No Filter in Paradise
Two friends, one's straight one's Gay, with different backgrounds, interest, upbringing & outlook in life come together to have a Fun & honest conversation and discuss their opinions on different topics... with no filter.
No Filter in Paradise
Hofi Cas Kora: How A Curaçao Farm Feeds A Community With Local, Seasonal Food | EP 213
What if your menu started with the harvest instead of a shopping list? We sit down with Femy of Hofi Kascora to explore how a small Curaçao farm powers a weekend restaurant, a micro-market, and a community that loves seasonal food. From carrot-top pesto to broccoli leaves, she shows how to cook with what thrives in island heat, not what ads and imports tell us we “should” want.
We get into the nuts and bolts of regenerative farming—crop rotations, companion planting, and the ancient Three Sisters method—so soil gets richer, not poorer. Femy breaks down real, organic pest strategies: using crop diversity to confuse insects, pepper-garlic ferments as deterrents, and physical barriers to keep out iguanas and invasive African snails. The weather swings matter too; hot, dry periods suppress pests, while rainy seasons demand sharper observation and faster responses.
Beyond the beds, we talk full-circle systems. Rescued animals turn scraps into fertilizer. Chefs who buy weekly push variety and celebrate flavor. The farm’s menu follows the field, with staples for steady crops and specials for short runs. For home gardeners, Femy shares simple cues to read plant stress and a start-small plan to avoid burnout. We also widen the lens: edible flowers and local foraging add beauty and nutrition, while vertical and controlled-environment farming can unlock food security on land-scarce, rocky islands.
If you care about local food, sustainable farming, or just making better meals with fewer imports, this conversation is your new playbook. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves to cook, and leave a review telling us your favorite local swap you’re trying next.
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I mean, but that's life, right? It's it can be like the outside can look so big and whatever, and then in real life it's small. Or when you pull it out and it's a big one, you're like, whatever.
SPEAKER_00:It's a big one. Let's go.
SPEAKER_04:It's a good thing because yeah, water is uh depends on the plant, but water is necessity on the plant.
SPEAKER_03:Drowned. It was a pool. Okay. I think you're the only person on the ABC Island that would say, like, yeah, it's super hot today. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:We're all at the end of the day. I mean, not on a daily, not on a daily, but I mean.
SPEAKER_03:Nice, because like if you can teach people how to grow their own stuff, it's also like food food security.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03:So like a lot of people that are growing stuff in their own backyard. I feel like in Naruma we don't really have that.
SPEAKER_04:So that is one of those ancient like theories that you can that we use today. We have a lot of ducks and chickens and miniature goats and sheep and oh baby, this is a farm, farm, farm.
SPEAKER_01:Farm farm.
SPEAKER_03:If it's ever a lockdown in the future, I know where I'm going. Got a farm, we got food, time me up.
unknown:All right, all right.
SPEAKER_01:Hey yo, what's up? Ala chemisters.
SPEAKER_03:Guys, welcome back to the ABC Islands favorite podcast, No Filter in Paradise. A show about tolo un poquito, anything and everything between two friends. One is straight and the other. The favorite black homosexuals, babies. You are literally the favorite, like not even joking. I am like legit anywhere we go. Oh, but the guy that interview stuff. Yeah, no, I mean the wild. I was seeing me the wild be like, yo, what's going on? Like, I'm also in it. It's no shade. It's no shade. It's no shade at all. I enjoy it. I like to be in the background. So I'm like more the production side.
SPEAKER_01:That's nice to say. I like that. I like that for you.
SPEAKER_03:I know. I might be in my bed crying. Why? Alright, guys. Today we have a special guest here. Today we got Miss Femy from Hoffee Cascora. Yes. Hey.
SPEAKER_04:Bon Daddy, Bondia, Bonochi. Whatever time you're watching. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Alright, so um, today we're gonna be talking about a little bit about farming, if I correct.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, that's what I was invited for. So I mean, I can talk about anything. I love you.
SPEAKER_03:I don't like this.
SPEAKER_04:I love you.
SPEAKER_03:This reminds me of like when we were in Bonaire when I asked about the Smash Burger. Is it really Smash Burger? I mean, the girl goes like it's that smash burger on the menu.
SPEAKER_01:But that's how it works. Yeah, that's that's okay. That's how it works.
SPEAKER_03:See, now you guys make me look I'm the dumb one.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sorry, I love you already. Like, let's get into it.
SPEAKER_03:Even early off camera, she said something and I mean like, um, no, you're not. I'm like, just calls us out. And I'm like, I love it.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry.
SPEAKER_03:Don't be sorry, don't be no, we love that.
