edible Hawaiian Islands Fall 2009

hawaiian islands

edible

Celebrating the Harvest of the Aloha State, Season by Season

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No. 10 Fall 2009

Holiday Locavore Keep It Local Eat Your Way to Hana Chocolate the Temperamental Passion

Member of Edible Communities

LETTER of

Aloha This time of year the Hawaiian Islands are filled with wonderful events. I’d like to encourage you to refer to our “EVENTS” page on our website www.ediblehawaiianislands.com, it’s a great way to find out what’s happening on your island as well as your neighbor islands. In fact, why not take a family trip to a neighbor island and enjoy more of what Hawai`i has to offer. Keep it LOCAL even when planning a trip.

It’s also time to think about the Local Heroes in your area. Check out the ad on page 28. Remember to vote and get your friends to vote for your favorite choice as well. Be aware however, that multiple votes from the same IP address are automatically discarded. A list of last years winner is on our website, you can use the search option and type in Local Heroes. The new search option is also great if your looking for a recipe for the holidays, or perhaps there is one you can’t quite remember from a previous issue, just type in an ingredient.

I want to thank everyone who has participated in our photo contests, picking a winner has not been an easy task, so we will be adding some of our favorites to our website, be sure to check them out.

Last but not least, all of us at Edible Hawaiian Islands wish you and yours a wonderful fall and holiday season, filled with joy and good local food.

Ahui hou,

Gloria Cohen Publisher/Editor in Chief

On the Cover: Coconut Photo Contest Winner Nancy Werlinger: Born and raised in Hawai`i, now living in Seattle.

Her dad Bob Engelbardt submitted photo.

You can see some of our other favorites on our website www.ediblehawaiianislands.com The next photo contest is “Chicken and or Eggs” be creative, it can be just chickens, or just eggs or chickens and eggs. You may submit two photos for this contest per person, must be 8.5x11 at 300dpi, photo must be original high res, other wise it is disqualified, this is because it may not print as it looks on your computer. Submit to photo editor, Lauren@ediblehawaiianislands.com Deadline is November 15th. 2009 By submitting photos you agree that they may be used in Edible Hawaiian Islands Magazine or our Website for no monetary fee. All published photos will be credited.

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fall 2009 Contents 38

22 14 34 Departments 4 Letter of Aloha

Features 10 Aunty Liliko`i’s Passion in a Jar

9 Notable Edibles 22 Cooking fresh 32 Talk story

12 The Holiday Locavore 14 Ken Love: Hawai`i’s Fruit Advocate

42 Home made

16 Keep It Local 44 Holiday Book Selection

Kaua`i’s growing movement to think local first

29 Temperamental Passion: 45 What’s In Season 46 farmers’ markets 48 advertiser’s directory 50 what is it & how do you eat it?

Making Chocolate

34 ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS On The Road To Hana

38 Cocos nucifera The Giving Tree

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edible Hawaiian Islands Publisher/Editor in Chief Gloria Cohen Editor at Large Steven Cohen Distribution & Advertising FrontDesk@ediblealoha.com Dania Katz on Maui • Terry Sullivan on Kaua`i Contributors Kira Cohen Melissa Petersen Tracey Ryder Carole Topalian Photography Lauren Brandt Oliver Cohen Steven Cohen G. Natale Artists Cindy Conklin Mary Ogle

Writers Teresa Abenoja Martha Cheng Devany Vickery-Davidson Dahlia Haas Jon Letman Rob Parsons Katie Paul & Andrea Brower G. Natale Tim Ryan Copy Editor Doug Adrianson Research & Events Editor Lila Martin

Contact Us Edible Aloha PO Box 753, Kilauea, HI 96754 808-828-1559 FrontDesk@EdibleAloha.com www.EdibleAloha.com Subscribe * Give A Gift * Advertise Call: 808-828-1559 Or use the above email or web address Letters For the quickest response, email FrontDesk@EdibleAloha.com

Edible Hawaiian Islands is published quarterly by Edible Hawaiian Islands LLC. All rights reserved. Spring * Summer * Fall * Winter Subscription is $28 annually. No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher. Š2009. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings and omissions. If, however, an error has escaped our attention, please notify us and accept our sincere apologies. Mahalo!

Edible Hawaiian Islands is printed in Honolulu, HI

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Photo by Forest and Kim Starr

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Notable Edibles

Moloka`i

Lana`i

Hawai`i Kai Salt: For centuries, Hawaiians on the island of Moloka`i harvested salt from her clean, clear waters. Now this salt is harvested through Hawai`i Kai’s exclusive breakthrough “Solar Seal” system, and is hand crafted to bring you a spectrum of choices and flavors. For more about this award winning salt, to order some for yourself or to give as a gift, www.hawaiikaico.com

Lana`i City Grill: Experience a special holiday dinner in this lovely dining room, you can anticipate generously-portioned entrees that range from locally caught fish to prime-rib, home-style meatloaf and their signature rotisserie-roasted chicken. Under the direction of chef, Beverly Gannon, one of the 12 original founders of the Hawai`i Regional Cuisine movement. Opened Wed.- Sun. 5pm-9pm reservations recommended. 808-565-7211 or www.hotellanai.com Of course tell them we sent you.

O`ahu Kula Fields: Starting Oct. 1, 2009, Roxanne Tiffin is expanding Kula Fields to O`ahu. A Farmer’s Market on wheels, Roxanne just had her 1st anniversary on Muai, providing home delivery service of local produce, flowers and grocery items. For more info: 808-280-2009, info@kulafields.com

Kaua`i The Garden Island Range & Food Festival: Kaua`i’s First Locavore Pa`ina, A must visit event, Nov.15th, Sun. 11 am – 3 pm at Kilohana Luau. This is a family event featuring Locally Grown Foods from the Range, Farms and Chefs of Kaua`i. For more info and tickets 808-6522802 or 808-338-0111.

Kaua`i Granola: Take a tour, they are located in historic Waimea town on the west side of Kaua`i, drop in and talk story, you can also sample the natural flavored granola and treats. Be sure to say aloha for us to the owner, her name is Cheryl. Our favorites are the coconut macaroons.

Hawai`i Island Big Island Delights: Need to take something to the hostess during the holidays … here you can get gourmet cookies, chocolates, mac nuts, Kona Coffee and other local Hawaiian gifts. You can shop on line, and find a retail outlet near you on their website. We love the shortbread dipped in chocolate. www.bigislanddelights.com

Maui Market Fresh Bistro: A charming courtyard café, with a focus on local farms for most of the menu. Check out their FARM DINNERS every other Thursday evening; a local farm is selected for this bi-monthly pre fixe dinner. Call ahead, it’s the freshest meal you can imagine. 808572-4877, 3620 Baldwin Ave in Makawao. They also serve breakfast and lunch. Be sure to tell them EDIBLE sent you. www.ediblealoha.com

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Passion in a Jar

By Jon Letman

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ike mango, guava, papaya and other Keoni-come-lately introduced plants, liliko`i* (passion fruit) has earned its place in the pantheon of tropical fruits closely associated with, but not native to, Hawai`i.

Passiflora edulis, that tenaciously tangled green vine found climbing up the side wall of old plantation homes and overcoming long-forgotten abandoned cars, brings a burst of color and flare to the islands with its jellyfish-meets-interstellar-nebula-space-creature of a blossom.

The fruit, too, is something of a curiosity. Ranging from purplishgreen to yellow and even black, this South American globular fruit can be smooth and firm like an eight ball or wrinkled and mushy like a tiny shrunken head. The inner pulp is a gelatinous mass of orange slippery stuff filled with dozens of stubborn black seeds, best extracted from its skin by sucking.

Liliko`i is not the easiest fruit in the islands to eat, but the taste, irresistibly tart, has captured the hearts and tongues of Hawai`i. Just ask Aunty Liliko`i, she’ll tell you.

“Aunty Liliko`i” is in fact Lori Cardenas. She and her husband, Tony, are the owners of Aunty Liliko`i Passion Fruit Products, one of the best sources of passion fruit foods in Hawai`i. Operating their business out of their certified kitchen in Waimea on Kaua`i’s west side, Lori and Tony purchased the company in 2001 from a previous owner.

Lori recalls at that time the company consisted of five recipes and the 10

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trade name. It was she and Tony who gave “Aunty Liliko`i” a kitchen, store, logo and website.

They also expanded their line from five recipes to over two dozen food products, a small line of aromatherapy items and house-made deserts like liliko`i ice cream, sorbet and chiffon pies.

When Lori and Tony took over the company, they knew almost nothing about making jellies, syrups and sauces, but had experience co-owning and operating a clothing company. In the mid 1990s, they had increased annual sales more than tenfold in just three years. The Cardenases’ latest venture has grown steadily too, but at a pace much healthier (for their sanity).

“Before we bought this business, I had never made a single jar of jelly,” Lori says. “Well, I’ve made up for that the last eight years.”

From their modest beginnings when they operated out of a kitchen leased by the hour to a 600-square-foot space, Aunty Liliko`i has expanded to its current location on the mauka side of the highway, across from Ishihara Market in Waimea. The processing facility with storefront opened in 2002 and they launched a website six months later.

Lori estimates around 60 percent of sales come from walk-in customers with neighbor island visitor sales gaining on those from out of state. The other 40 percent of sales come from the wholesale market

Photo by Jon Letman

Aunty Lilikoi’s

and a growing internet business, about three-quarters of which are repeat customers.

In order for Aunty Liliko`i to produce enough product to support its sales, it needs a steady supply of passion fruit. The liliko`i juice they use is collected and de-seeded using a centrifuge, which spins out seeds and excess moisture. The actual making of jelly involves a degree of chemistry, Lori says. Sugar solid and acidity levels must be measured and maintained in order not to compromise the product’s shelf life, appearance and purity.

