Mahalo, Wanda!

My buddy, Wanda Adams', food blog, sponsored by the Honolulu Advertiser, is called My Island Plate. Her posting today, Feb. 1, is all about becoming a better baker. She graciously included some of my favorite baking/freezing tips and a number from my friend, Tina Ho Wing. Tina is a culinary arts instructor at Glendale High School in California. Thank you, too, Tina, for generously sharing all your top secret tips with me all these years!

Last week, Wanda innocently asked me "What's up?" I went into a big discussion about my passion, baking, because of the Tea we'd recently had. There's lots of food events on the horizon. I recently baked a mess of brownies for a fundraiser for my Kalamas' church group from Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay. Punahou Carnival is this weekend and bonus! both Chinese New Year's (two banquets) and Valentine's are on the same day this year, Feb. 14. Also, two Chinese New Year's food demos are in the works. Our talk turned from events to baking technique and tips. Hence, the blog.

I really appreciated that Wanda gave me a nod for my baking and freezing tips and mentioned this blog. Those are the tips that have greatly assisted me in my baking.

-foodiewahine
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Photos above
On the left are Brownies I decorated for the fundraiser with a chocolate glaze.
On the right is the latest iteration of my "Heart to Heart" dessert. I described it in the previous blog. It has a brownie base, liliko'i curd, pound cake heart, more curd, whipped cream and sprinkles.
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My Island Plate My Island Plate blog, honoluluadvertiser.com ...
Musings, tips, recipes and ideas from Advertiser food editor Wanda Adams, and a chance to share your own thoughts.myislandplate.honadvblogs.com/
Another way: To find Wanda's blog, go to the Hnl. Advertiser website. Hit the Forum/Blogs icon at the top. It will take you to the Lifestyles blogs and hers, My Island Plate.

Elsie's Excellent Tea

Nothing like a party for a little lift during these days of earthquakes, the Haiti relief effort, aftershocks. severe weather everywhere... My friends, Elsie and Cathy, and I threw together a little Tea yesterday at Elsie's home. Cathy brought a yummy, flaky, warm!, cinnamony, raisin-apple coffee cake. Elsie made a fresh, coconutty and chewy gau. I made a pound cake heart-brownie-liliko'i curd tower. It was good to sit with friends and sip some of Elsie's amazing jasmine tea from China. We talked old-old recipes, Hawaiian Electric cooking classes and technique the whole time.

Elsie's wonderful housekeeper from China, Onna, spontaneously showed us how to make black bean bittermelon with pork and a glazed pumpkin dish in a wok. AND we got to take home samples, enough for a large lunch the next day. In about 20 minutes Onna had three heaping plates of food ready. It was amazing to watch her stir fry two-handed with spatulas: toss and turn, toss and turn.

Elsie generously shared a box of community and school cookbooks with us. Cathy and I happily plopped on the floor like kids and pored through the bin. Many treasures there, but my absolute favorite was finding the last Maili Yardley (beloved longtime food editor at the Honolulu Advertiser) cookbook out of five that she wrote. All of these are out of print. This was the one that I've looked for for years. Elsie is a force of nature and willing to give you the shirt off her back. Once we discovered these wonderful titles she kidded that she'd sell it to us for a million dollars. We said we'd exchange our labor for the price.

This is Hawai'i: On the leisurely drive back from Elsie's home, my tummy and car filled with goodies, I drove the Waimanalo way. That is, past the Lookout where you can watch whales leap, past Makapu'u and Waimanalo. One chocolate and one cream colored horse with their teenage riders ambling on the side of the road. The Mary Bonita Mexican lunchwagon advertising Garlic Shrimp along with their tamales. Only in Hawai'i.

-foodiewahine

Naki Family of Moloka'i

OC16, a local tv channel, has started to show and replay a "Skindiver" episode this week about Moloka'i featuring two brothers, Walter and Raymond Naki. There are two families in particular on Moloka'i that everyone on the island knows or are related to- the Nakis and the Dudoits.

I am very fortunate that I know the Naki family through its matriarch, Juanna ("Auntie JoJo") Naki Pi'iali'i. JoJo is one of those rare joyous salt-of-the-earth people. She is a strong Christian and her favorite phrase is "Thank You, Jesus!" I felt an instant heart connection to her when I met her on the Big Island with Auntie Dutchie, oh, fifteen years ago. I was giving a retreat based on the teachings of Nana Veary and Auntie Dutchie agreed to be a guest speaker.

Walter is Auntie JoJo's son and Raymond is Auntie JoJo's youngest brother. They are close in age so they were brought up together on Moloka'i like brothers. Auntie JoJo's father, the pastor and founder of "The Gospel Shoes of Christ" church outside of Kaunakakai, taught his boys all the secret places on the island and in the sea to fish and hunt. Walter has a business appropriately called "Ma'a (familiar with) Hawai'i" where he takes visitors on hunting, fishing and boating trips around the island.

