While I make SPAM musubi and poke salad, my Hawaiian favorites are store bought. I love Hawaii, and with THE ALOHA SPIRIT nearing publication, I have been enjoying Hawaiian foods. The broiled topping is brown sugar and cereal flakes. My coffee cake recipe is a yellow cake (made from scratch) with brown sugar swirled through it. It was a scary time, right? I had two sons under two years of age, and for the first time I was terrified for my children.

I remember in 1989, after the Loma Prieta earthquake, I made two 9” round coffee cakes and ate almost an entire one by myself. My go-to comfort foods, though, are usually sweet. During this pandemic, like so many others, I have begun a sourdough starter and baked a lot of bread. The kitchen, then, is definitely a place of comfort for me. I point out that they don’t need to eat a dozen cookies in one sitting. My family complains that I make so many cookies and desserts that they gain too much weight. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking meals and baking. Twitter: your go to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing? They have two adult sons and two yellow Labradors. She currently lives in San Jose with her husband. She recently retired from teaching elementary school and now enjoys writing full-time, as well as cooking, leatherworking, reading, gardening, spending time with her family, and taking long walks with her dogs. Her books are the stories of women in her family who were extraordinary but unsung. Linda believes in the unspoken power of women living ordinary lives. Linda is the author of Under the Almond Trees, which was a semifinalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Contest, and The Aloha Spirit, to be released in 2020. She is a member of the Hawaii Writers Guild, Marketing Chair for Women Writing the West, and a founding member of Paper Lantern Writers. Linda Ulleseit, born and raised in Saratoga, California, has an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University.

The Aloha Spirit by Linda Ulleseit