What Do Hawaiian's Eat?...

...pretty much the same things the rest of us eat with a few exceptions...

On Saturday we shuffled off to the local farmer's market to get the week's staples-at least the staples one can get at a farmer's market.
I have heard people say a farmer's market is a little limiting in the scope of food that's offered for sale. That does, however, make sense and with good reason....farmer's can only grow what's viable in their climate.
Back in the northeast we have a plethora of tender greens and peas in the spring, followed by some baby root vegetables and on to beans, squash, tomatoes, etc in mid summer and squash and apples come fall. Of course there's fruit throughout the season and most of the veggies do overlap into other seasons.
It's no different here however, the constant 82 degrees and rocky, volcanic soil doesn't always allow things we're used to growing in the northeast, to grow here.
The farmer's markets here are to the brim with tropical (duh) fruit! Avocados, oranges, lemons, limes, passion fruit, guava, papaya, bananas, etc. There were a couple of farmers on Saturday with small tomatoes, green beans and lettuces and a number of farmers with the famous Kona coffee (yes, the actual farmers) and macadamia nuts. We also saw one meat producer with lamb, pork and beef.
Basically, we're all eating the same things but availability is limited and farmer's markets could never have all of the above in one place.


A few things you'll never see in the northeast....



Jackfruit: a starchy fruit that tastes like a potato (or fresh baked bread-hence the name)









Pomelo: 2-4 lb fruits with thick skins; tastes like a sweet, mild grapefruit. (you may occasionally find these in the supermarket back home)










Tangor: a tangerine/orange cross that's super sweet and juicy and hard to peel; they're best for juice. This tree happens to be in Makoto's yard and is just coming ripe!









Jackfruit: the largest tree-borne fruit in the world weighing as much as 80 lbs. This tree is in a neighbor's yard and the largest fruit is about 24+" long. The starchy fruit is cooked and tastes like a tart banana.












Starfruit: you may also see this in a northeastern supermarket--super tart! just seeing one makes me pucker!..this tree is also in a neighbor's yard. These can be deadly if you eat one and have kidney disease.
















Christopher found this in the local supermarket. We have yet to see anything like it back home and granted...most Hawaiians we spoke with never even knew it was here. But how fun! Great for beach parties I would imagine.
All you need is a can opener and a fork. Or if you're lucky enough to have a gas powered blender, you wouldn't need a fork at all.








What is the most fabulous Hawaiian food of all?

SPAM! in the form of musubi.

So here we go...SPAM was introduced to the pacific islands during the WWII occupation by the US military, as an inexpensive form of meat for the troops. Spam was also used as a staple in the Japanese internment camps of the time and it eventually found it's way into the local diet.

Are you ready for some SPAM trivia?.....the 7 billionth can of SPAM was sold in the US in 2007 (what could the count be now?!), 3.8 cans are consumed in the US every second!, McDonalds' and Burger Kings in Hawaii have SPAM on the menu (we have yet to partake but lord knows we're a gonna!), it comes in Hot & Spicy, Low Sodium, Turkey, Garlic and Lite varieties and Waikiki is host to the Spam Jam festival every April. Hot!
So back to musubi....Musubi is technically onigiri (a rice ball-or square-wrapped in nori (seaweed)) that has a slice of fried SPAM nestled in the center..you can even get a musubi delux (with scrambled egg). Available at most convenience stores and gas stations have them for about $2!
They're the size of your computer's mouse and rather filling (tasty too!)

It's food for a girl on the go!
Who needs a luau?!

I'm thinking LICK could start a new trend in Hudson and possibly the entire northeast...ice cream and musubi (but not together-ew.)