SPEAKER_00:We love that. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:All right, so before uh to dive a little bit about who's paying me.
SPEAKER_04:Uh, who am I? Um, I'm not your average pharmacal. Um, well, yeah, I um grew up in Curaçao, went to Holland for studies, thought I was gonna enter the fashion industry, but then I became a farmer. So yeah, um, things changed a little bit. Um, I graduated in the recession, so there was not a lot of jobs in Holland. Um, however, my husband now husband's family um had just bought the property that is now Hofi Kaskora. And um yeah, uh so we came on vacation, we saw the property and we saw opportunity. Um, it was also right after 101010, so Cursaus Independence. And um, you know, living in Holland, um, knowing the seasons with food and the farmers markets, I I really enjoyed cooking and um getting my fresh produce by the boer. And so um yeah, this idea of like a self-sustainable um food concept, farm to table concept came to exist. Farm to table.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was gonna ask, explain what what do you mean with that? We want to go into that for sure.
SPEAKER_04:It's not something we came up with, it was an existing term. However, I think here in Curaçao um it wasn't something known yet. So when we came back in 2014 and we introduced it, I think it was uh right time, right place. Um, but it's literally um restaurants that use a lot of farm fresh, seasonal, uh local produce, like microgreens, all that stuff. Oh yeah, that's uh that's an easy one, but uh microgreens indeed. Um, you know, in the last 10 years, that that term farm to table has been used a lot for marketing purposes, and indeed put a little microgreen on there and it's local. Then you say yeah, it's yeah, you know, um so but of course, like we said earlier, start small, right? And um yeah, just be aware where the produce come from, be able to communicate it to your guests and um support the local farmers.
SPEAKER_01:And what are some produce that you all use at uh Hofi Kaskara?
SPEAKER_04:Um so in Curacao and what we grow, um there's a bunch of quite easy, I would say easy to grow things that grow all year round um that a lot of farmers grow, and those are things that we have on our menu. So we have pumpkin, cucumbers, uh, eggplant, um, string beans, uh, there's a bunch of stuff that grows standard, but then we also started experimenting with um things like broccoli, radish, um, carrots, and they might not be the beautiful carrots that you see in the supermarket. They're like a little wonky and you know, however, they're still different colors, yeah. Um, but they're still fresh, they're local, that's different types. So this is also once we started experimenting, it also really depends on what seeds or what variety um you buy. Oh wow that does or doesn't do well in our climate. So yeah, going through the years, we started learning more and and started doing better. But even if you get the carrots, and maybe the carrots aren't fully grown or haven't done well because the soil's not good or something, you still get the carrot tops. So you can still make like a pesto with the carrot tops. Or um, right now I have broccoli growing. If you look at my stories today, um, you know, the broccoli doesn't grow in a big ball of broccoli, but um it sort of becomes like little bits because it's um like broccolini, I call it. Um, because it needs that cold weather to to form a this. However, it also has leaves and the leaves are edible. So if the broccoli isn't growing optimal, we still have a byproduct um and it's not all lost.
SPEAKER_01:So I messed with this so hard and I want to like go into yeah, you do that. I want to go into a little bit more of the gardening side before we get into like the the serving and the restaurant side. I want to go into the like the gardening side. So speaking of like what you were just talking about with like the carrots and stuff like that, I've done like my own research and all this good stuff. And this lady, she once told us, she said, a lot of times you have to use what grows in your climate. So let's say, for instance, kalaloo might be something that grows a lot for us here. Yeah. So we use that as spinach instead of using spinach or this lady.
SPEAKER_04:I like her way of thinking. Because no, because that's something that I always say, like us on these islands, we are so influenced by we have American television, we have Dutch cookbooks, we have um Latin American, and we have all these things flown in from everywhere. We get asperges when it's aspergus season in Holland. We get, you know, so we get everything that's in season in Holland, in United States, and everything. And this is what we find in the supermarkets, and this is also what we're conditioned because the media that we see and and have at our disposal is so that's what we are trained to think of. However, we have so many products here that are seasonal and grow here and even grow in the wild. Like I I and really enjoy foraging, and there's like a lot of things that are forgotten, but um Curaçao is like the island of healing, like our island gives us what we need. Um, and we just look at outside for you know, because what comes from outside is better.
SPEAKER_01:Give me like three things that just grows in the wild here that you think or that you feel like people can substitute.
SPEAKER_04:Um, well, in the wild, um, maybe not, but like a lot of fruit trees are forgotten here. There's so much fruit that people have fruit trees or they'll cut them because it makes a mess in their yard. Yeah. But you know, when we have the fruit, we need to harvest it, we need to um preserve it. So right now it's mango season, and at one point sometimes you don't even want to think about seeing mangoes anymore.