I won't forget that Auntie JoJo told me proudly when I first met her that when the Nakis have a luau or pa'ina on Molokai'i that they have the most crashers (so cute!) because everyone knows that they have the best fishermen and hunters in Walter and Raymond. They, along with their sons and nephews, will start stocking the freezers with fish, lobsters, crabs, hihiwai (freshwater opihi)and game for weeks before the event.

Getting back to that episode, I was just so touched to hear Walter and Raymond speak movingly of their Hawaiian stewardship of their island home's bounty. Walter talked about taking what they need, not what they want, and sharing the rest. When he drives home he might come across a less fortunate fisherman and he would offer part of his catch to him. He talked of sharing with the kupuna who love to fish but maybe "no can already". This is Moloka'i style, their culture.

Raymond is active in restoring the ancient Hawaiian fishponds on the island. Both brothers have quietly helped scores of previously troubled youths who have become ohana. Auntie Ruthie (JoJo's sister) told me that she came across a young man she didn't know, who told her that his "Dad" was Walter because the young man had hanai'd Walter (usually it's the other way around with the adult adopting the child, of course).

On this episode Raymond said "We care and share. We live to give." To hear Raymond say it, it is simple but profound.

The shots on this show are astonishing. It shows both guys free diving down to 20 or 30 feet or more. Then incredibly it shows them waiting patiently, all the while holding their breath, for the perfect shot of their prey. This is old style, no scuba gear, no metal rods, using wood spear guns although I did notice they had the latest fins. I don't know how much time it took to do the filming but it shows them gathering Kahala, Opelu, Moana Kea, He'e... and going after Ula (lobster, also affectionately called "Bugs"), Ulua and Uhu.

As I've said several times before I feel honored to know such interesting and passionate people in these Islands, our home.

Julie & Julia- an experience

Very blessed. I am very blessed. My buddy, Wanda Adams, food editor at the Honolulu Advertiser, invited me to an advance screening of the movie "Julie & Julia" last night. Chef Mavro has a connection to the theater and was able to invite his 100 or so closest friends and food associates and their friends to a showing. Chef Mavro and his wife, Donna, are very tight with Wanda, so my degree of separation was once removed.

In two words, Loved It.

Recommendations:
1.) See it with a friend who is as passionate about food as you are.
2.) Either eat before you see the movie or anticipate a good meal after.

Nora Ephron directed and wrote the screenplay. That alone should get you to come. She's done many of everyone's favorite movies-When Harry Met Sally, Michael, Moonstruck, and of course, Sleepless in Seattle.

The movie is based on two books based on real life and separated by fifty years- an autobiography of Julia Child and a recent bestseller about a blogger turned writer, Julie Powell, who tackled all 524 recipes in Julia's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 365 days.

Backstory. I, along with millions, consider Julia an important cooking mentor. The liner notes for the book "The French Chef" calls her famous cooking show the "most widely attended cooking course ever given in America." I was right there at the tv in the early 60's, fascinated by this honest, real woman dispensing invaluable tips with flair, humor and grace. Reassured by Julia's warble, my first recipe that I attempted from Julia's book was Boeuf Bourguinon. Wanda said that was often the first choice of other cooks.

I avidly followed Julia's rise to fame and her life in the culinary universe. Read everything about her with interest. Collected her books. When the butter police came down hard in the 80's it was Julia, a voice of reason, that countermanded "Butter is Good. Everything in Moderation." I probably smirked along with Julia when it was discovered that margarine was the enemy and butter, less so. I knew of Julia's enduring love story with Paul Child, a marriage that lasted fifty-four years. I drilled my friend Tina for details when I found out that Julia had been a guest speaker at the culinary school in LA where Tina got her degree.

The Movie.
I was as excited to see this movie as I was about "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" last week when I snuck into a matinee. (To my surprise, the whole theater was filled not with shrieking kids on summer break but ADULTS. Adults like me besotted with the HP books and the movie series.)

So, both Wanda and I were kind of bouncing in our seats. Wanda found the extra long seats uncomfortable for her petite frame so she tried sitting backwards for fun. A friend on her right said "You look like you're six!" Chef Alan Wong was sitting on the opposite end of our row. The Culinary Institute of the Pacific team from KCC that won a national competition last week, beating out 400 teams, was in the house. Chef Mavro spoke briefly and in his ebullient way told charming stories of meeting both Julia and Jacques Pepin.

