Jason finally granted appeals hearing

I'm not a political person. I don't understand it, I'm not interested in it, I don't care much about it.

But when politics affects my friends, I learn fast.

Nov 2010: I had just crossed into Panama. 2 weeks later, Pedro called to ask if I had been watching the local news. "Jason's been arrested, dude. They just all crashed into his house and took stuff. They're accusing him of some pretty rough stuff."

His mom had been visiting, fresh off a medical conference she had attended in Costa Rica. How crazy must that have been to see her son dragged out of the house by police with no explanation. When I came back to Nicaragua, I stayed with his wife and kid, so they wouldn't be alone in the house. I watched Jabu so she could visit him in prison several towns over to bring food and clean drinking water. We all thought that it would be quick, he would be released fairly soon, that it would be clear that there was real reason nor evidence against him.

Aug 2011: Jason is convicted of organized crime, international drug trafficking, and money laundering. He is sentenced to 22 years in Nicaraguan prison.

Aug 2012: 18 months later, he is finally being granted an appeals hearing. It concluded this afternoon. Jason gave his address to the court and AC360 correspondent, Miguel Marquez was at the courtroom to speak with his sisters Janis and Jaime:



"The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has ruled that he was not provided with a trial consistent with its obligations under international law. Subsequently, the Working Group called for the Nicaraguan government to order Jason's immediate release.

"We are gratified that the United Nations has found Jason is being held in violation of international law,” said Puracal’s international attorney, Jared Genser. “We call on the Nicaraguan government to release him immediately in accordance with this important ruling.”

More coverage can be found on such sites as Reuters, CNN, a Change.org petition, and of course, from FreeJasonP.com


For an overview of Jason's case:


Or watch a previous interview on AC360 with Anderson Cooper here

...(holding breath)...ASKING FOR A KICKSTART...(nervous exhale)...

I haven't written in nearly a year.

I started this website for you to follow me go somewhere, look for something, do something, to find something. And then I became wanted. It seemed that from the moment I stepped foot off the island, everyone took a sudden interest into who I was as a person and why it was that I left. I was invited to food festivals. I was called on as a guest chef. I was put in charge of an international conference. My picture was taken. I did interviews. I got to hang with fancy chefs. I had an article written about me. Or several.

And despite my long, LOOOOONG held preferences to not join social media networks...I did. Or rather, Richie joined for me. I'm @TheNoodleCook on Twitter, and put out stuff often enough for you to know I'm using it. But that's it! I still don't have a facebook, I don't do instagram, and I only occassionally post to our haparamen.tumblr.com site.

And I stopped writing here. The people I was writing for was not the audience that was beginning to follow me. Now, anyone who wanted to creep on my past life pre-Hapa Ramen would read past entries and feel entitled to talk to me like we were more than just friends.

But I write again because now I need you, creepers and non-creepers, to read this, and help me do something about it.

Richie and I have officially begun construction on our restaurant space, to be called HAPA, located at 1527 Fillmore. We've experienced a few (a lot) of delays, waited on paperwork, filed for permits, and waited some more. We're excited, and not excited. Hard to be excited about work you can't see happening. But now it's happening...and we're still not fully funded.

Kickstarter is this thing where the community can help us make this happen at https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/haparamen. Although we list our project goal at $55K we actually need more than that. The cool thing is, with kickstarter, we get all the money pledged by our community if we reach our target goal. The super-risky-sucky part about kickstarter is that we ONLY get the money if we reach the target goal.

If we don't meet the target goal, we get nothing.


All or nothing. Kind of like getting this restaurant started.


That's as honest as I get. We've started building it. It was either start now and hope we can pay, or wait around until we can pay. We decided with go.

Kickstart our project for Hapa on Fillmore