And while it grows around the islands, sometimes with no regard for that which its leafy green foliage and tendrils swallow up, Lori could find no steady source of commercially grown liliko`i in Hawai`i and so she does what any respectable business-minded Aunty would do: She imports passion fruit purée from the largest single grower in the world.

Each year Aunty Liliko`i goes through about a ton and a half of purée, which is shipped frozen by container.

With liliko`i purée in everything from mustard to passion guava jelly and passion fruit teriyaki sauce to passion pineapple salsa, the impact of recent purée price hikes of 25 percent make doing business a challenge. Lori says this is not a good period to adjust prices and because she refuses to scrimp on ingredients, she needs to operate smarter and watch other spending more closely. Limiting staff to one full-time employee, herself and her husband, the company is able to turn a small profit as it satisfies and expands its customer base.

Despite Aunty Liliko`i’s “fruity image,” Lori says the biggest seller by a long shot is Aunty Liliko`i’s Passion Wasabi Mustard, an awardwinning condiment that has earned medals at the International Mustard Competition in Napa Valley in five of the last six years. In 2005, Aunty Liliko`i’s best-selling mustard took top prize, beating 300 competitors from 19 states and four countries including mustard’s big cheese, Grey Poupon.

Lori says her customers wanted something with “a little kick” so after she and Tony considered blending their mustard with horseradish or chili peppers, they settled on wasabi made from pure wasabi root.

Using passion fruit from Ecuador, wasabi from Oregon, glass jars from Taiwan and product labels from California, Aunty Liliko`i still manages to make a “Made in Hawai`i” product line which is certified “Kaua`i Made” for its value-added labor. Furthermore, Aunty Liliko`i helps support other local small companies and businesswomen by carrying their island-made skin care goods, fragrances, soap and candles, and by using Hawai`i-based distributors.

Besides, Aunty Liliko`i carries on the tradition of an adopted Hawaiian favorite: passion fruit. Just as former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook famously declared chicken tikka massala to be a “true British national dish” and Chinese imports ramen and gyoza are now considered standard fare in Japan, South American passion fruit fits right in to island kitchens and cooking. Here in Hawai`i, a place where laulau, kimchi, adobo and malasadas rub shoulders on the dining table, all things liliko`i are perfectly at home—just ask Aunty.

Aunty Liliko`i is open daily 10 a.m.–6 p.m. auntylilikoi.com *According to Pukui/Elbert’s Hawaiian dictionary, liliko`i is said to be named for the Liliko`i Gulch in Haiku, Maui.

www.ediblealoha.com

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The Holiday Locavore

By Martha Cheng

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rowing up, the meals my Chinese family ate on Thanksgiving never seemed to match the mental image I had for what the feast should look like. (I couldn’t really see the Pilgrims stepping off the Niña and Pinta to a spread of sea cucumbers and shark fin soup with their new Native American friends.) So naturally, when I was finally free to realize the Thanksgiving of my dreams, I went after it with a vengeance.

Since establishing my own household, Thanksgivings have been strictly “traditional”: roast turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, pumpkin and apple pie. Period. These traditions are enforced with an iron fist. The proper holiday table does not tolerate deviations and there’s no room in the spread for my Filipino-Mexican husband’s own traditions of Thanksgiving sides: tortillas and jasmine rice.

I was well on my way to producing another wonderfully tyrannical turkey-based feast when something funny happened. A year ago I was taking part in an Eat-Local Challenge, in which everything I ate for the month of October was grown in the Hawaiian islands. I discovered our farmers. Farmers became friends and meals became adventures: Where would I forage for my next dinner? (The 6 a.m. Kalihi market? The ever-popular KCC farmers’ market? Chinatown, with pushy old ladies? Craigslist?) What fantastically delicious thing would I discover that would take my mind off bread and rice?

In the end, I did have quite a few fantastically delicious meals, but I never quite stopped obsessing about bread and rice...karma for oppressing my husband’s holiday traditions?

I momentarily forgot all about my feast fascism, and signed on to the idea of preparing a locavore Thanksgiving as my way of giving thanks for all the farmers and ranchers and fishermen that had nour12

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ished me for a month. Everything was to be locally grown. But then I realized what that meant: no turkey, no cranberries, no potatoes, no bread for stuffing, no apples, no flour and butter for piecrust! After an extended argument with the 12-year-old version of myself who believed adulthood meant turkey for Thanksgivings forever, I decided to take the plunge.

But if it was a shock to the system, I barely had time to notice. I spent days at Frankie’s Nursery in Waimanalo, watching the breadfruit ripen on the trees and discovering large, pink-fleshed mamey sapote, which tastes like pumpkin pie and is similar even in texture. I pried coconut meat out of the shell and grated and squeezed it through cheesecloth, an ordeal that took hours, just to get little more than a cup of coconut milk. I steamed taro, and then steamed it some more to get rid of that itchy feeling in my throat.

A friend brought some mahi he caught; we grilled North Shore Cattle Co. tenderloin; we braised Lana`i venison. When we were done, our spread looked about as “traditional” as the jellyfish salads of my childhood Thanksgivings. The only dish reminiscent of Thanksgiving was our pumpkin pie taste-alike: mamey sapote pie with a breadfruit crust.

One year later, as the holidays approach, I’m again faced with the decision to prepare a “traditional” Thanksgiving or go for round two of the locavore feast. And it turns out that a lot has happened in a year.

The divergence between the two is not as wide as it was a year ago.

Our farmscape is changing. In some regions of the United States, planting potatoes, raising poultry, producing milk and butter might be the boring stuff, but the farmers who are undertaking these projects in O`ahu are the agricultural equivalent of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. And a year of being a farm groupie has unearthed some previously

hidden and overlooked treasures like locally raised pigs and poha berries that provide a tartness similar to cranberries.

So I’ve decided this year’s Thanksgiving will be of the locavore variety. And yet, my table will more resemble the Thanksgiving spread of children’s coloring books than my first all-local production. The centerpiece will be roast chickens with poha berry jam (still working on getting it to retain the ridges of cranberry jelly sliced from a can) and gravy thickened with poi. Creamy mashed potatoes with milk and butter will be my ode to the three staples we couldn’t easily get a year ago on O`ahu.

Purple sweet potatoes mashed with tangerine juice and ginger will lend their vibrant color to the table. Still no stuffing, but kale sautéed with bacon cured from a locally raised pig will suffice. For dessert, a spiced kabocha flan, flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg and coffee.

Some of the wonderful things about a locavore holiday spread are the stories behind the food that unfold at the table. Take the dessert, for example. It’s composed of ingredients from farmers I’ve met in the past year whom I admire. The eggs are provided by Peterson’s Upland Farm, run by a third-generation egg farmer with 100 years of stories to tell.

One of the memories takes place in 1941 during the attack on Pearl Harbor when the chicken houses, mistaken for soldiers’ barracks, were strafed. Luckily, there were no human casualties, just two chickens.

The milk in the flan is sourced from Big Island’s Island Dairy, which recently started providing milk to O`ahu; it’s one of only three dairies left on the islands. Newcomer Naked Cow Dairy on O`ahu is currently engaged in the arduous process of setting up milking and pasteurizing operations, but in the meantime O`ahu’s only source of island milk comes from Island Dairy on the Hamakua coast of Big Island. Island Dairy is groundbreaking in its experiments to stay viable: growing feed rather than shipping it in, recycling cow manure into the feed fields and installing solar panels.

The coffee steeped in the flan is from Harens Old Tree Estate, run solely by Duane Harens, a sommelier turned coffee farmer and roaster who approaches his coffee trees as a winemaker tends grape vines. And of course, there are more farmers with stories I have yet to hear; I won’t be surprised if by next year I’ll have a locally raised turkey.

Still, I’ve come to terms with the idea that my locavore Thanksgiving may never look like the Thanksgiving feast of greeting cards.

And yet, in a way, you could say it’s more “traditional.” The Pilgrims were locavores out of necessity; with my dinner I follow in their footsteps and celebrate the cornucopia growing in front of me.

SPICED KABOCHA COFFEE FLAN ½ cup plus 2/3 cup sugar 2 cups milk ¼ cup coarsely ground coffee beans 2 large eggs 4 large egg yolks ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1½ cups cooked kabocha purée Preheat the oven to 350°.

In a small saucepan, combine ½ cup sugar with ¼ cup water.

Cook over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. As the sugar begins to color, swirl the saucepan around to caramelize the sugar evenly. Cook until the syrup turns a honey-caramel color. Remove from heat and carefully (the sugar is very very hot!) pour the caramel into a 9-inch glass pie pan. Tilt the pan so that the caramel coats the bottom. Allow caramel to cool and harden.

In a small saucepan, bring the milk and coffee beans to a boil. In a heatproof bowl, whisk the eggs, egg yolks, 2/3 cup sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon until blended. Add kabocha and mix until blended. Whisking constantly, slowly pour the hot milk in a thin stream into the egg mixture. Strain through a fine-meshed sieve and pour into the caramel-coated dish.

Place the pie dish in a larger, ovenproof pan with sides that are as high as the pie dish. Place pan with pie dish in oven and fill pan with enough hot water to reach 2/3 up the side of the dish. Bake until a knife inserted into the center of the custard comes out clean (though the custard will still be wobbly), about 40 minutes. Remove dish from water bath and transfer to a rack to cool to room temperature. (Flan can also be covered and refrigerated overnight.)