SPEAKER_03:But I'm like because in my front yard where I'm living, there's a big mango tree and it's falling all over it.
SPEAKER_04:And you get um, how do I say this? Um, you take it for granted when it's in access, you know, when it's in yeah, overflowed. Uh huh. Yeah. Um, but then once it's not there, you're like, oh man, I should have, you know, savored that mango. So what we do a lot is we do a lot of preserving. So we pickle, we make sauces, we freeze, you know, and then you can use it for a later moment.
SPEAKER_03:No waste.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, no waste. I love that. Yeah, for sure. Now, same lady. Okay. I need to meet her.
SPEAKER_01:She was also talking about the soil. So she was talking about a lot of the times, um, in order for you to get like a very decent garden, you need really good soil.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And soil takes about maybe like five years for you to get like really good soil. And she was always taught she was also telling us about like foresting.
SPEAKER_04:So where the plants help each other with yeah, so um, you know, uh in history, and if you look at like big farm, like commercial farms in the United States where they have like rows and rows of corn and cereal and things like that, that um this is monocropping. So it's one type of product, and they do that all year long the whole time. So what it does is these plants like they'll take all the nutrients from the soil, and um often these seeds that they're planting or the crops that they're planting, they're like um uh uh genetically mod modified, so GMO seeds, where it's almost um certain that they'll produce, but the nutritional value that the pro produce produce has is zero because the soil is not rich in nutrients and the the seeds that they're planting is yeah, real exactly. Um, so indeed that's the trend that you've been seeing is also that people do small scale farming. So that's what we're doing, and we're doing regenerative farming. So we make sure that whatever we take out, we give back. Um, and by doing crop rotations and doing companion planting, these are ways that you can um give back to the earth because some plants give more, some take more, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So can you tell us a bit more about uh like plant co-planting or like these plants? So it basically is what I've understood is like um some plants need shade. So you'll plant like a bigger tree next to the smaller ones, like a rainforest, basically, that they just exactly.
SPEAKER_04:There's a permaculture, I think. Exactly. Yeah, the permaculture does this, um, also the um gorilla farming, uh where they just plant everything together, and often it is a longer-term plan because you're planting a lot of fruit trees as well, which take longer to grow. Um, obviously, we are a little bit more commercial because we need to produce, we have a restaurant, we have our businesses built on um the produce that we need to harvest daily. Um, but one of the ancient um um theories is uh the three sisters, and it's from the Mayan time back in Mexico, back in Peru. This is what the Latin culture does. It's um pumpkins, corn, and beans. So pumpkin um it a plama, it's uh it's it's he stays on the surface, yeah. It's crawl. Yes, it's a it's a um, you know, it's a crawler. A crawler, a plant that spreads out. Then you have the corn stalks that go upwards, and beans also like to climb, so they'll get the support from the corn to grow on the corn, and then whatever the pumpkin is doing is crawling, is covering the ground, keeping the soil moist or cold. So that is one of those ancient like theories that you can that we use today.
SPEAKER_01:Last thing I have for you on gardening, okay? It is how do you make sure you deal with pests?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, it's um so I mean, knock on wood. We are knocking for you, baby. No, so every the funny thing is that um, you know, for us, we're farming in the open air and um we are organic, so we don't use any pesticides. Um because of the crop rotation, because of like the constantly changing of the land uh to a certain extent, uh the the and the animals, the bugs will get confused. Whereas if you have one big field, it's like open buffet, welcome. They know here's the next. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:We know what's coming next year again.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so and if if for example, you know, you have just like one row of this, one row of that, and it's everything.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like what's what's going on? Like which part of the thing is.
SPEAKER_04:The animals get confused, so that's one way. Um, but we also use um like eco methods that are like um like a fermentation of peppers and and garlic. Um that's something that the bugs don't like. Um so yeah. And also, I mean, we learn every year. Um, when we started 10 years ago, uh it was super dry and we didn't have any rain, so that was good. Then four years later, all of a sudden we got so much rain. Um, you know, we had we're in a in a water retention area, so we got flooding. So we lost some. But then also with that came all um, people are always like, oh, butterflies. And I'm like, no, damn it, that's caterpillars. You know, so as soon as I see butterflies in my farm, I'm like, ah, that means there's gonna be caterpillars soon, you know? So um, yeah, you get caterpillars. Um, but also um what we've also gotten now is like the giant African snails. It is a problem on the island. Really?
SPEAKER_03:What does that look like?
SPEAKER_04:I think it's like oh the biggest one we had was as big as my palm. And they can get as big as your forearm.