And last but not least, Hawaii also has the macadamia nut. That tasty, fatty nut that's so good in chocolate chip cookies and dry roasted with salt. (pilfered photo)
They're harder then hell to crack open; I've heard stories of rocks and hammers being used as well as rolling over them with the car tires.
The best mac nuts we found...Salty Donkey Balls...no kidding.
Dark chocolate covered (like a 1/4"+ coating), dry roasted whole mac nut...then the whole thing is rolled in sea salt. Fargin fabulous! a bag of 6 was over $7...but since each ball is a two or three biter...it's so worth it.
There was a mac nut farmer at the farmer's market who roasted her nuts then drizzled them with honey and tossed them in toasted coconut and curry.....Barbara ground them in the food processor and mixed in some panko bread crumbs. Chuck then coated pieces of fresh Ono (fab fish) which he pan fried....awwwwsoooome.....hungry yet?





And of course, ONLY in Hawaii and available at the nearest Target (where else?)
SPAM flavored mac nuts...it all comes full circle.....
(and don't think I wont try them)

I May Have Found Employment in Hawaii!

Remember when I was almost employed in Spain? Ok, well not so much employed but working at Maria's pizza place in exchange for lessons in Andalus (and a little Romanian)?
Well, the other night we were invited to Miho's (that's her in the center) parent's house for a going away party for Alex. As a token of affection, or tradition for a send off (since reading my other blog posts Makoto has asked for editing privileges...so I may have to change this...) Miho wanted to take a lei for Alex. Since we were running behind, all of us got involved with the making of his lei...Makoto, Miho and myself on the floor twisting and spinning ti leaves into roping which in turn is formed into the lei....and Christopher ironing the leaves to soften them up...a labor of love lei for Alex!
Let me tell you...with my years of fiber arts behind me, I was able to twist double the amount of roping that the pros Miho and Makoto did. As soon as word gets out, I may have a yob!

Temple Treking

Remember me mentioning our attempt to see an ancient heiau on the northern part of the island and we had to abandon that part of the journey because we were in a Honda that couldn't take the off-roading we were subjecting it to?
Well, last Sunday Christopher and I decided to make that north-ward journey again, this time in a 4 wheel drive vehicle. If the truck loaned to us was able to take the off-roading to the green sand beach, over those lava rock moguls, it would certainly be able to take the rutted, muddy roads that stopped us from visiting this heiau.

A heiau is a Hawaiian temple, they're constructed of lava rock in many shapes and styles depending upon their specific purpose. Walls tend to be tall and very thick, within those walls are terraces of earth or stone.....and of course, they have no roof...hard to build a roof out of lava rock...
They reminded me (somewhat) of the cairns you see in the British isles...only much larger.
Locations of the heiau vary from mountain top to sea side with some even being built under the water as fishing shrines. They were constructed to treat the sick, make offerings to the gods, stop/start the rain, some for peace and some for war.
It's the war heiau, aka luakini heiau, that we journeyed to see today, and we happened to visit two of them.

Pu'ukohola Heiau was on the way to our intended destination so we took the time (what else do we have here?) for a visit. It's part of the National Park's Service, has a very informative and well done visitor's center and is only an hour north of Kona. It sits on the brow of "whale hill" overlooking Kawaihae Harbor and was built about 200 years ago by King Kamehameha (pronounced Ka may ha may ha). Kamehameha was the king who united the Hawaiian islands in 1810 and much is attributed to him. I could write an entire blog post about his influence but I'll let you read about him yourself here. (be sure to checkout his full, official name....insane!)





When compared to some other architectural wonders, these heiau aren't all that much to look at but, when you realize-especially in this location-that there really isn't any lava rock around, and you hear the legend about a human chain of "volunteers" that hand passed the stones from the Pololu Valley, some 15 miles over a mountain (as the crow flies), and you're standing next to the 200'+ long structure...it's rather quite impressive.
And when you hear that Kamehameha, in his quest to unite (conquer?) the islands, sent his wife's grandmother to a priest on another island (now remember, this was the late 1700's -no planes-and the seas are rough!) to ask what would appease the gods and she came back with a message from the priest instructing him to build a huge luakini heiau at this precise spot...AND...the "volunteers" were routinely sacrificed during the construction-so the gods would be pleased...AND...once the heiau was complete, Kamehameha dedicated the place by inviting and then sacrificing his enemy Keoua on this very spot..AND..only a few years later he was able to unite all of the islands....it all makes for a much more interesting place.
Plus, the views of Kawaihae Harbor, with it's occasional cruising of Black Tipped Reef Sharks makes the stop worth while.







