2022 is now gone and here comes 2023! The holiday season cooking and eating are almost done. Like every year at about this time, I feel like I need to lose some weight, stop drinking, commit to exercising more, improve my golf game, and still work on finding that next dish.

For those of you that read my emails, you may have noticed that at the bottom where my signature is, it says, “Don’t forget to smell the pineapples.” It means the same thing as “Don’t forget to smell the roses (or coffee).” I take the expression as a reminder to ourselves to take a pause and reflect on the moment. Too often, we skim through life’s daily “stuff” and before you know it, it’s the end of the day and you wonder where it went. These pauses or reflections are when I learn the most, especially about how I can improve, should there be a next time.

Looking back on this past year, one of the reflections is to have much gratitude and appreciation for all the lessons learned this year. I know I cannot say, “If I knew then, what I know today” to myself. I have to appreciate the present as well. It took all the yesterdays to make today happen and bring me forward to tomorrow. Who knows what’s in store? What I do know is that I am still learning how to cook.

I was so happy to see Oliver and Karin Altherr back in Switzerland on a recent trip. Karin was a sous chef for me more than 25 years ago, and Oliver reopened the Kahala Mandarin and Hoku’s restaurant more than 25 years ago as well. You cannot help but reminisce of old times and have a few laughs while doing so. The best moments were had while cooking a dinner in Germany with Karin assisting me in the kitchen again. It still amazes me that most of the world thinks everything and everyone from Hawaii is Hawaiian, as I was asked to cook a “Hawaiian dinner” for 20 people.

It was a few trips back that Karin took me to a little café near the Munich market that served a dish called “Toast Hawaii.” On some toast, there was sliced ham and a pineapple preserve on top! I had discovered where the old classic “ham steak aloha” was born.

Back in the ’70s, there was a popular dish in Hawaii, a ham steak with pineapple raisin sauce and a garnish of maraschino cherry, hahaha. This was one dish I loved to reinvent, because it had to be redone. It was a shame that visitors would think of Hawaii when thinking of this dish. It’s so wrong to have a Hawaiian pizza or burger be called that simply because it has some pineapple on it — even worse, to hear a chef call it a Hawaiian pizza!

I did bring some very ripe, delicious Dole pineapple with me to give as gifts of hospitality; a couple of them eaten, not with ham but with dessert. It was a treat, they absolutely loved it.

One of the first things everyone did? They smelled the pineapples!

Chef and restaurateur Alan Wong has wowed diners around the world for decades, and is known as one of the founders of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Find his column in Crave every first Wednesday. Currently, Wong is dba Alan Wong’s Consulting Co.