SPEAKER_03:Um go Googling.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it was a it was a massive white shell? It is a it's a very hard shell. Giant, say they call them gas, giant African snails. So in Florida, this was a huge problem back in the late 80s or 90s, um early 90s, and they Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, so the big ones, there's people I mean, the danger with this, so when they first got spotted here on the island was actually in 2009. Yeah, I don't want to add so that I had my fierce years of these things. There's some things that I really don't like, and it is snails. So um I like snails? No, uh no, no, no. Just the thought of them makes me.
SPEAKER_03:So, how the how does this affect your farm having those big snails?
SPEAKER_04:So um the first time they were spotted here on the island supposedly was 2009-2010. But mind you, we had a drought for four years.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:These animals hibernate, so they'll go bauditera underground, but if it's really hot, they'll die. However, you just need a few to survive. And then back in 2018, 19, 20, when we had more water, they started reproducing. One of them can lay up to 300 and 500 eggs. And so that means that like we first spotted actually, we first spotted it in 2000 in 2020 when it was lockdown and we weren't allowed to like go out. So what we would do was at night, we would just like go on walks on the farm. Because what else are you gonna do? So we were just like walking around the farm and then all of a sudden we started noticing them. So then we started one like manually not even once, like a few. Yeah, like little clusters here and there. But then we started manually um removing them. But we our property, like I said, we um if you enter our property, property, it goes like down because of the water retention, and we're neighboring um like a nature area, Kabauterboss, and there's there's a lot of water retention there. Dumb. So you can't do much. All those leaves, all those that water moisture, that's ideal breeding ground for them. So the next year it was like hell. And then the year after that, like they started coming closer and closer. So where we spotted them was like close to the cabal terbos in the back of the property, and the next year they were closer. So now we still see them. Um, we try to keep them out of the farm because we have like these um galvanized um like cholver plate, like the galvanized uh sheets all around the farm.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:That also hold uh keeps out iguanas. So um that is also a way to build a perimeter around our farm to I feel like these are like your biggest problems, like all these insects and these snails and the iguanas. Yeah, and the thing is that like every year you learn. So um, you know, when it's hot, like now, I'm like, yes, yes, yes, it's super hot. These snails are dying out. Soon when it's December, it's gonna rain. Hopefully, I won't see them anymore. So these are things that I think of.
SPEAKER_03:I think you're the only person on the ABC Island that would say, like, yeah, it's super hot today. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:We're all like, I mean, not on a daily, not on a daily, but I mean, it's it's something that uh yeah, when I'm like, ah, it's a hot summer, yes, these snails are not coming back.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, okay, so uh let's now move on to the food part. Uh-huh. Okay, so we got the produce, we know how to make all you have to do.
SPEAKER_03:No, go on on the food part because I didn't know it was a restaurant. I was looking on your Instagram account and I see a bunch of food. I thought you were catering to other restaurants because my thought was like farm today. It was like, yeah, you're the farmer, here you go, restaurants. But I didn't know you had a restaurant open.
SPEAKER_04:We're the full circle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Whoa, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_04:We also have animals, but they're not for consumption. Most of them are rescues. Okay. Um, but they also play their role in our farm. And um, you know, they have obviously they eat all the scraps, they eat the weeds that we pull, and um, their poop is our fertilizer.
SPEAKER_01:So what animals do you have?
SPEAKER_04:Um, we have a bunch of donkeys. Um we have uh pigs, we have a lot of ducks and chickens and miniature goats and sheep and oh baby, this is a farm, farm, farm.
SPEAKER_03:Farm farm. It's good. If there's ever a lock then in the future, I know where I'm going. You got a farm, you got food. Time me up. Yeah. Not that we're eating the animals, but not even the animals.
SPEAKER_01:Speak for yourself. Um but let's talk about the restaurant part. Like, where did this idea even come from and how did you burst into it?
SPEAKER_04:Um, so back to the idea in 2010 when we saw this property, it is uh a farming ground. So uh we thought, okay, if we want to um raise awareness on local produce, like what can you use instead of so one of the examples that I always use is like instead of asparagus, use string beans. You you asked me about like what can you for but um and like you said, like the um kalaloo for spinach, although spinach grows here too. But um that's you can that's our concept is like um we got inspired by worldly cuisine and then we make it our own by using our produce. I love yeah, so it's a way to to inspire people to to do with what we have. And yeah, our our idea is to check what we have and we create we create a dish with it rather than we want to create this dish and we need this for it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:This is genius. This is creativity at its highest.
