The summer to-do list

Waikiki Beach wasn't as bad as I'd been told. In fact, it wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was gorgeous.

I’ve been all over the map. First, in Honolulu, to celebrate my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary. We swam in the sea and (some of us) ate warm, salty, delicious Spam musubi.

I understand why people resist, but once you try Spam musubi you will crave it forever.

Then the big family party moved to Maui, where we swam in the sea and ate Costco food prepared in condo kitchens. My brother-in-law made a fresh pineapple pie so delicious that I must replicate it within the week. More on that coming soon. My kids and their five cousins . . .  frolicked? Cavorted? Stupid words, but ones that begin to capture that combination of horseplay, confiding, pina colada-drinking (virgin, they said), snorkeling, card games, and utter nonsense that seven boisterous teenagers who have known each other since birth get up to when they’re reunited on a tropical island.

not that long ago

Now. Cuties, all of them. 

I had an ambitious eating list for Hawaii, but the trip was for celebrating David and Mary, not running around to bakeries and shave ice stands, so I was uncharacteristically at peace seeing gastronomic ambitions thwarted. It was a lovely, lovely trip even if I never got to try poi donuts. I am very grateful to have married into this warm, close family. 

David and Mary were, and are, an adorable couple.

I did come back with a fixation on purple sweet potato-haupia pie, a confection that a local person described to me and which I looked for everywhere and never found. I have to bake one if I’m ever going to taste one. So along with pineapple pie, that’s on the summer to-do list.

The day after we got back from Maui, I flew to New England to install Owen at summer school. I swam in another sea and ate a couple of lobster rolls and stayed in my cousin’s house in the town of Rumford, Rhode Island, birthplace of Rumford baking powder, and got the kid all set up in his dorm with junk food and laundry detergent, only one of which will be put to use, and said good-bye for 6 weeks. 

I flew home a few days ago to an empty nest.  My inglorious return to cooking after this long hiatus featured a pea and cashew soup from the latest Bon Appetit. The recipe came attached to a vivid story by pastry chef Brooks Headley about why there’s a role for frozen vegetables, even in summer. Have you read it? The story doesn’t really track, but it’s lively and the gist is that fresh summer vegetables, like sugar snap peas, are amazing -- but they’re too expensive to use in something like soup. Instead, you should eat them whole and fresh and turn to cheap frozen peas when you make soup. Headley has a recipe: “You are going to blend a bunch of (frozen) sugar snap peas into creamy submission, but the soup is still going to have, as Fonzie would say, ‘a snap in its trunks,’ and it’s going to be very delicious.”

I don’t remember Fonzie saying that and I’m not sure what that line even means. Is it dirty? In any case, the soup interested me. In addition to sugar snap peas, it contains onions, celery, garlic, brown sugar, and cashews, and it looked like it would be healthy, substantial, and easy. It was healthy, substantial, and easy. What it wasn’t, was good. The first bite was tasty, the second bite was less tasty, and a whole bowl was almost vomitous. I ended up throwing away the rest of the pot, and it was a big pot. Way too sweet! Sugar snap peas are already pretty sweet, so why the sugar? And in combination with the sweet, unctuous cashews -- blecch. Imagine a hot, sweet, green, liquidy pudding. 

Then I remembered that Headley’s book, Fancy Desserts, which won the 2015 Piglet, was packed with vegetable desserts, including a pea cake. He clearly isn’t as uptight about sweet-savory boundaries as I am. I also remembered that the cashew gelato from Fancy Desserts was glossy and divine, so if you have a copy of Fancy Desserts (and dextrose powder), you should make it. I looked for the recipe online and never found it, I’m sorry, but I did come across this 2012 story about ice cream that mentioned an innovative banana split at the Ice Cream Bar in San Francisco, a place I’d never even heard of. I was horrified. I pride myself on keeping track of bakeries, ice cream shops, and clever restaurants in my region. Big fail. The Ice Cream Bar. Something else for the summer to-do list. 

I have been trying to grow hydrangeas for years and was on the point of giving up. For next summer's to-do list: blue hydrangeas.

Eat, eat, read

Maui is pretty.