To serve, run the tip of a knife around the top of the custard to loosen it. Invert a serving platter over the pie pan and quickly turn it over again. Carefully remove the pie pan. Serves 6–8.

www.ediblealoha.com

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Ken Love: HAWAI`I’S FRUIT ADVOCATE

By Devany Vickery-Davidson

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Photos Devany Vickery-Davidson

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n an overcast summer morning I drove across the moonscape of the Saddle Road from my home in Hilo and down the lava-crusted South Kona Coast to find a lush corridor of green where the Kona Pacific Farmers Co-op is located. There, Ken Love built and developed a fruit park with the help of donations, grants and volunteers.

I drove two hours to meet Ken Love. Knowing what I now know about him, I would drive all day to meet up with the man with the floppy hat, Aloha shirt, twinkle in his eye and sheepish grin. His gruff appearance belies the image of the fruit impresario that he is. He’s a walking encyclopedia of fruit, a rebel leader for the “local food” movement and some may call him the Pied Piper of Hawaiian Fruit. This may have something to do with his posing behind a fig leaf. As we were walking through the fig trees at the 12 Trees Project, he kiddingly suggested that he pose for a photo with a fig leaf in the usual pose.

Then he thought better and hid his mouth instead. Because he is a fervent spokesman for the concept of Hawaiians eating locally he has been known to get himself in a few sticky situations with grocers and a few people who “just don’t get it.”

“What is a fruit park,” you ask? The concept of fruit parks began in Japan. They are huge and have playgrounds, restaurants, stores and amusement rides with an agrarian theme.

It is here at the 12 Trees Project that Ken works tirelessly to promote growing and uses of tropical fruits. He is foremost an educator and farmer, but he is a friend of chefs and consumers alike.

Initially, the 12 Trees Project began as a place where Fifty-four Hawaiian Chefs, fruit buyers and growers were invited to select the types of fruit that they would like use. Ken continues to work with the Chefs on a regular basis, introducing fruits to them seasonally. As Ken shared with me about the incredible yields they were getting in that organically farmed pocket orchard, I was impressed.

Ken believes in topping most every kind of tree so that the fruit may be easily harvested. The best example of this is with the fig trees, which seem to be his current focus. The fig trees in the park are trimmed to about five feet in height and are supported in a spreading espaliered style by metal pipes so that one of his prime brown turkey fig trees spans over 30 feet linearly and picking is easy. They are a yearround crop in South Kona.

After years of international research Ken Love believes that Hawai`i may just be the best place on the planet to grow figs. But then

he also believes it is the best place on the planet to grow a lot of things.

Take the avocado, for instance.

Ken Love has spent years on research and development of Hawai`i Island’s incredible variety of avocados. More than 200 varieties thrive in Big Island soils at varying elevations. As a result of two centuries of traders who ate avocados on Westbound voyages from Mexico and Central America and saved the seeds of the better ones, later crossbreeding and cultivation created even more varieties with unique characteristics. Some of the local avocados still bear the names of the Japanese coffee growers (Masami, Yamagata, Ohata) who diversified into avocados. Because of microclimates, many varieties and variances in elevation, Hawai`i produces premium avocados year-round. Our avocados also taste better, have higher fat content and better texture than the standard California Hass. For all of the cheerleading Ken Love has done on behalf of the Hawaiian avocados, most grocery chains in Hawai`i continue to import 3 million pounds of avocados from Mexico, Chile and California. Thus most of Hawai`i’s unique and superior fruit goes to chefs in the know, farmers’ markets, neighbors and pigs.

Back at the fruit park, Ken told me that the first 12 tree varieties chosen were loquat, cherimoya, grumichama, fig, Mysore berry, poha, pomegranate, Surinam cherry, tree tomato, tamarillo, Kona Rangpur lime and kumquat. Since then many other citrus, pineapple, papaya and other varieties have been planted and cultivated.

If you would like to visit the 12 Trees Project, it is located next to the Kona Pacific Farmer’s Co-op on Napo’opo’o Road in Captain Cook. It is open daily. Keep your eyes out for the man in the floppy hat wielding clippers and you may get a tour of the gardens.

I first heard of Ken Love when reading Adam Leith Gollner’s book The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession a little over a year ago. According to the book, Ken and a group of local fruit fanatics refer to themselves as “The Hawaiian Mafia.”

Ken is part of an extreme group of localvores with a passion for fruit of almost any kind on the island of Hawai`i. He is both educator and instigator in this close-knit community of growers, chefs and consumers that call the Big Island home. His world is Slow Food squared.

Radical, passionate and driven, he works tirelessly to bring Hawai`i to its proper balance of sustainability, perhaps even tipping the scales when he can towards tropical fruit.

Over 25 years ago, Ken was a newspaper and wire service photographer in Chicago. His work took him to Hawai`i and he mused in dismay at the way mangoes and papayas were rotting on the side of

the road in Hawai`i, tropical fruits that in Chicago were extremely exotic and expensive. He finally decided that the west coast of Hawai`i Island was as close to Paradise as he was going to come. He bought a coffee plantation and started producing and selling the local “gold”: Kona coffee. He now says that the coffee plantation idea was one sold to him by an eager real estate agent; he sold his farm and has ventured on to exotic tropical fruits, and the ultra-exotics like the accerola berry, which contains 4,000 times more vitamin C than an orange; the peanut butter fruit, which looks like a red olive but has the taste and consistency of Jif. The rollina, big as a volleyball and tastes of lemon meringue pie; Fruits like jaboticabas, bilimbus, gourka, langsat and more.

All of these fruits and more can be found on Ken Love’s wellknown poster, Big Island Exotic Fruit. The poster and others he has done on figs, citrus, avocados and bananas can be purchased online at hawaiifruit.net.

Love is also an Asiaphile. He has maintained a home in Japan for many years and spent much time in Asia both as a photographer and now as an agricultural investigator and expert. He speaks Japanese fluently, reading the Japanese newspapers daily.

Ken has an ever-changing fruit cause, going from avocados to figs to no-chill stone fruits, one of his latest passions. One thing is for sure: Wherever Ken Love is he will continue to make discoveries and share them with the world with all of the enthusiasm he can muster.

For additional content on the web: Ken Love’s years of research and many interesting fruit ideas can be found at www.hawaiifruit.net

www.ediblealoha.com

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Keep It Local Kaua`i’s growing movement to think local first

By Katie Paul and Andrea Brower

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t’s official: “Local” is sexy.

The word is emblazoned on menus at trendy restaurants and on signs posted next to gourmet produce at boutique food stores across the nation. The term locavore (someone who eats food grown or produced locally) was even recently added to the dictionary, showcasing the momentum of the rapidly growing movement that encourages people to eat and buy locally grown produce.

But for true believers, local food isn’t just a fad or a way to turn a quick buck. It’s an inspired movement that is combating climate change, factory farms, pollution, labor abuse and disease—one homegrown avocado at a time.

Right here in our remote island chain, the local food movement offers solutions for maintaining the health of our land and revitalizing our economy. You might expect that with our tropical climate, yearround growing season, famous Hanalei taro fields and rural streets where avocados and mangoes are dropping off the trees, Kaua`i would be a local foodie’s paradise. But rather, if you’ve wandered through the produce section of our grocery stores, you might have noticed that it’s the California oranges and Central American bananas that crowd the shelf space.

Despite a long history of both subsistence and plantation agriculture, abundant natural resources, and talented farmers, Kaua`i is an island dependent on the outside world for 97 percent of our energy and upwards of 90 percent of our food. Located 2,000 miles away from the nearest continent, “locally grown” isn’t just a nice idea—it is core to food security. Perhaps it is the commonly repeated statement “If the boats stop coming, we only have three to seven days worth of food” that most emphasizes how vulnerable we are.

That’s why the three of us at Malama Kaua`i, a nonprofit organization focused on the sustainability and self-sufficiency of our island, 16

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took on a personal challenge last year to eat only local for a month. The plan was to be test rats for an island-wide challenge that would raise awareness about the benefits of buying local.

Even though we were already committed locavores, none of us foresaw all of the challenges we would face when attempting to break our addiction to all imported foods. As expected, it was tough to find the extra time needed to prep and cook meals, and we all became a little grouchy about not being able to eat our usual desserts. Additionally, tightly scheduled farmers’ markets didn’t always offer the hours we needed, “all-local” restaurant menu items were frequently impossible to find and we even had difficulty tracking down staples that we knew were being grown nearby.

So instead of launching what could have been a discouraging community-wide Eat Local challenge, we decided to leap deeper into the issues, spending six months interviewing growers on Kaua`i’s North Shore.

Most critically, we discovered that there are some major shortcomings to the current food distribution and marketing systems. Although many chefs, grocers and consumers want to buy and serve local fare, and many growers need markets, a wide range of challenges can inhibit this process. Crop fluctuations, product consistency and standardization requirements, liability insurance, communication gaps and lack of marketing expertise were just a few of the barriers that we identified through our North Shore Food Systems Study.

While interviewing growers and suppliers, we realized that one of the biggest missing pieces was a simple directory to connect local restaurants, caterers and grocers with farms. So, we created one! The North Shore edition is available for download online at MalamaKauai.org and we update it monthly. The directory includes farm location, contact information, a list of crops grown, as well as crucial

information for retailers such as what the farm is willing to sell wholesale. Although some North Shore growers already have established markets, the directory has been very helpful for others, as well as for several restaurants. Seeing its potential, we are in the process of gathering information for an island-wide version. Anybody on Kaua`i wishing to sell a local product that they grow can contact us about being listed.

Eventually, the goal is to have an easy-to-use online version that growers themselves can update as frequently as desired.

Malama Kaua`i is continuing to study the barriers and opportunities for diversified agriculture on Kaua`i and is working on “leverage points,” such as finding solutions to farmworker housing issues and exploring ways to preserve our most important irrigation systems locally in Kilauea. We are a new and youthful organization, and understand that the most important knowledge and wisdom exists in the minds and hearts of those who have been involved in agriculture on Kaua`i for decades or even generations. Overcoming barriers to island food production is going to take the enthusiasm and innovative ideas of the youth mixed with the invaluable mana`o of those older and wiser than ourselves.

