ANAHOLA — Susan Shelsea Fein loves to bake with love on Kauai. Literally. If Fein and her bakers at Heart Flame Bakery aren’t feeling a loving spirit when they’re working away, they take a break until they do. Nobody wants
ANAHOLA — Susan Shelsea Fein loves to bake with love on Kauai.
Literally.
If Fein and her bakers at Heart Flame Bakery aren’t feeling a loving spirit when they’re working away, they take a break until they do.
Nobody wants a taste of negativity, after all.
“There are no arguments in the kitchen. That goes into the food,” Fein said. “There needs to be a love vibration because that is what people are going to eat.”
The love message is engrained in her logo, shaped like a heart. Heart Flame Bakery specializes in organic, gluten-free, vegan treats, sold at the Hanalei Farmer’s Market, other local events as well as five retail locations.
When she was 6 years old, Fein fell in love with Hawaii. While her parents were on a business trip in Japan, they sent Fein and her 10-year-old sister, Lisa, from their home in New York to Honolulu.
There were only two hotels on Waikiki at the time and one was under construction.
“We stayed at the Royal Hawaiian,” remembered Fein. “It was my first time up on a surfboard. And it was the first time I ate papaya.”
A love affair for everything food-related and Hawaiian unfolded. When a vendor with a push cart on Waikiki Beach came along, she was elated.
“I had traveled a lot at an early age and I had never had vanilla ice cream with real vanilla beans in it,” the Anahola resident said.
The positive impression was a lasting one. Even when the family prepared to fly back to New York, the young Fein had a meltdown at the Honolulu airport.
“I can’t go,” Fein recalled of the adolescent feeling. “I feel like someone is pulling out my stomach. Don’t take me away from my ‘home.’”
For the past 30 years, Fein has made Hawaii her part-time home. She co-owned a bakery on Oahu and is the founder on Heart Flame Bakery on Kauai.
“This island speaks to me,” Fein said. “She knows what she wants for you.”
Fein sleeps in a van at the beach with her dog Hanaleia three nights a week.
“I’m not homeless,” Fein said. “I just love the ocean and seeing the sun coming up over it every day.”
She learned the lesson of cooking with love in the Lone Star State.
While living in Austin, Texas, Fein was the executive chef in the elite Club Corps of America country club dining room where lawmakers were served her dishes.
“When I took the job, I felt that if I made them better food with more love, they would make better laws,” Fein said with a laugh.
Her defining, career-making, “ah-ha” moment came while she was traveling in France.
“We were at a four-star restaurant and while standing in the waiting area we could see a giant wood-burning stove. It was an area where the workers were slathering on layer after layer of filling and icing on these really long pastry sheets. When my father asked me what I wanted for dinner, I pointed to the pastries. I had two Napoleons for dinner that night.”
Not living by the rules and taking things one joyous moment at a time as they present themselves continues to be Fein’s mantra today.
“People who say they are bored living on Kauai, they don’t open their eyes, this island changes every day,” Fein said. “If you like life that moves quickly, you’ll miss the beauty of Kauai.”
• This is an ongoing weekly feature in The Garden Island. It focuses on everyday people who reflect the spirit that makes Kauai the place it is today. If you know of somebody you’d like to see featured, email features and education reporter Lisa Ann Capozzi at lcapozzi@thegardenisland.com.