As we headed north along the coastal highway (is there anything else here?), where there is nothing but the open ocean to the left and somewhat arid grasslands rising up the hills to the right (behind a few strands of barbed wire fence-pasture?) we took a short, off road excursion so we could capture this incredible photo....
See that dark "mound" on the horizon? That's Maui..30 miles across the open ocean. We had a view of it all day.

And.....after taking this photo, if I pivoted 180 degrees to look in the opposite direction, I saw Mauna Loa.....with snow. Other then the vog (air pollution from volcanic smog) this was about as clear as the skies get here. Not bad.









We finally arrived at the turn off from the highway, the turnoff that would take us to Mo'okini Heiau which we weren't able to visit a few days prior.
Like the southern tip of the island (near the green sand beach) the northern tip is like a prairie with waist high wavy grass as far as the eye can see. Only this time, other then an airport that's ocean side, and the stand of windmills for the wind "farm", the entire area is a dairy farm. Who knew they grew cows in the Hawaiias!
Notice the silos in the first photo (with Maui looming across the ocean in the background). Also notice the way the trees are bent, these trees are permanently leaning due to the awesome wind that constantly blows here.
Just having been in Scotland, this area reminds me very much of the Scottish coast..although sunnier..and warmer....and without the accent.....

After passing the farm, the road leads straight to the little airport, where you're directly facing the ocean. At this point, after a sharp left, the road turns to dirt (amazing there's any dirt out here with the wind!) and it takes you past the end of the runway and eventually to the actual coastline.This second photo was taken from the end of the runway, facing the ocean and Maui (this is the northern most point of the big island). Yes, those are white caps and no, the palm trees do not lean, the wind was blowing that hard. (This is the place we had to stop with the Honda.)
Someone actually lives way out here! I imagine it's part of the farm, god only knows what they do for modern conveniences.

With a right turn in front of this house, we continued on with the 4 wheel drive truck, only to go 100ft and be faced with a mud puddle that took up the entire width of the rutted road and was bigger then the truck. Christopher refused to drive through it. You see, a number of years ago, he and Makoto took papasan's 4 wheel drive Trooper on an excursion to Waipi'o Valley where Christopher tried driving through a similar puddle only to get the front end of the Trooper buried in the puddle...to the point where the gas peddle was under water...I'm guessing his fear of puddles is genuine.
So, after traveling only 100ft more then we did in the Honda, we parked the truck and hoofed it; the walk from the truck was another five minutes to the heiau. With the wind at our backs the walls of the heiau were mostly concealed by a stand of shrubbery with the leeward side being a manicured lawn and the entire site ringed in a low, lava rock wall.






The Mo'okini Heiau dates back to the 12th century and was built by a Samoan priest named Pa'ao as a temple to a family of gods known as Ku. Pa'ao came to the island and started the custom of human sacrifice (among other things). Did I mention that a laniki heiau is not only a war heiau but also the one associated with human/animal sacrifice? On the grounds of this windswept piece of earth, thousands of people were sacrificed to the blood thirsty god Ku-of-the-maggot-dripping-mouth (no kidding) not to be confused with Ku-of-the-deep-forest or Ku-the-snatcher-of-land...many of them laid upon the holehole stone (third photo here) where their flesh was stripped from their bones. Ew.

We read that the place has an unearthly, soulless feeling about it due to the violence that happened there so many centuries ago. Sometimes I can feel those kinds of things but honestly, this time I only noticed the beauty of the place...the blue skies, the rough ocean, the blowing grasses.....it was also kind of hard to wrap yourself up in the spirit of a place when you're downwind from a dairy farm. The rich, sweet smell of silage and dairy cattle permeates the air..not a bad thing, just unexpected in such a remote part of the planet.