Globally, food sustainability is going to take each and every one of us “Keeping It Local.” Get involved no matter where you live with these three tips:

1:

Start a directory! The benefits of creating a farm directory in your own community are significant. Farmers’ market enthusiasts were thrilled to see pictures of where their food was coming from and BARacuda, a local tapas restaurant, went so far as to post the directory on its wall to make sure chefs knew who to call for the freshest ingredients. If it seems overwhelming, you can start small and expand your directory as the word spreads. Feel free to contact us for help.

2:

Vote with your dollar. In a time where most everyone is strapped for cash, it’s important to make every penny count by voting with the money you spend. Buying produce at the farmers’ market is a great way to support farmers directly, as well as keep dollars in your local economy, contributing to the economic multiplier effect. In Hawai`i, think twice before buying a banana imported over 2,000 miles from Ecuador—we promise the local one is better for you and tastes yummier. Look for locally made products that incorporate local ingredients, such as salsas, cheeses and cookies. If a local option is nowhere in sight, kindly let a manager know you are enthusiastic about buying local.

3:

Get your friends involved. Get a few friends together to start a farmers’ market where there is none, lead a week-long “Eat Local” challenge in your neighborhood, blog about recipes featuring local cuisine, help start a school garden program or introduce your friends and family to farmers in their area by setting up casual farm tours. A more localized economy and food system starts with people taking action in their own communities.

The Malama Kaua`i Keep It Local campaign raises awareness about the benefits of living local, and empowers people to take action in their own communities. To find out more about Malama Kaua`i or to download the Farm Directory, visit malamakauai.org.

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Edible Hawaiian Islands is published quarterly by Edible Hawaiian Islands LLC. Telephone: 808-828-1559. Distribution is throughout the state of Hawai`i and nationally by subscription. All rights reserved. Subscription rate is $28 annually. Published in April, July, October and December. Call the number above to inquire about advertising rates, deadlines or subscription information, or email us at: info@ediblehawaiianislands.com. No part of this publication may be used without written permission of the publisher. © 2009 All Rights Reserved.

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COOKING

fresh I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

By Dahlia Haas Food styling and Photography

by Dahlia Haas and Nurit Aeina

D

uring the holidays, my Hawaiian kitchen turns into a winter wonderland. I’m making scrumptious yuletide desserts and confections, using island coconut as the main ingredient. Not far behind is bittersweet chocolate, homemade ice cream, toasted macadamia nuts, bananas, caramel sauce, vanilla and tender marshmallows.

I’ve created a collection of no-bake desserts with the holidays in mind. These will surely personalize a party and make a wonderful conclusion to a festive meal. Make one dessert or go for all three—either way, your efforts will shine.

This issue’s desserts have one thing in common: coconuts. Every part of the coconut palm has a use. The leaves are used to make mats, hats, sturdy baskets and roof thatching. The husks and shells can be used as good sources of charcoal. The oil is wonderful for cooking and baking.

In the tropical countries, home cooks grate fresh coconut meat to make coconut milk. Next time your coconut man comes to pluck coconuts from your coconut palms, ask him to whack open a couple dozen with his machete, drain the coconut water, pierce a hole into the softest eye of the coconut with a screwdriver. Stand by, with big pitchers to collect the coconut water. The temperature of the coconut water will be just right for drinking. Coconut water is super hydrating and will stay fresh in the refrigerator for a week.

You can use the soft curd-like coconut pulp to make luscious coconut puddings and to flavor chicken and pork dishes. If a coconut is young it won’t contain much meat. Look for older coconuts when a recipe calls for fresh milk or grated meat. To make fresh grated coconut, simply peel off the hard shell and grate the white meat with a hand grater. Fresh coconut grates into a soft, moist powder—like snow.

Coconut milk is made by processing grated coconut with hot water or milk until it turns soft and creamy. The hot water or milk extracts the oil and aromatic compounds. Once the coconut milk is refrigerated, coconut cream rises to the top.

From a lovely bunch of coconuts you’ll have a festive set of homemade desserts to share with your friends and loved ones: Decadent Chocolate Mosaic Candy, Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream stuffed into thin delicate crepes and Coconut Banana Truffles.

Enjoy the recipes I’ve created here for your holidays.

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DESSERT CREPES Makes 10 crepes This dessert is a knockoff of macadamia nut pancakes. I fancied it up, replacing the fluffy pancakes with thin, delicate crepes, stuffed with Chocolate Macadamia Nut Ice Cream, bundled to look like an edible present on a plate.

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 2 large eggs 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 1 cup milk 5 tablespoons melted butter (for cooking crepes)

Put all ingredients except the butter in a blender, cover and blend at low speed until blended.

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, or refrigerate overnight.

Heat an 8-inch crepe pan or omelet pan over medium-high heat. Brush lightly with some melted butter. Ladle ¼ cup of batter, tilt or swirl the pan to spread the batter evenly. Cook until the crepe’s surface is covered with bubbles, the edges are golden brown and easily lifted away from the pan so you can see if the underside has browned. When the underside is lightly browned, after about 2 minutes, flip the crepe, using a thin spatula. Cook the other side for 30 seconds and transfer to a platter.

Repeat with the remaining batter, stacking the crepes. The recipe makes 15 6inch crepes or 10 8-inch crepes.

Crepes can be made ahead. Stack the crepes between pieces of parchment or wax paper, place in a large ZipLoc bag and refrigerate or freeze.

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CHOCOLATE COCONUT MACADAMIA ICE CREAM Makes 1½ quart Once you make homemade ice cream, I promise you’ll be hooked. It takes 10 minutes to mix up and a few hours in the freezer.

1 tablespoon instant coffee 1 tablespoon hot water 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped ½ cup sweetened condensed milk ½ teaspoon vanilla extract ¼ cup toasted coconut, shredded ½ cup toasted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped 1¼ cups heavy cream

Fill the bottom of a double boiler with water and place on low heat. Combine coffee powder and hot water in a small bowl. Let stand until coffee dissolves, about 5 minutes.

Place the chocolate and the condensed milk in the top of a double boiler over hot water (not boiling) and allow it to melt. Do not cover. Whisk well to incorporate the chocolate with the condensed milk; add the vanilla.

Remove the top of the boiler from heat and let the chocolate mixture cool completely; fold in the coconuts and nuts. Stir well with a spoon to combine.

With an electric mixer, whip cream to stiff peaks, about 2 minutes. Fold whipped cream mixture into chocolate mixture until incorporated. Freeze in airtight container until firm; at least 6 hours or up to 2 weeks. Serve.

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COCONUT BANANA TRUFFLES Makes 20–24 If you don’t want to grate coconut meat, use store-bought coconut instead. I buy a good-quality coconut from our local health food store. Roll the bananas in either sweetened or unsweetened shredded coconut; both work well. If you want to dip the bananas in melted chocolate, skip dipping the bananas in sour cream and then roll them in the shredded coconut.

4 large bananas, ripe, peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks 8 ounces sour cream 3 cups shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened Place sour cream and coconut in separate medium bowls. Dip each banana chunk into the sour cream, then coat generously with coconut on all sides.

Gently press coconut into the banana chunks so each forms a ball.

Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.

Can be made 2 days in advance and stored in a covered dish in the refrigerator.

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CHOCOLATE COCONUT MOSAIC CANDIES Makes 30–35 To keep the logs round, roll the chocolate to a diameter slightly smaller than an empty paper towel roll, wrap the dough in parchment or wax paper and slide wrapped chocolate log into the cardboard cylinder. It’s a perfect way to store the logs so they don’t flatten.

1 cup Graham cracker crumbs, pulverized 2 cups bittersweet chocolate, chopped 2 tablespoons butter, unsalted 2 tablespoons heavy cream ⅓ cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened ½ cup macadamia nuts, roasted and coarsely chopped ¾ cup miniature marshmallows, white or pastel colored Place Graham crackers in a bowl of a food processor with a metal blade and pulse on and off till crackers are pulverized. Set aside.

Fill bottom of double boiler with water and place on low heat.

Place coarsely chopped chocolate, butter and cream in the top of double boiler over hot (not boiling) water and allow it to melt. Do not cover. Whisk chocolate mixture constantly until it is glossy and smooth.

Remove top of boiler from heat.

Let chocolate mixture cool completely, and then fold in the rest of the ingredients except the Graham cracker crumbs.

Place chocolate mixture on a large sheet of wax paper or parchment and carefully roll into a 1½-inch-diameter log. Coat the log on all sides with the Graham cracker crumbs and roll the log in parchment or wax paper; twist the ends and refrigerate for 2 hours. Cut into ¼-inch slices with a sharp knife.

Can be made 1 week ahead; store rolls in the refrigerator.

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Temperamental

Passion:

Making Chocolate

By Tim Ryan

F

ine chocolate making is a temperamental passion. It takes equal portions of culinary education, a variety of training experience, sophisticated equipment, specialized ingredients and dedication to quality, and years of trial-and-error experiments.

“For a long time it was more error and a lot of trials for me,” says Melanie Boudar, owner and master chocolatier at Sweet Paradise Chocolate with stores on the Big Island and in Kailua, O`ahu. “Fine chocolate can’t be rushed. Every step is critical and the smallest fluctuation in temperature and humidity can ruin the best intentions.

Being a perfectionist is a curse and a blessing for the fine chocolatier.”

So how did this soft-spoken woman and former jeweler, who now lives in Volcano on the Big Island, decide to become a chocolate maker?

The decision was pragmatic and adventurous.

In the process of running her Volcano B&B— visitthevolcano.com—Boudar wanted a special guest amenity for each room.