SPEAKER_04:Well, yeah, it that it is a a form of creativity. Um so especially with a meal plan, that is what consumes most of my time during the week right now. Because it is um cooking with what you have, and we have big groups. So I mean, and also when I go to restaurants or okay, all right, part of the show. When restaurants approach us to buy produce, um, I always ask like how much would you use or how much do you need? Because we have a bunch of different things. We have like up to like 17, 20 different crops growing, but I might not have like 10, 20 kilos of harvest of everything every day. So um, yeah, we'll do specials with certain things. Um, and like I said, with produce that we have more of or that are more widely available locally, even by other farmers. Um yeah, those are the things that you can create standards, like that's what we have on our menu, and then the specials will be whatever we have, we create something with it.
SPEAKER_03:Can you like can people come and buy produce from you? Like if I I'm living here, I want to buy produce straight from you because I don't want pesticides, I don't want any of that stuff.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we have a small farm shop, um the marketplace. It's on the property. Um it's open.
SPEAKER_03:It's a one-stop shop.
SPEAKER_04:Where else do you want to go?
SPEAKER_03:Dory would love it here. Yeah, it's my wife would live on your farm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:She can come. We need more hands. We got jobs. Yeah, it's um the the farm shop. We um we had a zero waste and uh farm shop shop and cafe, but we closed down the cafe part, so we minimized after three years to spend a little bit more time back into the farm because the cafe part was taking a lot of our energy. Um and we wanted to go back to, you know, being on the field. Um, however, we still have a small setup where you can buy your vegetables and have a little coffee walk around. Um, we also have a few restaurants that we deliver to weekly. And um, yeah, I love working with other chefs because they actually really appreciate what you grow and you get feedback from the quality of the pro product. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That's amazing. Do you guys ever because I feel like this information is are things that people don't know. So do you guys ever because I don't know much about like whole cropping and, for example, pesticides. People just go to a supermarket and buy, oh, buy that lettuce, but you don't know that that lettuce went through a bunch of sprays, the seeds are horrible. Yeah. So do you guys do like any workshops or do you go to schools or whatever to give information? Maybe it's something you want to do because it's good to educate people how to farm your own lettuce, how to farm your own things.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so my partner has been wanting to set up a uh course uh for Grow Your Own. Um, but yeah, we've been a bit busy. And um, I also want to do a lot more um cooking workshops. Um, so that I think that's what's that's like our next step.
SPEAKER_03:It'll be nice because like if you can teach people how to grow their own stuff, it's also like food food security.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03:So, like, do you feel like what you guys are doing could also help with that? Like, oh yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. You know, like the thing is that look, if you have a garden, it does need tending to. You know, you need to take a little look at it every day. It needs water, you need to make sure that you know that you notice the the plagues that are going on. If the plants are in distress, they'll tell you because you can observe the leaves and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03:So how can you tell a plant the stress?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, because of the leaves, the way that the is that plant stressed by back there? Well, you know, it's a stress, it needs despotic. Um, but you know, like they'll the by if the leaves are curling or if the leaves are um what do you call it, like getting yellow on the edge or getting yellow by the the nerves? Yeah. So it's all these different things that will tell you this plant needs potassium, this plant needs nitrogen, this plant needs certain nutrients. So that's what I'm saying. This is like it's a further step because obviously, if someone has a garden at home and it doesn't get the love from the person, the plants are gonna die and then they're gonna lose hope. You know? But a person just needs a few That's neat. Yeah, you know, because then it's not fun anymore.
SPEAKER_03:You know, watermelons die. Well, I mean But you also explain how you planted the water. Shut up. Okay, we're gonna explain that.
SPEAKER_04:Using the water of the AC uh, no, but but it's a good thing because yeah, water is uh depends on the plant, but water is uh a necessity on the plants.
SPEAKER_02:Drowned. It was a pool. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so I I'm good at the the farm plants, but my plants in the house are not happy. Um I'm not talking about that today. I also in Holland I drowned my cacti. This was before I was a farmer, so it's okay. I do it too. You drowned your what? My cactus? Oh, I thought you said you drowned a cat. I was like No, my cact, my cacti.
SPEAKER_03:Sorry, for the studio, I bought I bought a snake blank because I know it's super minimal work. Yeah, exactly. Super, barely anything. Like, I see, I can do it.