After hopping a fence and walking a bit further west-on the wrong side of the barbed wire cattle fence!-, we came upon the birth site of King Kamehameha. There wasn't all that much to see there other then another low, lava rock wall surrounding the site and what looks like the primitive foundations of a building, but at least we can say we were there. (to the left of Christopher in this photo)





and...after a very adventurous morning, we made our way back through the little town of Hawi for sushi! and we took Kohala Mountain Road to Waimea and back home to Kona.
One thing I will say about the Kohala Mountain Rd...it's freakin' gorgeous! If the ocean was not in the distance, and I had been dropped into the area, I would have sworn I was in Switzerland...rolling, grassy hills with cattle grazing and cool breezes and the road lined with stories-tall pines; easily the most magnificent stretch of road I've ever been on in my life.




From this road, we were also able to look back toward Kona. See the little bay at the bottom/center of the photo? That's Kawaihae Harbor, the site of the first heiau we visited in the morning.....

Look What's In The Bushes

Wherever we travel, I'm always fascinated with the local fauna-especially when we're in climates different from our own.

Seeing we're 1/4 way around the globe--and on an island--I figured there would be nothing in common with upstate NY.
I was wrong....our first morning, before the break of daylight (and for a number of mornings after that) we were awaken at 6am by the chorus of a rafter of turkeys (yes, a group of turkeys is called a rafter).Every time I hear the gobbles I laugh, they are the silliest things.
The turkey photo here was taken at the end of the driveway, the balance of these photos were, once again, pilfered from the internet as my camera cannot get the close up photos I'd like; and I'm sure you don't want to see photos of the blur of a wing or grasses and foliage with captions like..."I promise, there's a bird in there".
So, meet the neighbors we've met....



Saffron Finch
















Java Finch












Kalij Pheasant- a family of these parades through the yard each day.












Zebra Dove-these little cuties (about the size of a sparrow) are everywhere and not all that afraid of humans.









Red Crested Cardinal













Myna-are also everywhere and they remind me of crows...a bit noisy but not always the same call; sometimes they sound like baby ducks and other times they sound like parakeets and once in a while there's a little growl-y sound that comes from them-like you'd hear from a starling.









Northern Cardinal-another bird we have in common.














One thing that's interesting to note, Hawaii has no native land mammals; every land mammal on the island was brought here from other places, whether intentionally like pigs, goats, donkeys (all now feral) or accidentally like the rat.

Rats were stowaways on ships and eventually became a huge problem in the now mostly defunct sugar cane industry. What did man do to combat the rat? He brought in the mongoose. Kinda cute, right? These little guys are a little larger then a squirrel, with a bushy tail and are slightly khaki in color. Most of us probably remember Rikki Tikki, the pet mongoose who saved the boy Teddy from Nag and Nagaina-the evil cobras in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle book. I'm not so sure the real animal is as cuddly.

These little creatures are fiercely carnivorous and would probably eat a rat but, what man didn't realize was the rat and the mongoose need to be awake at the same time. The rats are nocturnal and the mongooses (not mongeese) are diurnal (awake during the day). So...there are still plenty of rats (more on that in a minute) and now there are plenty of mongooses. The trouble with this is the mongooses are devastating the bird population here by ravaging nests of eggs and chicks as well as eating nesting adults. Hawaii's endangered state bird the Nene has been greatly affected. On my morning walks it's not uncommon to see many mongooses cross my path as they go about their day.



The rats....I have yet to see them but, since there's an avocado tree right out side the bedroom window and rats love avocados, we can hear them moving about all night long. They make no vocal sound but they scavenge the ground under the tree AND the little buggers climb the tree to eat the fruit that's still attached.
First photo, beautiful ripening fruit.
Second photo, fruit that's been gnawed on.
Third photo...LokiLani...Chuck and Barbara's faithful Whippet mix. She's the rat patrol. She sleeps in a chair on the lanai and multiple times during the night you can hear her bolt across the lanai to chase off the vermin.