“I started out using Big Island shortbread cookies, but I probably ate more of them than the guests,” she says. “I decided I should put something in the rooms that I made, so I started playing with chocolate.”

While admitting to be “a chocolate nut,” Boudar remembers her days of working for a major jewelry company that sent her to Europe every six weeks to buy gems, and visiting Belgium with the aroma of fine chocolate wafting from shop doorways. After she bought a parcel of especially good diamonds, the Belgian dealers soon realized they had sold her the gems for the wrong price. The company pleaded for their return and Boudar complied. The company’s thank you gift was a box of fine chocolate from world-renowned makers Del Rey. “I knew the shop because every day I passed Del Rey there was always a long line outdoors,” Boudar said. “I thought, what are people doing lining up at a chocolate shop?”

But when she opened her chocolate box she found the answer.

“The aroma was unbelievable,” she said. “Inside the box was so beautiful. It really got my attention.”

In an instant she stopped eating general consumer chocolate, turning to the fine category. The problem was she didn’t know how to make it, despite being a self-confessed “foodie girl my whole life.”

After moving to Hawai`i from New Mexico and retiring to the Big Island after a six-year stint working on O`ahu, Boudar “started playing with chocolate” cooking.

“I always believed if you’re going to do something, do it well,” she said. “I learned early how temperamental chocolate is. It has to be tempered. You have to work with it to make it set up to have a snap and a shine.”

(Tempering is a process that alters the fat crystals, of which chocolate has six different ones. “Some are good fat crystals and some are bad. If you don’t align the crystals properly through heating, cooling and agitation, then chocolate won’t set up hard, turning soft,” she said.)

When the self-training wasn’t advancing as quickly as she had hoped, Boudar sought professional help.

Over the next four years, she would attend the Culinary Institute in New York, Ecole Chocolat of Vancouver, Canada, and Artisan Chocolate and Confection Program at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park in Chicago, working one-on-one with some of the finest chocolate makers in the United States.

And because Boudar wanted to see the process from growing to harvesting the pods, she studied in Belize and Venezuela, countries that produce cacao.

This chocolate education, which she estimates cost about $20,000, has paid off in accolades and a growing business.

“Chocolate is the finished product of the cacao tree: Theobroma cacao that means food of the gods,” Boudar writes on her blog.

This tree evolved as a wild tree in South America and it is in ancient Mesoamerica where the Aztec, Mayan, Toltec and other civilizations flourished and for whom the bitter drink made from the roasted cacao bean, spices and grains was considered sacred.

As legend has it, when Christopher Columbus encountered the island of Guanaja in the early 1500s he was honored with a cup of the sacred drink by his hosts. He traded some goods for sacks of cacao beans.

Since returning to Hawai`i and ramping up her recipes, Boudar has won first place in the Kona Chocolate Festival the past three years.

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“It’s still challenging in the tropics because of the temperature and humidity fluctuations,” she explains. “Chocolate refuses to behave the same way every day.

“When I was baking in my [Volcano] house, I had to get a dehumidifier to keep the humidity below 50 percent. Then sometimes I had to cool the room or only work in the morning.”

Using her art background, Boudar incorporates elaborately colorful designs on the chocolate from colored coco butter, all a far cry from the stereotypical brown chocolate.

“For me, making chocolate is an art form of design and flavors,” she says.

One of her winning pieces was a design replicating Kilauea volcano: “I used a mold but I textured it on one side to look like pahoehoe lava and the other side I used coco butter colorations to look like a lava flow,” she said. “Inside I used a spicy raspberry that was kind of runny.”

Though her sales brochure offers some 40 flavors, Boudar says she does many more as her mood and imagination dictate.

Farmers’ markets have proven invaluable in fueling Boudar’s recipes to include tropical fruits, nuts and spices, she said. The company’s Tropical Assorted Box contains chocolates with banana, orange, coconut, Hawaiian vanilla, macadamia nut, liliko`i, and strawberry guava.

Chocolate can have floral, spicy and citrus or tobacco aromas and flavors as well as varying astringency with the percentage of cacao used in a given product, Boudar says.

The master chocolatier also draws inspiration from tropical-style cocktails, including a yuzu sake martini she describes as “sensational.”

(The yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit about the size of a tangerine and quite sour. Most commonly the rind is used to flavor various dishes such as vegetables, fish or noodles. The yuzu is difficult to find in the United States.)

Boudar “hunted down” yuzu juice on the internet to make chocolate. “I love it in the chocolate,” she says.

Boudar uses only the best Belgian, Venezuelan and French chocolates for her creations.

“You obviously cannot cheat with the quality of ingredients,” Boudar said.

Business continues to grow though Boudar is investing profits into a larger, professional kitchen space in Waimea and more sophisticated equipment, including a $30,000 Selmi Enrobing machine from Italy.

The machine will melt more than double the amount of chocolate and in half the time of her former machine. The machine comes equipped with a conveyer belt where the chocolate can be sprayed with various toppings more efficiently.

In an average week Sweet Paradise Chocolate produces about 100 pounds of fine chocolate containing 65 percent cacao, compared to the average Hershey bar, which is 90 percent sugar and 10 percent chocolate. (Higher percentages of sugar do not automatically equate to a superior product since small amounts of sugar actually enhance the 30

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flavors and subtle notes of each variety, a balance that brings a given variety to its level of peak enjoyment.)

Boudar’s current favorite chocolate is the spicy Fire Cracker made with a blend of three Hawaiian chili peppers and “a hint” of cinnamon.

“When you first bite into it you say ‘Ah, it’s sweet’—then it starts heating up in your mouth,” she said.

Traditionally, the best-selling are passion fruit and caramel, though her new Hawaiian salt caramel and a kiawe smoked sea salt variety are rising in the rankings.

While fine chocolate is proving to be recession proof, overall popularity is seasonal, especially during Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and even Halloween events when Boudar has used eggnog, pumpkin, cranberries and seasonal fruit in her concoctions.

The 12-piece Passion Fruit Hearts Valentine’s Day box features hand-painted passion fruit hearts that are red and shiny. They’re made with pure Hawaiian passion fruit juice and dark chocolate and sit in a long green cacao box finished with a ribbon.

Chocolate is proving to be a super food with health benefits just being uncovered. The delicacy is high in flavanols and antioxidants and has been shown to be positively related to artery health and brain function. “So there,” she says, laughing.

Boudar’s fine chocolate goals are vast and altruistic. She wants her chocolate available on all the major islands and “everyone here experiencing” what really fine chocolate is like.

For me, that experience became life altering.”

For more information visit Sweet Paradise Chocolate at sweetparadisechocolate.com.

Locations O`ahu: Sweet Paradise Chocolatier 20-A Kainehe St. Kailua, HI 96734 Big Island: Kings’ Shops at Waikoloa Beach Resort, waikoloabeachresort.com/big-island-shopping?c=Kings-Shops Volcano Winery, volcanowinery.com

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Talk Story Kahu Kai: Caring for the ocean and all its life

By Teresa Abenoja

A

LOHA. Honu Group and Princeville Center have partnered with the Garden Island Arts Council (GIAC) for a third consecutive year to bring our Kahu Kai program to Kaua`i’s youth. Kahu Kai: Caring for the ocean and all its life follows Honu Group’s community partnership programs Kahu `Āina and Kahu `Ohana. Using the same premise of teaching art skills and encouraging artistic expression, Kahu Kai introduces and connects our young people to the unique, fragile and wonderful beauty of marine life. Universal with all three Kahu programs is the desire to help cultivate caretakers of this amazing yet delicate world we live in. The word kahu means caretaker and `aina, often referred to as land, literally translates to caretaker of the land. With natural resources slowly being depleted over time, caretakers are needed to protect and nurture our `aina (land), `ohana (family) and kai (sea). Through the collaborative partnerships of Kahu `Āina, Kahu `Ohana and Kahu Kai, new caretakers are born and nurtured to carry the message of sustainability, in-

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novation and collaboration to preserve our valued island lifestyle, as well as address similar issues throughout the world.

Our first program was begun in 2007 by Honu Group principal and avid arts and culture advocate Mona Abadir. She says, “The purpose remains the same: to strengthen education on sustainable practices through the realm of our imagination, creativity and relationships.”

Mona approached longtime Hawai`i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts friend and noted Living Treasure Carol Yotsuda and enthusiastic environmentalist Jackie Kozak on the concept Kahu `Āina: Caring for the land, earth and all its beauty. After a brainstorming session, the team emerged with the particulars of their grassroots project. With her amazing team of local artists, Carol organized Van Go workshops for young people around the island.

Kahu `Āina: Caring for the land, earth and all its beauty, composed of 12 workshops, generated 117 beautiful art entries from students ages 5–18. With Jackie’s educational know-how and hands-on approach, participants were able to learn from botanists and environ-

mentalists about Hawaiian plants, which then became the inspiration for their drawings. This unique collaboration produced both intangible and many visible results for the students. One standout reminder of the mission is a permanent mosaic triptych of recycled ceramics by locally renowned artist Melinda Morey. She reinterpreted artwork from 22 of the students in a 12-foot mural commissioned by Honu Group, which adorns Princeville Center. Additional artworks are displayed in banners around the center.

In 2008, Kahu `Ohana: Caring for our family of people, connected families with the arts, holistic wellness, mentorship and personal growth. Children were asked to focus on positive role models who inspire them and are instrumental in shaping their lives to become responsible, caring leaders of the future. With the help of artists and writers, children painted and wrote limericks about that special person in their life. A celebration was held at Princeville Center last Jan. 9, with live limerick readings, music, and an art exhibit of all 118 Kahu `Ohana entries.

