Hi! I'm Daphne Kauahi’ilani Jenkins, creator of Eggs and Peas. I'm a holistic nutritionist, educator, artist, writer, photographer, home cook, and more (phewf!) who is positively passionate about words and food. I currently live in Portland, Oregon, and recently received my third master’s degree, a Master of Science in Nutrition at National University of Natural Medicine in June 2020. I spent my college years in Houston, Texas and the following decade working as a public educator in the Bay Area of Northern California. The food I make is influenced by all of my culinary experiences in all of the places I have lived, as well as those from the land of my childhood – the place I will always consider to be my home home – Hawai`i. 

I grew up on the island of O`ahu snacking on the apple bananas, mangoes, Surinam cherries, and Hawaiian oranges in my backyard in Kaneohe.  I relished my dad's go-to breakfasts (peanut butter banana ono-ono shakes, egg-in-a-hole, Portuguese sweet bread drenched with butter with a side of teriyaki-style vienna sausages) and marveled at my mom's creations (home-baked tin can bread loaves, beautiful handmade haku and lei, paper maché "Year of The Rat" lanterns for us to carry in the Chinese New Year parade). I also spent lots of time with my maternal grandparents at their home in Pauoa. I watched my grandpa tend his beautiful vegetable garden (eggplant, tomatoes, squash, chili pepper, soy beans). He collected our daily food scraps and buried them diligently in the soil before composting was cool! And, I had the great honor and good fortune of being cooked for and cared for by my beloved grandma, a former school teacher and exquisite home cook. It is from one of her standard dishes – eggs and peas – a dish passed down to her from her mother, that this blog takes its name.

I'm a planner and a premeditator by nature, but with Eggs and Peas I'm gonna kick up my heels and let 'er rip! I'm challenging myself to follow my intuition and go with the flow. Documenting my food improvisations and spilling my stories are BIG exercises in trusting my gut! (Pun absolutely intended! In fact, all of my puns are always intended, forever and ever. You've been warned!) 

The truth is, it is while I'm in the process of creating – a dish, a composition, a photograph – that I find myself as tuned in to my intuition as I can be, in the flow, and utterly grateful for the present moment. This really is my bliss! Cooking, making photographs and writing make me feel like an artist, and feeling like an artist makes me much more courageous about embracing the unknown. So, welcome, everybody! I hope you find a nugget to savor or recipe to try out, but most of all, I hope you find some inspiration to trust your own gut and to find beauty and possibility in your own dance with the unknown.

NOTE: All photos, writing, and recipes are my own unless otherwise indicated. Please contact me for permissions.