupboard or fridge is my status quo. I recommend always having basic pantry items that will please everyone in the home. I always make sure I have the ingredients to my Mama and Papa's pasta recipe—and when I say always I mean ALWAYS.
I make sure to have an Annie’s boxed macaroni and cheese in my pantry so I’m always able to make my "bougie" mac and cheese, sprucing it up with a random Gruyère or a seared chicken breast I have on hand. I also hilariously watch Chopped to inspire the creativity of “cupboard grabbing,” as it’s called. All in all, it’s about being prepared to have those days where you’re not going to get out to the store, and it’s already 6:30 p.m.
5) Very wise. Tell us about the three chefs, living or dead, who most inspire you.
This one is easy!
Edna Lewis was a pioneer in maintaining seasonal harvest and prep of food. I have incorporated this into my own cooking and look to her as a model of a foraging chef.
Leah Chase was not only a chef, but also a revolutionary activist through food, a.k.a. my dream. She owned a restaurant with her loving husband Dooky Chase in Louisiana, and she inspired my favorite Disney movie, The Princess and the Frog. She had the most amazing attitude about how she was going to die cooking in that kitchen. She was also very sassy and scolded President Barack Obama when he tried putting hot sauce on the gumbo she prepared for him!
Mashama Bailey is forcing people to reevaluate their attitudes towards Southern cooking and what it means to be a black woman cooking in the South. She currently operates her restaurant out of an formerly segregated Greyhound station in Savannah, Georgia. She is my current “shero” and I have dreams of cooking with her and learning from her.
Thanks, Aolani! What a pleasure it’s been to spend some time with you!