This year’s program, Kahu Kai: Caring for the ocean and all its life, promises to be just as special. Participants will be able to translate their drawings into clay tiles. These tiles will be used to create the new murals for the Kamalani Pavilion. The original Kamalani Pavilion was a labor of love built by hundreds of volunteers at Lydgate Park in 2004.

A fire catastrophe in 2007 burned the main part of the structure to the ground. It will be rebuilt and the beautiful Kahu Kai clay tiles will adorn the interior of the new structure. Avery Youn has designed the new pavilion and is now overseeing the permitting process. A number of workshops will be conducted around Kaua`i throughout this year and into 2010. A celebration along the way will be held for participants and their families on Nov. 7, 1 p.m.–4 p.m., at Princeville Center’s remodeled outdoor food court under the new long house by the Post Office.

We invite you to get involved in this community public art project! For more information on how to volunteer to help GIAC, to sign your child up for making a clay tile at an upcoming workshop or to generously give a donation to this worthy project please email or call: Teresa (tabenoja@honugroup.com), 808-457-1234; or Carol (giac@hawaiilink.net), 808-635-3039. Mahalo.

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ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS

On The Road To Hana

T

he fabled Road to Hana is unequalled among scenic drives in the Hawaiian Islands. Each year, close to a million visitors to Maui traverse the winding highway through the lush, colorful rainforests on the windward slopes of Mount Haleakala.

A trip along the Hana Highway is as much about the journey as the destination, with eye-popping coastal vistas, cascading waterfalls and stands of bamboo, wild ginger and rainbow eucalyptus trees along the way. More than 50 one-lane bridges punctuate the ride, requiring a good deal of patience on a road with more curves than a beauty pageant.

Among the unexpected pleasures of an allday excursion to Hana is the surprising variety of homegrown fruit and snack stands along the way. Good news for those not so adept at planning details while on vacation: If you don’t want to bother with packing a cooler, you can eat your way to Hana, and dine well, too!

Tropical sunshine, rain-bearing tradewinds and fertile volcanic soil collaborate to provide a virtual cornucopia of delicious locally grown fruits. Travelers will likely be amazed at many never before encountered— mountain apple, liliko`i (passion fruit), egg fruit, lychee, starfruit, rambutan and dragon fruit—in addition to more standard fare of bananas, papayas, pineapple and coconut.

As exotic and sumptuous as the fruitarian menu may sound, it is advisable to be prepared for an uninvited guest: motion sickness from the ever-winding road. Those passing through the funky, fantastic North Shore town of Paia might stop at Mana Foods, the island’s health food mecca, to buy ginger candies or natural ginger ale to counter carsickness.

Paia also has at least five restaurants serving fish tacos, four making eggs benedict, three independent coffee shops, two Mexican cantinas and one business, Ono Gelato, making fabulous homemade sorbettos and gelatos.

Leaving Paia, the Hana Highway journeyer will soon pass kiteboarders, surfers and wind-surfers at Hookipa Beach Park. A few minutes later, an unobtrusive stone monument marks Hana Highway as Hawai`i’s only National Millenium Legacy Trail—so designated by President Clinton in 1999.

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Ten miles beyond Paia, a refurbished school bus painted with an elaborate jungle and underwater mural serves as the kitchen for the Twin Falls Farm Stand. `Aina, a smiling local gal, is cheerfully waiting to make smoothies, serve banana bread or offer a refreshing chilled coconut with a straw. Twin Falls features easy hiking trails to waterfalls and pools, and remains a favorite outing for tourists and locals alike.

Soon after the straightaways yield to miles of twists and bends, the Huelo Point Lookout offers an assortment of goodies. Tri-colored ripe mangos highlight the display of fruits, while the simple pop-open shack also advertises fresh-squeezed cane juice, Maui coffee, all-natural shave ice and even crepes! A “Grown on Maui/Island Fresh!” logo on the front of the stand denotes locally produced goods.

By county law, persons vending fresh fruits, flowers, leis, fish or vegetables are not required to be licensed, though they may need to obtain conditional use permits to sell their goods at roadside stands. Those offering prepared foods may need to follow more stringent guidelines, and in some cases, use a certified kitchen.

Rules notwithstanding, it is the lack of uniformity and large doses of creativity in roadside stand design and cuisine that make them so appealing. Hand-painted signs entice passers-by, offering “big homemade cookies,” “Hawaiian guri guri ice cream,” and “steamed breadfruit.” One placard urges visitors, “Honk if you’re hungry.”

Just past the Keanae peninsula and arboretum is Uncle Harry’s stand, marked by a sign with green taro leaves and a stone poi pounder. Adjacent to the rows of ripening bananas and pineapples, just above the menu board, a bristly, tusked wild boar head greets visitors. The fruit stand’s founder, the late Uncle Harry Mitchell, was a revered practitioner of la`au lapa`au, or traditional healing uses of native Hawaiian plants.

Past the spectacular overlook of the Wailuanui taro fields and community, the road climbs into the forest, with hillsides painted in light green hues of kukui nut trees, and splashed with bright red-orange blossoms of the pervasive African tulip trees. Passing Pua`a Ka`a State Park, the road levels out and twists along its way to Nahiku.

Here, hungry travelers will find a huge assortment of delectable offerings, tucked in a shady grove that also attracts ravenous mosquitoes.

Photos Rob Parsons

By Rob Parsons

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Known for its homemade coconut candy, espresso stand and quaint art gallery, the growing conglomeration of cuisines has expanded to the point that some East Maui residents laughingly refer to it as “the mall.”

A bold red surfboard sign advertises “Island Style Tacos,” made with either kalua pork or local fish. Famished families can choose from chili and rice, fish and chips, smoked barbecue or hot dogs, Kula sweet corn on the cob, baked goods and full menus of Chinese and Thai food.

Nearing the Hana Airport and Wainapanapa State Park, you have suddenly entered a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind—the Banana Bread Zone! Hana Farms, with its thatched-roof huts and umbrella-covered outdoor tables bordered by crimson ti plants, bakes six varieties. A neighboring stand features macadamia nut banana bread, while another tempts travelers with banana bread pudding.

In front of the Hana Health Clinic, pop-up tents cover fruits, vegetables, baked goods and a fancy espresso machine at the Hana Fresh farm stand. All items sold—“Hana Grown, Farm Fresh, Chemical Free”—are grown or made in the moku (district) of Hana, and benefit the health center. Fresh fish, poi, plants and crafts may also be found. If you are lucky to visit on a day when they have local pumpkins, you will find them to be the best-tasting you’ve ever had.

The Ono Organic Farms Stand is set up in the parking lot of the old Hasegawa General Store that was memorialized in song before

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burning down in 1990 and rebuilding across the street. Ono Farms is known for its exotic fruits, including the fuschia-hued dragon fruit, a delicious delicacy that grows on the night-blooming cereus cactus and requires hand-pollination.

Hana fishermen sell their catch daily on the road that connects Koki Beach and Hamoa Beach, in front of a historic Hawaiian fishpond. Depending on the season and the anglers’ luck, fresh-caught ono, ahi and mahimahi may be available, and at reasonable prices, with no middle-man.

Past Oheo Gulch, where Haleakala National Park meets the ocean, Laulima Farm has attractively landscaped its hillside with an opulent combination of edibles and ornamentals. The path to the front door is lined with papaya trees, clustered with dozens of plump green fruits.

Inside, the Laulima folks have hooked up a stationary bicycle to a blender, so customers can make their own pedal-powered smoothie!

Many more treats await adventurers on the dine-and-drive Road to Hana. More than ever, it may be said that those making the excursion are sure to encounter lots of local flavor.

Rob Parsons is a 30-year Maui resident living in Haiku, not far from the Hana Highway.

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Cocos nucifera

The Giving Tree

Photo by Jon Letman

By Jon Letman

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et’s face it, some trees just give a little more.

Surely, if there is one tree that embodies the best in a plant—strength, resilience, beauty, nutrition, flavor and utility—it is Cocos nucifera, the coconut palm.

“To Polynesians, coconuts are life,” says naturalist Angela K. Kepler. “For people who want to maintain spiritual ties with the ancient ones, using the varied products of coconut palms goes a long way toward tapping into old-time survival skills.”

From frond, husk and fiber to meat, water and shell, this aptly named “tree of life” provides a veritable shopping list of important staples far exceeding the usual food, shelter, tools and medicine.

Coconuts are used to appease the gods, launch ships, reduce stress, aid in digestion, make music and even halt hiccups.

As huge, buoyant seeds, coconuts spread on their own (though never as far as Hawai`i) and colonized much of the tropics in prehistory, obscuring their true origins, though most agree coconuts first grew somewhere between the Indian Ocean and Melanesia.

Polynesian legends speak of a male eel-god named Tuna who longs to be with a beautiful woman named Sina. The story varies, but always ends the same: Tuna is killed and as he lies dying he asks Sina to plant his head in the ground, promising that from it will grow a tree that provides for all. Thus, the first coconut palm sprouted.

On south India’s Malabar Coast, the state of Kerala reveals its most prolific tree in its name—Kera (meaning coconut palm) and alam (land). Coconuts are considered auspicious across India and regularly used in Ayurvedic medicine, at temples, wedding ceremonies, the launching of a ship or the first take in a film shoot.

What Hawaiians call niu would have been easy to transport by canoe, but relatively small numbers (and only two varieties) suggest that the coconut palm may not have been introduced until later migrations. Although coconuts did not play as central a role in Hawaiian culture as on other Pacific islands, it is nonetheless easy to imagine that, upon arrival, one of the first terrestrial acts of settlers may have been to place coconuts on the ground, where they would germinate and produce a sprout that would develop into fronds and eventually a tree.