SPEAKER_04:And it's good for indoors, it purifies the air, so it's a good indoor plant.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but yeah, so for going back to if people should do it at home, I say yes, but don't lose hope. Uh, you need to give it attention. You don't need a whole like gorilla garden, you know, even if you just start small with a few plants, like just a spinach plant, and just make like once a week make something with that spinach, you know, then at least you're getting the hang of the taking care of the plant, harvesting it, making something with it, and then you add another plant, you know. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:May I give you a suggestion? Sure. This is just based off of, and I'm just thinking, like, if I'm in Aruba, honestly, I would really enjoy this information. So if you all could, let's say, for instance, maybe just get like a videographer that could just come by maybe once every two weeks and just starts documenting cooking segment with you. Yeah. And you're like, hey, this is the crops that we have today. We're gonna prepare this meal with it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. On my personal, I have that's my that's what I enjoy doing. So on my personal Instagram, I do have what do farmers eat. Um, it started in 2020 because I had a lot more time and I was cooking at home. But now, yeah, it's it's um the last year has been a busy year. We opened another side business, so that's something else. But um, so yeah, but I love doing that. I love creating that content, showing people what you can do with the local things, and yeah, that is that educating part of um yeah, using local produce. Yeah, that's why I said the videographer, because then it's a good idea. Yeah, then they have to do the job. Just come recording.
SPEAKER_03:Every two weeks it's like one day every two weeks is like a whole day schedule. Okay, we're gonna make 12 reels, one long video, put on YouTube.
SPEAKER_04:What are you guys doing next week?
SPEAKER_03:I'm in a remote.
SPEAKER_01:He's gonna be partying. Like, we ready though. But that's that's really that's some good content right there. Because again, how many of us have these same exact crops probably in our in our yards, and we don't even bother with them? Yeah, you have people that cautiously plant stuff and with the intentions, but it's like at some point, like you say, like even with the mangoes, you have so many of it. What do I do now? Do I make a mango jam? Do I do like what do I do with all of these things, you know? So that's really great that you do stuff like that already. Yep.
SPEAKER_03:What is your favorite crop to grow?
SPEAKER_04:To grow?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I do love carrots. Yeah. Um, yeah, just because the the tops can be so big, but then um you never know. Yeah, exactly. What is the disappointment? But that's life, right? It's it can be like it the outside can look so big and whatever, and then in real life it's small. Or when you pull it out and it's a big one, you're like, I'm a winner.
SPEAKER_00:Pull it out, it's a big one. Let's go.
SPEAKER_03:I'm like, I'm trying so hard not to laugh. Like, don't do it so poker face, don't don't laugh. Oh my god. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so carrots.
SPEAKER_03:And what's your least favorite? Which the one like okay, here we go. The struggle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:There has to be one that's like Tolica Biz, like no, um the snails. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:No, it's not really. There's sometimes there's stuff like, for example, like Yambo and eggplant, which um it's not that I hate growing them, but the harvesting part sometimes sucks.
SPEAKER_03:It's difficult, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, no, because the the Yambo uh okra.
SPEAKER_03:I love Yambo. I don't like Yambo.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so that's the thing. We have clients that love it or hate it, but either we harvest so much and we don't sell it because it's a crop that a lot of farmers grow here, so we don't have enough people buying it. And it is a harder one to uh you can pickle it, but it can also go bad. So it's not one that you can predict it again, keep that long. Yeah. So that might be one that I uh enjoy less. Um and also when you harvest it, it's like fiberglass, so you have to wear like long sleeves. If not, you can't keep like it. Yeah, it's true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:The little stuffies on them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And um and and with the eggplant, also a lot of people do grow it here. Um and sometimes they have thorns on it, so then when you're harvesting, you just like get a butt.
SPEAKER_03:Do you feel like there's a lot of people that are growing stuff in their own backyard? I feel like in Aruba we don't really have that.
SPEAKER_04:I feel like it's growing. It's growing. Yeah, uh I think 2020 everyone was like, oh, home yard, you know, but it's also everyone was at home. So security, but now five years later we've gone on with our life and everyone forgets about the plants in their yard.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um but in Curaçao compared to Aruba and and um Bonaire as well, um, like in Bandabao, it's a lot more pure, and there's a lot of people that still farm out there. So um even if you're driving around, you can see like little fields of like um. Chi Chi Ki and Um yeah, I think that but those are those are I want to say um older generation farmers um and they do it also in the older generation methods.
SPEAKER_03:Um what works for them and sort of like oh I have done this for 20 years, I'm gonna keep it that way.
SPEAKER_04:But you know, we also when we started, we talked to a lot of farmers, a lot of older um farmers, and we learned a lot from them also about our conditions, about our soil, about you know, and um yeah, to a certain extent they do know what they're doing. Um but if you want to make it a business, you have to deal with it as a business, you have to plan, you have to process, you have to invest.
SPEAKER_03:So um yeah, sometimes they just do it because they enjoy it and they don't really care about the business part. But I do get the part of like if you want to do it as a business, you have to scale, you have to hire people, you have to move faster. You can't just take your time. It's a different ballgame for sure.
SPEAKER_05:For sure.
SPEAKER_03:I got one thing I want to ask. Go ahead, sorry. What is what is one thing you don't have on your farm that you want to grow?