From the first frames of a Woody station wagon and Paris in the early part of the 20th century, we were totally engaged. So engaged that the whole audience would gasp when culinary giants like Simone Beck's or Irma Rombauer's characters appeared. So engaged that we'd actively scrutinize each food porn/money shot to see how they filmed it. So engaged that it felt as though we were scarfing down the glistening tomato bruschetta right along with Julie's husband, Eric.

Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia was right....on....point.
Amy Adams made blogger/author Julie Powell your newest foodie BFF.
Wanda's astute comment was that there were layers to the film. She said that those who know publishing and those who work in food will appreciate the honest portrayals.

Throughout the film I wondered who did the food and who did the the food styling because they did a superlative job. When the movie was pau, I asked Wanda if she knew anything about the food prep and she said that she will be interviewing the food stylist for the movie by phone today. That means, lucky us!, Wanda will be doing an article in the near future in the Honolulu Advertiser.

The two stories were seamlessly melded together with a completely satisfying and sweet ending. I won't tell you anything about the plot nor spoil any surprises. Go see it. Anyone who eats will enjoy it.
Shall I say it, so very trite?
You will hear Julia's high-pitched and passionate command trilling
"Bon Appetit!"

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Charles, Tess and Marian,
Below is a link to Wanda's article re: the food stylist who did the movie. It's an interesting read.
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090802/LIFE/908020318/Styling+the+real+star+of++Julia+++delicious+dishes

Keiki Palaka Band and Friends

Uncle Mel and Aunty Lynn Murata are a wonderful couple who truly embody the soul of Aloha. For thirteen years Uncle Mel has taught and led the Keiki Palaka Band ("KPB") out of first Waimanalo and now Kailua Elementary.

Aunty Lynn retired last year as the cafeteria head of Enchanted Lakes Elementary. Uncle Mel heads up the Kailua Elementary cafeteria. These people know FOOD and MUSIC. All year round they host a number of luaus not as fundraisers but to showcase both their keiki band who sing and play 'ukulele and also Hawaiian music legends. These are the kupuna musicians who have made a mark on Hawaiian music. The idea was the Muratas wanted the keiki to get to know and appreciate prior generations of musicians. Everything is done on a strictly volunteer basis.

I just returned from an all-day invitational luau or pa'ina, the Kanikapila 2009, for friends and supporters of the KPB. The food you ask? Kalua pig, chicken long rice, squid luau, lomi salmon, sweet potato, poi, rice, haupia, pineapple, banana muffin, 'ahi poke, fried fish, smoke meat, edamame, pickle onion and drinks. The music which lasted three hours? The KPB headed by Uncle Mel, Nicki Haines, Aunty Momi, Aunty Cissy, Eddie Kamae, Audrey Meyers, many others and impromptu hula by those in the audience called upon by Aunty Nicki. The price of a ticket? Twelve dollars (which only barely covers the food) and undying support of these kids which just comes naturally.

I have in my mind's eye a couple of sweet images from today's luau. There was an elderly woman who in very kolohe fashion, was gently tickling her guy friend across the table using the tip of a laua'e leaf. He was trying hard to ignore her. Another woman was unravelling and redoing her friend's upswept hairdo which carried a garden of gardenias. She was doing this so that she could share some of the gardenias with their other friends around the table.

Earlier this morning during the food prep I had a cup of coffee in one hand, I'd just finished an all butter, old school, cafeteria-style, shortbread cookie and a big slice of Paula Deen's Mt. Dew Pound cake made by Tracy. The guys were rehearsing so I was eating to rousing live Hawaiian music. Radford, one of the cooks from Ench. Lakes, offered me a sizzzzling hot early morning pupu of Korean fish directly from the hot wok. My kind of breakfast. That reminded me of a luau prep at 7:00 a.m. on Molokai, four years ago. We were sitting at a picnic table at a park pavillion. I had my ever-present cup of coffee and my hands were busily separating sticky crab from cartilage. My friend, Ruthie Naki Manu asked me if I'd had breakfast, I motioned "No". So, she obligingly popped chunks of local LOBSTER in my mouth. That's what I call a Breakfast of Champions.

Eating Your Way Through Hilo

I got back last week from the Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo. It is a weeklong celebration of hula culminating in three evenings of the dance from Thursday to Saturday nights. There is also a free performance, the Ho'ike, on Wed. night that is not televised as the last three nights are. I call it a hula marathon because you have to pace yourself and your energy in order to be at your best and most observant as hula cognoscenti when the performances start.

Not only is there world class hula every evening for 5 hours at the Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium but there's also yet more hula, craft fairs, art exhibitions and cultural presentations at the hotels, the malls throughout Hilo and and at 'Imiloa, UH-Hilo's Astronomy center. One of the biggest attractions for me, to Hilo, second only to the people, is the high quality and variety of the food. I can say that for a week every single meal I had was exceptional. It isn't just that this is my favorite island. The cooks really do seem to put more love and care into their offerings.