Coconut palms mature within their first decade and some varieties, at their peak, can bear thousands of nuts. Coconut palms can grow for 100 years or longer, like those towering palms at the historical Kapu-āiwa royal grove west of Kaunakakai on Moloka`i.

One of the best places in Hawai`i to enjoy a landscape of coconut palms is Kaua`i’s east side—the Coconut Coast from the Wailua River and neglected ruins of the Coco Palms Resort to Waipouli, site of the Coconut Market Place, up through Kapa`a Beach Park where the 13th Annual Kaua`i Coconut Festival will be held Oct. 3 and 4.

Photo by Karen Jones

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A (not so) tough nut to crack Noted author and Hawai`i-based naturalist Angela K. Kepler has made coconuts a part of her life since the 1970s. She shares a few thoughts on how to open a coconut most easily.

Many people believe you need a machete and lots of brawn to open coconuts. Not true! For nearly 40 years I have used a hatchet. Simply find a good chopping block with a small depression in the top so the nut will fit nicely. A 2- to 3-foot-high coconut stump will do. Raise your hatchet or axe and split the nut as though chopping firewood. It may take a few swings and turning over the nut to get both sides. If the nut has coconut water (not “milk,” please!) inside, have a plastic container to catch it the second the nut splits open. Strain out fibers with a coffee filter. If you open several nuts, use several containers so as not to mix the water from each nut (in case one or more are contaminated, you don’t want to spoil the entire batch).

If a coconut has the little “rose” (sepals) attached to the blunt end and when you shake the nut, you feel liquid inside, it may be good. If the blunt end is black or brown without sepals, forget it: Decay has set in. The chickens may like it, but it’s no good for people.

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Another is Maui’s Kahanu Garden just before Hāna. On the sprawling grounds of Kahanu, in the shadow of the behemoth Pi`ilanihale heiau, is the Mary Wishard Memorial Coconut Grove.

Writing in 1978, Leslie Wishard explained that the collection he started in 1930 on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island had over 300 imported coconuts palms from around the tropics. From the Wishard collection, 27 varieties grouped into dwarf, medium and tall were planted at Kahanu. These included the Fijian Niumagimagi, the flat-bottomed Calabash, the diminutive Pugai, the Papua, the Trinidad and a variety called Cow’s Udder for its resemblance to a bovine teat.

Kahanu Garden Director Kamaui Aiona points to the diversity in nut size, shape and color as one of the interesting aspects of the collection.

“The Fiji Love Nut is very small, about the size of a fist, and used in love sorcery or as a container for love concoctions,” Aiona says.

Kahanu’s Wishard collection took on greater significance after the import of whole coconuts to Hawai`i was banned in a failed attempt to keep out disease and damaging plant pests.

Perhaps no one in Hawai`i knows more about the threat coconut palms face than Maui resident Philippe Visintainer, founder of Hawai`i Coconut Protectors. For more than a decade Visintainer has been battling Phytophthora katsurae, better known as coconut heart rot disease, which was first documented on Kaua`i in 1971.

Coconut heart rot is a fungal disease that causes new fronds to dry and wilt until eventually all leaves die and only the trunk remains. Visintainer says the disease runs in cycles and is currently in

an actively destructive period with the north shores of Kaua`i and Maui and Puna on the Big Island especially hard hit.

Since 1998, Visintainer has been treating palms with a system that injects a phosphorus solution into the trunk. This fertilizes the palm and, as a systemic treatment, works its way into the palm heart, creating an inhospitable environment for the fungus. He says his success rate is close to 100 percent, but adds that funding is a major challenge.

Visintainer collaborates with the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community headquartered in Jakarta and remains optimistic that his program may eventually reduce the disease to a manageable level and that he may one day start a coconut palm plantation using remaining sugar cane irrigation infrastructure.

Pointing to a three-decade gap when very few coconut palms were planted following what he describes as a misleading campaign against coconut oil by other edible oil–producing industries, Visintainer believes people are rediscovering the environmental and health benefits of virgin coconut oil.

On Kaua`i, others also see the untapped potential of coconuts for food and fuel.

Paramcharya Palaniswami of Kaua`i’s Hindu monastery in Wailua says the monks have planted some 800 coconut palms on monastery grounds with plans to add several hundred more next year. They use the coconuts as a daily food and are exploring how best to use the oil for lighting.

Palaniswami says the meat itself can be burned as fuel for indoor sacred fire ceremonies and that it burns clean, producing virtually no soot or ash.

Adam Asquith, managing partner of Kaua`i Farm Fuel, a biodiesel company in Hanapēpē, also recognizes coconut oil as an underused local resource with great energy-producing potential.

Asquith’s company already makes biodiesel fuel from used cooking oil and he says coconut oil holds real potential as renewable fuel source when global petroleum prices make it economically feasible or a practical necessity.

Asquith envisions growing coconuts for oil on small plots and unused tracts of land, noting that there are already plenty of unused coconuts in Hawai`i which, rather than going to green waste, could be cold pressed (as opposed to steam extracted) for oil. Coconut oil will ignite under pressure just as petroleum diesel fuel. New coconutbased fuels are already being tested or used in places like Pohnpei, the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu and Samoa, either as virgin coconut oil (VCO) or mixed with diesel fuel as a substitute for cooking and lighting fuel.

“When I think of a transition from petroleum to renewable natural oil sources in Hawai`i, I think of coconut and kukui,” Asquith says. “It already exists as feral oil, just waiting to be harvested when the economic climate is right.”

“As a biologist, I see almost no distinction between food and fuel—it’s basically the same thing. Whether it’s burned in the body, a fireplace or a diesel engine, you are creating combustion by burning hydrocarbons.”

“You could throw a cabbage in an oven and generate heat, but it’s not efficient,” Asquith says. “A coconut is much better.”

For more on Photographer Karen Jones: www.karenjonesdesign.com

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Home Made

By Anna Thomas

These are hard times. Right? Most of us are making do with less, sometimes much less. And yet… I feel that somewhere in all this less, there is a secret more.

No, poverty can’t buy happiness. But hard times might lead to good times in unexpected ways. Does eating feel expensive? The hidden gift of these tough times might be a return to home cooking. That comforting ritual, the simple act of preparing food for ourselves, has been slipping out of our lives, washed away in a tide of busyness.

I didn’t learn to cook until I left home and went away to college.

But in the immigrant culture where I grew up, my mother, my Polish relatives, my Italian aunt – they all cooked; the air around me was full of warmth and sharing and good smells.

I ate: buttery Polish dumplings, hearty borscht, spicy Italian tortellini, and sometimes the glamour of something modern and American, like tuna noodle casserole. Even while I resisted learning to cook (tedious rebellion) I absorbed the idea that cooking happened.

Fresh ingredients were brought into a kitchen and someone’s work – simple or complicated – turned them into delicious food that was eaten at home with the family. Home cooking. It was part of the natural rhythm of life.

When I went off to UCLA I began cooking for myself. I was penniless, scraping by on student loans and part-time jobs, and eating out was not an option. So I cooked. I learned by trial and error and I went ahead and ate the errors. And I discovered that as I cooked, life got better -- my health for starters, and also my social life. I liked cooking! I wrote a book about it, for Pete’s sake. And long after I could afford any restaurant, I still loved cooking. It was a gift.

Now I see young people who don’t seem to know it is part of the natural rhythm of life, who think cooking happens in restaurants and on TV. And the restaurants are suddenly too expensive.

Young people, I have a message for you: visit the land of your ancestors—the kitchen!

You, out there, you who’ve never cooked – you can do what I did.

OK, skip the book part, and just go into the kitchen. Wondering where to start? Soup. Soup is the portal, the way in. Anyone can make a pot of soup!

Go ahead, no one is looking. Open a bag of split peas and put them in a pot with water. Boil them a while as you cut up a a carrot, an onion, a stalk of celery. Chop a little parsley. Add all that to the pot and leave it to simmer while you read a book or answer your email.

This is what my friend Lisa calls “meanwhile cooking.” You’re doing whatever you need to do, and meanwhile you’re cooking. After half an hour or so, season that soup with some salt and pepper—and eat it.

You’ve made old-fashioned split pea soup. You’re cooking.

Even luxury soups are pretty simple. This is autumn, and it is absurdly easy to find a gorgeous butternut squash or a ghostly blue Hubbard. Put that squash in the oven to roast. As long as the oven is on, why not roast a few root vegetables as well? Now chop a couple of 42

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onions and cook them slowly in some olive oil, stirring while you slice a pear.

By now the house smells like heaven, and anybody who walks in the door will be your willing slave. When the squash is soft, scoop it out and put it in a pot with the other vegetables and some broth, simmer a while, then blast it all with an immersion blender. Season with salt, pepper, a little lemon juice… and you’re done. (If you want to be fancy, stir in some mascarpone.) You’ve made a silky, golden puree, more delicious than anything you’ll get in a restaurant – for pennies a bowl.

Don’t get me wrong—I’ve had some of the great times of my life in restaurants. My husband and I lived in Provence for a while when there were still francs, and there were ten of them to the dollar! For a few enchanted months we made a tour of the great country inns and restaurants of our region. I still have the Michelin guide rouge from 1984 marked with our notes, a treasured souvenir. But in between those excursions we went to the Saturday market in Apt for vegetables and cheeses, we bought white peaches at the roadside, walked to the Lumiere bakery for baguettes, drove to the local cooperative for wine… and made wonderful, simple meals at home that we ate at the stone table under the tree in the backyard.

I made such simple food. Steamed new potatoes tossed with parsley and oil and crushed sea salt. Tomatoes simmered with garlic and tarragon, and spooned into an omelet. Grilled cheese sandwiches with the most amazing goat cheese, so perfect with a few black olives and a glass of cold rosé on a hot summer evening. We had a new baby, and we couldn’t take him out to those restaurants every night.