SPEAKER_04:That I want to grow?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Like it's not you don't even have it, but like I want to add this to my my list.
SPEAKER_04:Um, edible flowers.
SPEAKER_03:Huh.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Wow. Because they're pretty. And and chefs like working with it, and you know, it that's the new microgreen.
SPEAKER_03:True.
SPEAKER_04:You know, like, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's funny because before I came, before we travel, I was eating somewhere and the guy was showing me, hey, is this new edible flower that I got? So you show me like through the window. In Aruba? Yeah, in Aruba, yeah. Oh yeah, nice. Listen, that's it was a massive one, too. A lot of little petals. It's super cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So wait, you just eat it like that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, like chips?
SPEAKER_01:No, like it just goes in the yeah, you just it's it's it's like eating a piece of lettuce, but it just looks pretty. Yeah. Uh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:It's decoration, decoration stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. It's like the gold dust and stuff like that. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:But it's petals that you can eat and you won't be bombing later.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I'm not I I never knew that.
SPEAKER_03:No?
SPEAKER_04:But there's also a lot of um, there's a lot of flowers in our in our nature. Yeah, that we can eat. Like, um, I don't know if you guys have the BC mine naruba, the little in Dutch it's called broutstran, the pink uh flowers that are everywhere, and it's basically covering all the Mondis and stuff. You don't have it there?
SPEAKER_03:Maybe if I see it, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so that is an edible flower.
SPEAKER_03:Sharks are fine in his backyard.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:What are you eating? Panku Webo and the thing for the pretty good.
SPEAKER_01:I love to play. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04:Make your simple panku webu pretty by adding some flowers to it.
SPEAKER_01:Dom right.
SPEAKER_04:Um, yeah, and also the flamboyant is also edible and it gives a really nice pop of color to the to the salads or to whatever. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Damn. So go for it. Okay, sorry, sorry. I just want to know, based off of like all these practices and all that you've done, right? How do you feel like the island, or let me just say your barrio has accepted this entire situation? Oh, really well.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, for sure. I I um I I really think we were right time, right place. Um and yeah, when we first went, so we came back in 2014, we opened Hofi Kascura, we opened the doors in 2015. I graduated uh from a marketing and branding um, you know, Hooch School in Holland. And, you know, I went by the book because I just graduated, so everything's like by the theory of the book. So okay, you're opening up a business, you need a website. Okay, no money for a website, okay. Use Facebook because there was no, like this is I mean, 11 years ago, so Instagram wasn't as big as it is now, TikTok, all those things. Um, like social media platforms and blogs weren't that big yet. So we opened up a uh Facebook and we started sharing little things, you know, and people started following and they started growing with us. And before we opened our doors officially, I think we already had like a some like maybe a thousand or like up to a thousand followers. So once we opened the doors, people embraced it because they grew with the the project.
SPEAKER_01:They were with it, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And um what was the question?
SPEAKER_01:That was basically the answer though. This is how how how did the the people in the barrio. Oh yeah, they accepted it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and also what I really love about like we've been around for a while, um, is that we have created a place where people come to it's in the weekend. We're only the ri the restaurant is only open in the weekend. So um people come there to relax, to enjoy, to have, you know, with their families, with grandparents, grandchildren, kids, because we have the animals, we get a lot of families, young families. We see people on their first date, we see them get married by us, you know. We host events, so we host weddings, we host other corporate events.
SPEAKER_03:But how big is this property?
SPEAKER_04:The the pro the property is big, but what we use isn't that big. It's like an acre and a half.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Um, and then um, you know, you see families grow, you see kids grow. Like, I mean, kids that were four, when they started coming with their families every weekend, they're off to college.
SPEAKER_00:Now I'm like, how old are we?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but it's nice to see. And um, and these people have been coming for 10 years, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And what is what is that feeling like personally to you specifically? Knowing that you are contributing to your environment, to your island, the place you grew up in, how does that feel for you?
SPEAKER_04:Um, I maybe I don't necessarily um look at it like that that often, but I always feel like it's a collaborative success because if I didn't have this community, we couldn't exist. So it's because of it's because of our clients supporting us, it's we can do what we do. And it's because our team, we have people in our team for 10 years already that you know, yeah. It's so it without them, we couldn't have grown to what we have what we've become now either. And um, yeah, I enjoy creativity, I enjoy creating new concepts, I enjoy that. So if they keep coming and they keep pushing, I'll keep creating.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's all you need.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:What's like a in a in a scenario in a different universe? Like what for you would be like the ultimate dream for you to see on career stuff happening with you want to see people everybody be doing their farming in their own backyard? Like in an imagination world, what would that look like for you?