My first stop was Ken's Coffee House, open 24 hours, for broiled mahi, eggs and pancakes. The mahi has a wonderful smoked flavor, grill marks and very moist flesh. The pancakes come with homemade syrups of guava, coconut and liliko'i. If you order a cup of coffee you get that along with a thermal carafe so that you can pour yourself as much coffee as you like.

That first day I also went to Two Ladies Mochi to pick up mochi and drop off omiyage for my friend Nora Uchida, a co-owner. Had to stop by Big Islands Candies where Lance, their floral designer, was creating a beautiful tableau of yellow and red lehua blossoms in dozens of glass cups. It was a Wednesday, so I picked up ruby-red and luscious Waimea strawberries and 3 bundles of gardenias from the Farmer's Market. On my way out to Volcano I popped into KTA at Puainako for some POG (passion, orange, guava juice) and eggs for my breakfasts.

I did something different this year and reasoning that I spend half my time at the Park anyway I elected to stay at a place in Volcano Village. The round trip by car from Volcano to Hilo is 45 minutes, something that you would want to do only once a day. So, I spent my time hiking and hanging out at Volcano National Park during the day and in the evening I would drive to Hilo for the hula performances.

My friend, Ku'ulei, who lives in Volcano, tipped me off to the soups that they have at the two general stores, Kilauea and Volcano. On previous visits to these stores, I'd noticed crockpots by the chlil, the hot dogs and coffee but didn't pay any attention to them. They contain country style, hearty, chunky soups. A pint of these are perfect for picking up before you go into the Park for hiking. I had a Portuguese bean soup that was much like something I'd make at home and a satisfying Mulligatawny soup. The temperature in Volcano ranged from 60 deg. during the day to a chilly 44 deg. at night, good soup weather.

On Sunday I woke up at 6 am after going to bed at 1 from the last night of hula. I thought "I'll get to the Volcano Farmer's Market when the true locals arrive, at 6:30 am!" Not! I could barely find parking and the place was jumping. Turns out the reeaal locals start arriving at 5: 30!
Went straight to Joyce to get the best pastries ever. For, say a bearclaw, you get half mincemeat and half flaky pastry in every bite. Then, on to something I dream about when I'm home in Kailua, the Thai Lady's Tom Yum chicken soup. Try as I might I've never been able to perfect her clear stock, the homemade sambal oelek or the secret flavored oils she adds, the correct proportion of cloud's ear to potato to long rice and fresh basil leaves.

The produce is always outstanding but I noticed the addition of a new dessert lady offering mile-high apple and banana pies, liliko'i squares, dark chocolate brownies cloaked in ganache and ohelo berry tarts. Another vendor had freshly fried doughnuts dipped in chocolate and caramel!

My favorite way to enjoy breakfast was to wake up early before the buses arrived in the Park. I'd make the short hike out to Byron's Ledge with a true concert of birdsong around me and the crunch of my boots on the dirt. In the distance I could hear but never saw, nene geese. I'd sit on a log with my hard boiled egg, my POG, apple bananas, Waimea strawberries and hot Puna coffee as I contemplated the mile high cloud plume coming out of Halema'uma'u Crater in the distance.

And people ask me why I love the Big Island so much.

A Grandfather's Legacy

Our grandfather is C. Q. Yee Hop or Chun Quon Yee Hop. He came to Hawai'i from Guandong, China in the early 1900's and established a number of businesses here. Wanda Adams attended our C. Q. family's Chinese New Year's banquet this last February. She was particularly taken by a steamed fish fillets and tofu dish served that night. Locally, this technique is often prepared with blistering hot peanut and sesame oils poured over a whole steamed fish, like Moi.

The link below is to a an article that Wanda did after Golden Palace's chef demonstrated the dish for us. Wanda, the photographer and I scarfed down most of the banquet-sized platter in the middle of the afternoon even though we'd already had lunch. It was just so delicious!

I was pleasantly surprised that Wanda wrote an extensive article on my Gung Gung's life history, in addition to the recipe.

Here is an email I sent out:
Hi, Family and Friends,
Here is an article in today's Advertiser that has some background about my grandfather. Having Wanda and her husband at the family dinner and seeing it all through her eyes made me appreciate my family and its place in Hawai'i's history more. There is also an accompanying article on this site at the top, with recipes for this fish dish that was really 'ono.

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090318/LIFE02/903180363/-1

Ed. note: If you do make this fish dish I would highly recommend using soft tofu for it's custard-like texture and Kim Lan Light Soy Sauce, available in Chinatown.

-foodiewahine