I’ve been having fun. Last week I went to Upcountry Maui on a magazine assignment and ran around looking for cool things to do and eat and found them in abundance. Meanwhile, I was also reading and reviewing two new self-helpy books by Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic) and Cheryl Strayed (Brave Enough), so all these inspirational lines about being generous and bold and receptive to inspiration and grateful and tackling life like a motherfucker* were floating through my head as I toured pineapple vodka distilleries and ate Spam musubi on the lush slopes of a tropical volcano. It was basically the ultimate high. I felt so energetic I started wondering if I was bipolar and having a manic episode.

Then I came home. It wasn’t a manic episode. I was just happy. Now that the homemaking/parenting years are drawing to a close, I wonder whether by embracing domesticity with such ardor I was simply making a virtue of necessity. I think I love my cozy nest of a home with the high-maintenance farm animals and 1000+ cookbooks, but I feel so much more alive when I’m racing around with my notebook trying to find the best bento box in Upcountry Maui and sleeping in a room I do not have to clean.

This was my only glimpse of beach. I was supposed to stick to inland Maui and dutifully did so. 

There are two categories of Hawaiian food and they could not be more different.  First, there is the slab of $42 macadamia-crusted ahi that you get at tourist restaurants. It is fresh, local, and good, though I always find myself struggling to finish fish like this because after few bites it becomes monotonous. The crust is delicious, but the inside of the fish is fish, bland fish. I finish, though, because it is so expensive I can't bear to waste it. Also, an ahi or an opah or a mahi mahi gave its precious life for me and I'm going to leave it on the plate? 

Then, there is the food that local people eat. For the most part, it isn't very fresh or local, not by Alice Waters standards. The plate lunch, the shave ice, the manapua, the warm $2.19 Spam musubi that you find under a heat lamp at Foodland. I was revolted by the idea of Spam musubi until last week when I finally tried it. I sat there in the supermarket parking lot eating Spam musubi and wondering what I was going to do when I got back to the Mainland and had to live without Spam musubi. Are you familiar with Spam musubi? Imagine a piece of nigiri sushi the size of a Twinkie, but warm, and instead of fish, it's topped with a slice of salty, delectably fatty, sausage-like meat. It is the best thing I ate in Upcountry Maui and I ate a lot of great stuff.

The second best thing I ate was the loco moco at a divey restaurant located in a trailer. Loco moco is a hamburger topped with fried egg and smothered in gravy, served over sticky white rice. The huge serving of loco moco I got at this dive also came with some macaroni salad and when you mixed that creamy macaroni salad with the rice and the salty brown gravy? I know how déclassé and gross that sounds, particularly when you consider that the gravy likely came from a can, but it was heaven. I had to physically push the plate away and ask for the check in order to stop myself from finishing every last bite. I needed to be able to wear my clothes home.

The red thing is a Surinam cherry from the Kula farmers' market. It was the fourth or fifth best thing I ate on Maui. It's got a super thin skin, sweet-tart juicy flesh, and a pit like a standard cherry. I couldn't figure out how to photograph it to best advantage, as you can see. If you ever have the chance to eat a Surinam cherry, do, but be sure it is really soft and ripe. 

Anyway, if you go to Hawaii, be sure you get out of the tourist restaurants and give that local food a chance. It may not be your thing, but I personally would always choose the $12 loco moco over the $42 macadamia-crusted ahi.

About those two books I reviewed. Strayed’s Brave Enough (it comes out later this fall) is a short collection of quotations from her previous work that apply to all kinds of profound life quandaries, like losing your mother or ending a romantic relationship. I’m not currently facing a profound life quandary but I still find myself flashing on her counsel ten or twenty times a day to solve the most trivial problems. Two I like especially:

"You know what I do when I feel jealous? I tell myself not to feel jealous. I shut down the Why not me? voice and replace it with one that says Don't be silly instead. It really is that easy. You actually do stop being an awful jealous person by stopping being an awful jealous person."

Don't do what you know on a gut level to be the wrong thing to do . . . It's hard to know what to do when you have a conflicting set of emotions and desires, but it's not as hard as we pretend it is. Saying it's hard is ultimately a justification to do whatever seems like the easiest thing to do -- have the affair, stay at that horrible job, end a friendship over a slight, keep tolerating someone who treats you terribly. There isn't a single dumbass thing I've done in my adult life that I didn't know was a dumbass thing to do while I was doing it."