As more of what's lurking in the bushes makes itself known, I'll be sure to clue you in......

Island Weather and Topography

The island of Hawaii incorporates 11 of the 13 world climate zones (another place I looked said 10 of the world's 15...so there you go) everything from rain forest to snow at the top of the Mauna Kea, the highest point on the island at 13,796 ft. You can go from swimming and beach to skiing and snow in a matter of a few hours. When measured from its base on the sea floor however, Mauna Kea is over 33,000 ft-- almost 4,000 ft taller then Mt Everest.



The western side of the island (where we're staying) is the drier side; some areas are desert like with scrub trees and grasses while higher up and inland there are even cacti. Yet, there still manages to be palm trees, bougainvillea, avocado and fruit trees and it's the proper climate for the famously mild and tasty Kona coffee.

The eastern/northern side of the island-where we have yet to travel, is much wetter with some areas receiving over 250" of rain a year (compared to the Kona side where it can be less than 30") and it sports tropical forests, grassy rolling hills, waterfalls, Kilauea-the current active volcano and much more.


When headed toward the other side of the island you can definitely see a line in the flora with the higher elevations being greener due to the cooler temps and higher rainfall. You also see the clouds hanging back, just cresting the top of the mountain but breaking into blue skies on this side.
The other side of the island isn't always cloudy but more so then not.




I give you all of this information because it's interesting to note that an hour's drive in any direction takes you through immense changes in weather, topography and flora. Add to that the lava flows that have created barren, moon-scape like places, void of all plant life and you have ever changing views from your car window.

South Point

Today, together with Makoto and friends, we created a caravan of three cars and headed to the southern most point of the United States, a place called South Point-go figure. It's about a one hour drive to the turn off from the highway and another 15 minutes to the point. During the drive we passed though the ever changing Hawaiian weather and topography....from populated, sunny south Kona where the road is maybe 1000+ feet above the ocean, coffee "plantations" are plenty and tropical foliage hugs the neighborhoods ; through an arid yet somewhat forested state park; on through a Mauna Loa lava flow of the early 1900's (where, in the 1960's, an oil company started a housing development of 11,000 one acre lots....on the lava field....Not sure I'd want to live there but you can own your own piece of Hawaii including an 1800sq ft home for about $90,000...no school and you'll need to catch your own rain water but there is electricity and the occasional ocean view...) and finally to the open, windy, grassy prairie of South Point.










Our reason for this adventure was not only to enjoy another beautiful day in paradise and to say that we've been to the southern most tip of the United States but also to visit Mahana Bay aka the green sand beach.
I'd read in a guide book that once you get to South Point you'll need to either off-road it (with a 4 wheel drive) or walk the last 2+ miles to the beach. With Daredevil Makoto in the lead vehicle (a LandCruiser) and us in a pretty much brand new, borrowed, 4 wheel drive (GMC) we off-roaded it. Although not the most dangerous thing one could do, seeing we were in a borrowed vehicle driving over sharp lava rock moguls, it wasn't the most leisurely of rides....
(the top photo shown here was a level part of the drive-looks easy, doesn't it?- I needed to check my fillings when we were through...)

As you can see from the middle photo..it was totally worth the 4-wheeling experience!
(those tiny black and white figures at the left center are the other 4-wheelers that braved the journey)

I really tried to get a good photo of the green sand but, as with most of these pictures, the photos do not so any justice to what we were seeing first hand (so I pilfered one from the internet...)
In person, the sand really is that green (and sparkly). It's from a mineral called olivine which, when in gem quality, is peridot..which happens to be our birthstone. The only green sand that came back with us was what stuck to our wet feet as there's a $500 fine for taking sand off this beach.







And do you see why I call him Daredevil Makoto?...That's him taking a leap from the rocks. Earlier in the day he jumped off the cliff at South Point...that's him climbing back up the rusty ladder....



*remember you can click on any photo to enlarge it*