Food-travel show "Family Ingredients," the first Hawaii production ever picked up by PBS for its national prime-time roster, has been nominated for three Emmy Awards in the Northern California chapter, of which Hawaii is a part.
The show is a contender in the Lifestyle-Program/ Special, Photographer-Program (Non-News) and Editor-Program (Non-News) categories.
Heather Giugni, Daniel Nakasone and Renea Veneri Stewart were the show’s producers, while Todd Fink and Stewart served as directors of photography, and Fink and Ty Sanga held editing duties.
"When we got the news, we were overwhelmed," Nakasone said of the producers’ first reaction. "But we’ve decided to just go with the flow.
"We’re especially pleased to be nominated in the Lifestyle category because that means it involves everyone who took part in the show," Nakasone said.
The Emmys will be presented June 14 in San Francisco. Visit emmysf.tv.
Town chef Ed Kenney hosts the program, which centers on beloved family dishes and traces them back to their origins. The pilot, which earned the Emmy nominations and secured the show’s PBS spot, focused on chef Alan Wong’s favorite childhood dishes.
The story line profiled Wong’s hometown of Wahiawa, the area’s tofu factory (Honda Tofu) and egg farm (Petersons’ Upland Farm) where Wong’s mother shopped, and proceeded to Japan, where Wong and Kenney visited farms and restaurants (including the eatery owned by sushi master Jiro Ono, who was the subject of the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi"), and cooked in the Saitama home of Nancy Singleton Hachisu, author of the acclaimed cookbook "Japanese Farm Food."
"Family Ingredients" will begin airing on PBS in 2015, with eight episodes ordered.
Among the places producers plan to profile are Okinawa, China, Korea, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Tahiti.
