Category: Food

Happenings…real and imagined.

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Sarah invited me to work with her and some great people that have created a presenting organization called Interisland Terminal. I haven’t attended one of their weekly meetings yet but I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime their second program Turn it Up to 11! Rock N’ Roll Cinema Weekend opens this Friday.

Back home Mary is getting ready for her S/S 2010 Fashion Week presentation for Slow and Steady Wins the Race. I’ve been trying to work with her from afar. I don’t know how useful I’ve been but it keeps me from feeling so far away. She has a great roster of contributors to The Still Life:

Last year I believed that I video taped a ghost . This year ghosts are not really an issue but having distance from it has made me curious about what really happened.  I was talking to Julie about it and she suggested that I have a session with this woman that does ‘clearings’.  I think I’d like to ask her about my tape.

Finally I’m trying a new recipe tonight. Kat introduced me to the recipe for Zuni Chicken which has become something I cook almost every other week. I asked her to recommend another recipe just to have more than one chicken dish in my repertoire. She didn’t have one but she steered me towards one of her favorites: Mark Bittman. Here’s how the Butter Chicken (as we’re calling it) turned out:


Made in Hawaii

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Last Sunday we caught the last two hours of the Made in Hawaii Festival. We’d been moving all weekend and almost forgot it was happening. Our new landlady sent us an email reminding us about the festival. We dashed over there before it closed down and walked through the whole thing.

It was pretty much how I imagined it would be. If there was more time and a little less people I really would have liked to explore each booth. There were so many great things like pidgin t-shirts, roasting pan cozies, straw hats, koa wood jewelry boxes, Hawaiian christmas ornaments, local fruit jams, and on and on.

At first I was dashing around grabbing every business card that I could. And then I realized there’s probably a roster of vendors on their site. Even though we won’t be here for next year’s festival, I figure I’ll look up individual companies and explore their wares over the course of this year. There were lots of people there and it seemed like a lot of the popular vendors had sold out. Like the Made in Hawaii Foods mochi strawberries.

It’s a really great event. We came home with a clay coaster that absorbs water ‘magically’, a Hawaiian crest key chain, and poha jam.



ono pono

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We had dinner at Ono Hawaiian Food the other night with Sarah and Steve. I’ve been hearing about this place since we got here and I have been wanting to have real Hawaiian food for months.

It may sound weird given my curiosity for local culture, that we haven’t had Hawaiian food until now but it’s not as easy to find as you might think. We’ve had bits and pieces here and there but it’s been mostly fusion style, like Alan Wong’s (which is super fancy).

I loved it. I even wanted to go back the next day for lunch. On the door was a sign that instructed people to wait online to the right of the entrance and encouraged them to be patient–on a hand-written sign ‘no get mad’.

The highlights for me were the lau lau (pork wrapped in spinach leaves), kalua pork (pulled seasoned pork), and haupia (coconut jello-ish). I loved it. It was so yum.

We went for drinks down the street afterwards and we had a really great conversation with them about the idea of locals vs tourists and Hawaii’s multi-faceted relationship with tourism. I even tried to video some of our conversation which I’ll post and write about later.

In the meanwhile two interesting links: A Washington Times article about Hawaii turning 50 this year and a Hawaii agency dedicated to helping tourists in trouble (via Sarah).


A Roy

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We had dinner with the fantastic Lums tonight at Roy’s in Hawaii Kai.   It was good food and great company.  I’d heard people rave about Roy’s and frankly expected it to be disappointing.  But the service was very good and the food was satisfying. I can hardly sit up to write this.  It was so good that we closed the place down with talk story.

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Just kidding.  Hawaii unlike NY does sleep.

Interesting factlette from Wing tek: Punahou alumns not only include Barack Obama (leader of the free world) but Steve Case co founder of AOL and Pierre Omidyar founder of Ebay as well.  Amazing!

Just reward

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After we finished our deliveries we spotted a Leonard’s truck and stopped to get some malasadas.  What could possibly go better with malasadas for lunch than Keneke’s fried shrimp plate lunch?  Nothing!