The incredibly sweet pineapple in Hawaii might have been the third best thing I ate. 

As to Big Magic, it's imperfect, but warm and inspiring. I love Elizabeth Gilbert. You may feel differently; we can still be friends. I think she’s open-hearted, smart, and a force for good in the world. She helps me shut down the mean drill sergeant in my head who constantly yells at me for not keeping my boots spit-polished. 

I liked both the books a lot and my review is here. 

Speaking of drill sergeants, I’m going to cook from Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune for the next week or so. I was just flipping through the book trying to figure out what to make for Sunday dinner, resenting yet again the lack of an index. Gabrielle Hamilton is such a jerk. I wish her recipes weren't quite so good.

*Update: Cheryl Strayed word. Allusion. My father emailed me about it within 2 hours. 

Didn't buy a muumuu but maybe should have

Nothing against Maui, but Kauai has stolen my heart. 

I will spare you purple accounts of beaches, farms, botanical gardens, lighthouses, and orchids -- saving them for article --  and stick to the food, which has been excellent and exotic.

To start with, I knew I was wrong to dismiss poi a few posts ago. I just knew I was going to have to eat my words. A local couple I met and conversed with for several hours yesterday told me that there is poi and there is poi, just like there are potato buds and your grandmother's mashed potatoes with butter and cream. What you get at hotel luaus and plate lunch dives, they patiently explained, is no basis on which to judge poi.

This should not have come as a surprise.

It so happened that last night there was a fundraising luau for a community kitchen and poi mill, and this couple assured me that the poi served to a bunch of taro farmers would be spectacular. They were going, and urged me to go. So I went.

It was a lovely event, a local gathering where everyone knew everyone and I knew no one but still got a wholesome contact high from the community esprit. There was live Hawaiian music, a silent auction, a crafts sale, a bake sale, little kids running everywhere. It was like an idealized midwestern picnic, but it was early December, everyone was wearing shorts, and the food was wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in a smoldering pit.

That's a horrible picture, but it was some smashing food.

I loved all of it, from the smoky kalua pig to the kale salad, stewed taro leaves, rice pudding, and breadfruit. But what stopped me in my tracks, as promised, was the poi. See liverlike blob at bottom right It was firm, dense, sticky, and intensely, if subtly flavorful. I ate it slowly, savoring it more with each gummy bite. Craveworthy. Now I can go back to California and helplessly crave it.

 

Speaking of gummy foods, I also bought something called kulolo at the bakesale. 

It resembles brownies, but is made from grated taro mixed with coconut and brown sugar and, according to the weary bakesale lady, steamed for 15 hours in the imu, or underground oven. I prefer kulolo to brownies, but wouldn't expect anyone to agree. It's moist and glutinous and tastes like both gingerbread and carob. Delicious.

I am devastated to report that the taro smoothie stand was never open when I drove by, which was only several dozen times.

A few other interesting foodstuffs tasted on Kauai:

-chico. See photo at top.  Is this the same as sapote, about which my Guatemalan grandmother has often reminisced? Not sure. Tried this at the Hanalei farmers' market and the guy selling it said the tree takes 15 years before it fruits. Long-awaited chico tasted like a persimmon crossed with a banana and had the texture of a kiwi.

-deep-fried mochi. Bought these lumpish dumplings at a plate lunch place in Hanalei.

They're balls of mochi that have been skewered, dipped in brown sugar (or something similarly sweet and brown) and fried until they acquire a delectable, shale-like crust. Chewy and enjoyable, if not an instant addiction. 

- banana-pineapple frosty. Mahalo to Anonymous who recommended Banana Joe's. 

The luscious frosty was made by running frozen bananas and pineapple through a Champion juicer and it was, as some skinny people might say, ice cream without the guilt.

 

Wishing Well shave ice was inexplicably closed, and I don't think I'll have time to visit any other spots, shave ice or other, this trip. I'm sorry about that. On the other hand, one week is long enough to be the stranger eating alone in restaurants, kayaking solo down the Hanalei River, lurking silently on the fringes of other peoples' luaus. Home to the menagerie tomorrow. 

