Home bakers find sweet success in tough times
WHEN TUI TUILETA LEFT HONOLULU FOR COLLEGE in 2016, he was renowned for his skills in volleyball, not baking. But these days, the 6-ft.-2-in. former U.S. national volleyball team member, who has since returned home, is best known around his native Oahu as the Kuki Man, thanks to his delectable cookies, which have soared in popularity in the past year.
Tuileta, 25, lost his job as a fire-knife dancer performing at luaus when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted shutdowns throughout the service industry in 2020. While he’s the first to admit he’s no kitchen whiz, Tuileta turned to baking in his newfound free time to satisfy his own lifelong craving for cookies. “If there’s one thing I can make, it’s cookies,” he says. His friends, who followed him on Instagram