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You might think that a fried donut after fried shrimp with macaroni salad, two scoops of rice, and a coca cola wouldn’t be good idea.  Unfortunately that didn’t occur to me until I’d polished off the whole styrofoam container.

A Nordstrom Day

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We’re going to a restaurant opening tonight and there’s a red carpet.  Which is tres fancy because in my experience Hawaii is the anti-fancy.  So when it comes to fancy situations Nordstrom at Ala Moana Shopping Center is the one-stop-shop-for-all-your-fancy-needs department store.

The exciting part is that K got his first Aloha shirt:

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and I got this delicious thing:

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In the parking lot I saw this which I liked alot:

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And when we got back to the car there were cookies on my seat which K said were from the Aloha Santa.  They were YUHHH MEEEE:

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Uncle!

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We’re fast approaching our Summer break which means heading back to NY for a little while.  It’s exciting.  Summer is my least favorite season in Manhattan but as K would say ‘it’ll do pig’.  I’m looking forward to being able to go anywhere without having to worry about driving or getting a ride.  Translation I’m most looking forward to seeing all my favorite friends at all our favorite places.  High on my list is a nice long session with Mary at Marlow: good wine, pate, chocolate cake with sea salt.  I just gulped when I wrote that.

K’s friend and coworker Eric wrapped up his job here the other day and they planned a very festive going away dinner for him at Uncle Bo’s in Waikiki.  Lots of people turned out because this Eric dude is a very likable fellow. My friend Seth lives nearby in Chinatown so I gave him a call and asked if he wanted to meet us for a drink.

Seth and I are old friends from NY.  We used to eat and drink a whole lot when we first met 11 years ago.  It was liberating and very nostalgic to spontaneously get together just to drink and talk.  Because of my mobility issues I’ve been here in Oahu for 8 months and have only seen him 3 times.

Uncle Bo’s is quite nice.  K and I unfortunately didn’t eat any of the food because we thought it was only drinks.  On the way, we stopped for McDonald’s drive thru.

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Uncle Bo’s set down a bunch of complimentary dishes in front of us that looked very tasty but at the time made me feel a little sick because of my hastily devoured Big Mac.  I hope we get a chance to go back. The spicy tuna looked good.

My favorite thing at Uncle Bo’s was the espresso infused vodka.  Deeeeelicious.  It didn’t even taste like vodka–very smooth and fragrant.  Seth was explaining to me why it was special but I wasn’t registering what he was telling me.

K and I brought our new flip cameras with us.  After midnight, most of the people at the dinner had either gone home or headed to a party at Aloha Tower.  K, Eric, Seth, and I were the only ones left polishing off drinks and talking.  K and I had brought our new flip cameras and we filmed silly little drunk bits of conversation.

I realized watching the footage later that when I’m drunk I can be a little bit of a bully.  I insisted Eric give me a profound thought to wrap up his time here in Hawaii.  Poor Eric.  When pressed he came up with: don’t eat the yellow snow.

Butters, Creams, and Preserves

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K’s friends are having us over for dinner this week.  They live close by so I thought it would be nice if we went outside of Kailua/Lanikai to find something to bring with us.  I’ve been wanting to visit Made in Hawaii in Pearl City ever since I read about their Mochi Strawberries.  I knew they sold something special called Lilikoi cream cheese which I thought would be easy to keep until we go over for dinner in a couple of days.

The shop is teeny tiny–just a little front space of an outlet/factory.  The woman who greeted us was very helpful and gave us samples of their jams, fruit butters, and cream cheeses.  I learned that Lilikoi is yellow passion fruit. Delicious!  I was disappointed that they only had Mochi Strawberries from Wednesday to Saturday which she recommended ordering in advance.  But we’ll go back another day for that.  Everything in the store is made in Hawaii and they produce their own jams and preserves under the label Island Preserve.  We ended up choosing Strawberry Guava Cream Cheese, Pineapple Blueberry Jam, and Lime Butter.  This place joins the list of great places for gifts to bring home.