Not home yet, just looks like it

On/in Kauai now, which is less about shave ice and more about taro smoothies. Haven't had one yet. Will today. 

Because there are no predators, chickens run wild on Kauai. I photographed that rooster a minute ago on the patio of my neighbor's hotel room. It simultaneously makes me feel terribly homesick and right at home. 

Should have never left Portland

If you think you're having a bad day, someone in Lahaina has it worse. 

I'm not having a bad day. Was going to take a surfing lesson, but the waves were so rough that the shop called the whole thing off, which was, frankly, a relief, as I'm not the surfing type and would have made a fool of myself. I went parasailing instead. I'm not the parasailing type either, but it's harder to make a fool of yourself 1200 feet in the air. No, tragedy is the downside of parasailing. I was thrilled to try it once and relieved when it was over.

After that: lunch at Aloha Mixed Plate, a shacky place by the beach where I would be happy to eat every day.

 This delicious and rib-sticking meal cost less than $9 and included a mountain of kalua pork, which tastes like a cross between carnitas and South Carolina barbecue; 2 scoops of rice; a scoop of macaroni salad; smoked salmon and tomato salad (no salmon discernible); and haupia, a gelatinous coconut pudding that was hard to resist.

There was also poi, but it's easy to resist poi. Doesn't it look like plum baby food?

 

In any case, I had to save room for shave ice.

After some internet research and asking around, I discovered that two West Maui shave ice shops come highly recommended: Ululani's and Annie's, which are a few blocks away from each other in Lahaina. After lunch, my intention was to try both. 

First: Ululani's, which is so hidden back behind a cluster of shops on Front Street that I almost couldn't find it. Working the counter was David, an Oahu native who is married to Ululani.

 That's his arm. I should have taken a picture of his face and done a proper interview about shave ice -- like, how exactly do you make it? who invented it? are you aiming for grainy or velvety? what goes into the syrups? -- but I was bashful in the moment. Maybe I'll call. Instead, we just chatted. He rued the cost of food here on Maui, that an 18-count box of eggs costs almost $5. I told him he should get chickens. He didn't seem to believe me, which means he is smart. He told me I wouldn't like the salty plum shave ice. I thought I would. He gave me free cream on top of my shave ice and said to come back later and try more flavors

.

I wish I could. This shave ice is hands-down the best I've had in my life, which is to say, in the last 36 hours. The texture was like powder snow, the flavors, bright and pure.  I couldn't stop eating Ululani's shave ice and by the time it was all gone I was too full for Annie's.

I did 

drive by Annie's and though it looks very cute

 I have to leave tomorrow and won't be able to try it. 

I did go swimming, but shave ice is more interesting

Couldn't get off the wait list for the luau last night, so I had a second shave ice. This time, per my instructions, I ordered the shave ice (coconut) on top of a scoop of ice cream (coconut). Unsurprisingly, now I never want shave ice any other way.

  

But I'm confused, because this second shave ice really did resemble ground glass, as in a sno-cone. The one I'd had earlier in the day (from a stand on the street) was soft, like velvet. Which is the real shave ice?

Shave ice & finally confronting the swimsuit

I thought shave ice was going to taste just like a sno-cone, the most disappointing frozen "treat" ever invented, but it doesn't. It's fantastic! I'm sure everyone has had Hawaiian shave ice except me so I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but wow. The satiny texture of that ice is almost like ice cream. Eating a sno-cone, at least in memory, is more like sucking artificially-flavored syrup through broken glass.

 

I'm in Maui on a writing assignment. Sometimes it's okay to be me, though I wish I enjoyed running around in a swimsuit a bit more. The eggnog pie did not help. In roughly 48 hours I've taken a ukelele lesson, observed a pineapple carving demo, ridden a sugar cane train, eaten a plate lunch, visited a farmers' market, toured several history museums, read 2.5 books, and purchased local honey, but have not yet managed to find time to get in a swimsuit the water.

This is the small but pleasant farmers' market, which is attached to a health food store that sells hemp bread. 

 

They had big, lumpy local avocados, passion fruit, and tiny, delicious "apple" bananas, as well as fresh pineapple bagels, which I didn't try because I'm saving up calories for tonight's luau. The shave ice was lunch.

Now: ocean.