SPEAKER_04:Um You know, I think that there's a lot of development happening right now. Um, there's a lot of hotels coming, and um, there's a lot of like in the last um few uh years, there's a lot of houses that have been bought by foreigners, and um, there's a lot of people that come from abroad with the mindset of a city of like, let me go to the farmer's market, let me support local, because we also got get a lot of tourists and a lot of um expats that you know they are already it's already um in their norm to go to the local farmers market, so they look for it. Um and we need more of these places, um, especially because there's more people coming. But because the grounds are being taken away uh because of house developments, we need to think of other more newer methods, sustainable methods. Curaçao is hot, water's a problem, you know. Um we have we don't have those problems because we're in a water retention area, because we have all that land. But to make a farming business, think of containers, you know, um secured spaces where you can control the climate, the environment, the water usage, and you can go vertical. So um, and I think those are like more sustainable, more effective ways just to make sure that the input gives an outcome. Um, it is a bigger uh money investment, but again, if you're gonna have your farming business treated as a business, you need that investment, you need that input for out.
SPEAKER_03:Do you think vertical business uh vertical business, vertical farming is very important? Like to for it's something we're talking about in Aruba. It's like by increasing, or at least let's say the government, for example, invest in helping five different farmers, like, hey, we need you to do vertical farming. Would that would help reduce costs? Like let's focus on like in Aruba, there's uh 297 farms. There's a lot, there's a few. Well, there's one well, those people grow some amazing lettuce. Yeah, and like by helping smaller businesses in that same industry, instead of keep importing lettuce, now you have somebody that grows it. Yeah, so like and I feel like because there's not much land, why not focusing on vertical farming?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. And I think especially Aruba, the the ground is is very different than here. We have we have better better grounds. No, I think it's like very rocky and very dice. So yeah, so it's very hard to but that's why there's other more modern solutions that you can still do it. It's just yeah, don't think of the traditional old way of a field of farming.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So yeah, for more uh food security and yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And for your business, for your place, what is your your big goal for and so what's one goal you want to reach before we end this year? And what's one goal you have for next year?
SPEAKER_04:So um on this journey of uh farming and food and um consuming the food, but not only the food, everything that happens around you, and becoming more aware about the sustainability and about being one with our earth. Um I did a holistic nutritional coaching um uh what do you call it? Uh I have a degree. Yeah, I did a course. And um I did that course to to become a little bit more aware and also everything that I do to um to look at it as a whole, because we're all people, we're in this environment, you know, food is one of our basic necessities. And um, so I want to do a lot more with like the holistic well-being of people, um, not just selling the food, but we do a lot of um like yoga retreats as well. But I would love to do a little bit more of that. Um, do a little bit more of um herbal medicine, like how how the food can be medicine, for example. Um, so I want to start focusing a little more on that. We've been doing things, we've done events, we've done um, you know, uh we've done catering events, but yeah, just more of that.
SPEAKER_01:I love this. I'm very excited for this. Now, before we close out, I want you to look into this camera right here. Yeah. And I want you to talk to the grown people, the kids, the people on the islands, the people all over the world who's watching today.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What sustainable practices should people be more focused on? And where do you what what do you want people to take away from all of this conversation we had today?
SPEAKER_04:Okay sorry, my focus. How long do I have? I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01:Go ahead.
SPEAKER_04:Um, okay. It's like I said, I I like to look at it as a whole, you know. We're we're together in this, um, especially the older generation, you know, for the kids. Um, we need to build better futures and and be more aware and self-aware of how we deal with our environment. And that's not just the the grounds where we grow, but also where we build, how we build, the materials we use, and um the way we discard of materials and how we can reuse material because our resources are drying up, and you know, we need to be more mindful about all of it, the way we live and yeah, and treat each other.
SPEAKER_03:100%. Amen. Agreed. Amen. Well, Fame, you want to say thank you for coming on the show?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_03:I really hope I really hope. Um keep saying hope, but we're gonna make it one day to the to your to your restaurant, your farm, because I want to see it in person. Yeah, I want to see these big snails in person too. No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_05:I'll spare it.
SPEAKER_03:But I definitely want I I saw I saw some some nice oh, that's my phone. I think I saw some banana bread on your on your page, and I love banana bread. Yeah, you should check your page out. It's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01:I will.
SPEAKER_03:Um, so we're definitely gonna have uh in the future episode with you, maybe while we're eating.
SPEAKER_05:Sure.
SPEAKER_03:And um guys, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe. Every single information, their Instagram, their website, everything will be found in the description if you want to check them out. And um, we'll see you guys next week. Peace. Ayo. Perfect.