There is a deeper question at the bottom of all this – are we prepared to give away our whole relationship with food to professionals, to commercial interests, good or bad? Will corporations always be between us and what we eat? Or do we want to know what we’re putting on the plate, and where it came from?

Do we want to know that we can take care of ourselves? That we can pick up an onion, a potato, a bunch of chard, and make a simple dish—a friendly bowl of pasta, a stir fry, that pot of soup.

I know I’m fortunate. I live in the Ojai valley, near farms and orchards where dedicated farmers grow beautiful produce. My kitchen may not look like the kitchen of my ancestors, but in some ways it is the same. I get much of my food nearby, often directly from the folks who are growing it. My friends laugh at me because when someone asks “what’s in this?” I start reciting: “Oh, green garlic from Peter and BD’s fennel and mint, and that great chard from Steve…” I’m just being fair. I know I get a lot of credit for what farmers do. What I do is try to make sure the path between field or farm and my kitchen is as short and uncomplicated as possible.

I do want to know what I’m eating, what I’m feeding my family.

And I find pleasure in having my hands on my food. On my big soapstone counter you will frequently see baskets of fava beans, bowls of

GREEN LENTIL SOUP WITH CUMIN AND LEMON

walnuts, trays of fruit from the garden. Watching the storm outside the window for a while and cracking the walnuts is a pleasant meditation.

Sitting with a friend on a summer evening, sharing a glass of wine and shelling favas, is a convivial pleasure. Dropping vegetables into a pot of water or a sizzling wok is an act full of hope. Stirring that pot of soup is like stirring my history. And eating with my friends, all of us in the kitchen together, crowded around the table, tasting, talking, laughing well into the night—that is a joy that is home made.

Anna Thomas wrote The Vegetarian Epicure in 1973 while she was a graduate student in film production at UCLA. It became a phenomenal success, is widely acknowledged as the book that brought pleasure to vegetarian cuisine, and together with The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two (1978) and The New Vegetarian Epicure (1996), has created a devoted following. Anna Thomas is also well known as a screenwriter and film producer. She writes, cooks and hikes in the Ojai Valley, in California.

1 cup French green lentils, 8 oz.

1 ½ tsp. sea salt, more to taste 1 ½ Tbs. olive oil 2 cups chopped leeks, white and light green only 1 large onion, chopped 1 medium sweet potato, diced, 8 oz.

1 large carrot, finely diced 1 large stalk celery, finely diced 1 bay leaf 1 bunch green chard, ½ lb.

2 Tbs. cumin seed 1 cup chopped cilantro 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley pinch of cayenne 2-3 cups light vegetable broth 1-2 Tbs. lemon juice, more to taste garnish: fruity green olive oil Rinse the lentils and combine them in a large pot with four cups water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer the lentils for 25 minutes, or until tender-firm. Stir in a teaspoon of sea salt, remove the lenitls from the heat, and skim off any foam that may have formed on top.

Meanwhile, heat two tablespoons olive oil in a large sauté pan, add the chopped onion and a pinch of sea salt, and cook slowly until the onion is soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add the chopped leeks and continue cooking for another twenty minutes, stirring often, until the leeks and onions are turning golden.

Add the onions and leeks to the lentils, along with the diced sweet potato, carrots, celery, another 3 cups water, half a teaspoon of sea salt and a bay leaf. Simmer the soup gently, covered, for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, wash the chard, slice away the stems, and coarsely chop the leaves. Add the chard and simmer the soup another ten minutes.

Lightly toast the cumin seeds in a dry skillet, then grind them in a mortar and stir them into the soup. Add the cilantro, parsley, a pinch of cayenne, and the vegetable broth. Heat everything together for a few minutes, then add lemon juice to taste.

Drizzle some fruity green olive oil over each steaming bowl of soup as you serve. Serves 6-8.

From the well-loved author of The Vegetarian Epicure, The Vegetarian Epicure Book Two, and The New Vegetarian Epicure comes the next great vegetarian cookbook: LOVE SOUP: 160 All-New Vegetarian Recipes from the Author of The Vegetarian Epicure [W. W. Norton & Company; September 21, 2009; $22.95 paperback original].

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Holiday Book Selection FROM THE EDITORS

THE LITTLE LIMA BEAN by Brent Ching A Children’s book about a little lima bean who just wants to grow. The little lima bean thinks big thoughts and tries with all his might, but he just stays small … until one day, with the help of the rain, he sprouts! Teaching children that, although it may take some time, dreams can come true, this spiralbound board book comes with a blister pack of lima bean seeds and directions for growing them at home. Brent Chang is a Honolulu-based pediatric dentist with a private practice at Kapi’olani Medical Center, Illustrations by Jordan Santos, a career firefighter who devotes his free time to his artwork. Watermark Publishing, $9.95 at your favorite bookseller or www.bookshawaii.com The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian American Kitchens

by Patricia Tanumihardja Tanumihardja interviewed, cooked with and connected with grandmothers, mothers and aunties, who generously contributed recipes such as real Chinese Garlic Fried Rice to the timeless Filipino Chicken Adobo to the ultimate Japanese comfort dish Oyako Donburi … many of these handed down for generations. Asian grandmothers –whether of Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Indian or Filipino descent – are keepers of the cultural, and culinary flame. Sasquatch Books $35.00 at your favorite bookseller or www.sasquatchbooks.com Canning And Preserving Your Own Harvest

by Carla Emery & Lorene Edwards Forkner Today, the art of preserving foods is enjoying renewed popularity thanks to a struggling economy. From drying to pickling to freezing, Emery’s preserving methods are as broad in scope as the recipes themselves. Do-it-yourselfers can welcome summer’s arrival with Chunky Peach Jam and Oven-Dried Tomatoes or host a fall harvest with fresh Herb Bouquets and Smoked Chicken. Step-by-step instructions, illustrations, charts and information sidebars make the process easy and enjoyable. Sasquatch Books $16.95 at your favorite bookseller or www.sasquatchbooks.com The 30-Minute Vegan by Mark Reinfeld & Jennifer Murray This book is for anyone, vegan or not, who would like to prepare fresh and healthy vegan cuisine at home – without spending hours in the kitchen. Chapters are devoted to morning meals and beverages, wholesome suppers, guilt-free comfort foods, and everything in between. Recipes include: CoconutLime Banana Bread, Mediterranean Hummus Wrap, Pesto Pizza to Vegetable Stew with Dumplings. A great resource not only for vegans, but also for anyone looking to incorporate more vegetables and whole foods into their diet. Published by: Da Capo Lifelong $18.95 (Paperback) at your favorite bookseller.

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What’s In Season Fruit: Atemoya Avocado Figs (all year in some locations) Lime Orange Mango Papaya Rambutan Starfruit

Vegetable: Asian Cabbage Sweet Corn Hearts of Palm Baby Lettuce Mushrooms Pumpkin Sprouts Taro Zucchini

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farmers’ markets Kaua’i MONDAY West Kaua`i Agricultural Association Poipu Road and Cane Haul Road, Poipu 8 a.m.

Koloa Ball Park (Knudsen) (Sunshine Markets) Maluhia Road, Koloa Noon

Kukui Grove Shopping Center

Kino`ole Farmers’ Market

Makiki District Park (People’s Open Market)

Kino`ole Shopping Plaza 1990 Kino`ole St., Hilo 7 a.m.-noon

1527 Keeaumoku Street, Honolulu 8:30–9:30 a.m.

Waikoloa Village Farmers’ Market

Mother Waldron Park (People’s Open Market)

Waikoloa Community Church across from Waikoloa Elementary School 7:30 a.m.–1 p.m.

525 Coral Street, Honolulu 10:15–11 a.m.

North Kohala Across from Hawi Post Office, under banyan tree 7 a.m.–noon

City Hall Parking Lot Deck (People’s Open Market) Alapai & Beretania Street, Honolulu 11:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Lihue 3 p.m.

Waimea Town Market At Parker School 65-1224 Lindsey Road Waimea/Kamuela HI 96743 Sat. 8:0o am.- 1:00pm.

Hawai`i Kai Towne Center

TUESDAY Kalaheo Neighborhood Center

Waimea Hawaiian Homestead Farmers’ Market Mamalahoa Hwy., 2 miles east of Waimea

TUESDAYS Waiau District Park (People’s Open Market) 98-

town 7:30 a.m.

1650 Kaahumanu Street, Pearl City 6:30–7:30 a.m.

(Sunshine Markets) Papalina Road off Kaumualii, Kalaheo 3:30 p.m.

Wailua Homesteads Park (Sunshine Markets) Malu Road, Wailua 3 p.m.

Honokaa Farmers’ Market

Waipa, Hanalei 2 p.m.

Honokaa town near Honokaa Trading Co. Hilo Farmers’ Market

WEDNESDAY Kapa`a New Town Park (Sunshine Markets)

TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS Kekela Farms Organic Farmers Mkt

Hawaiian Farmers of Hanalei

Kahau Road, Kapa`a 3 p.m.

THURSDAY Hanapepe Park (Sunshine Markets) Old Hanapepe Town 3 p.m.

Kilauea Neighborhood Center (Sunshine Markets) Keneke off Lighthouse Road, Kilauea 4:30 p.m.

FRIDAY Vidinha Stadium (Sunshine Markets) Hoolako Road, Lihue 3 p.m.

SATURDAY Kapa`a Coconut Marketplace (inner courtyard) 12 noon

Markets) Elepaio Road, Kekaha 9 a.m.

Kilauea Keneke St. Behind the post office 11:30 am.

Hanalei Saturday Market Hanalei 10 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Hawai`i Island SATURDAY Keauhou Farmers’ Market Keauhou Shopping Center, Keauhou 8–11 a.m.

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Waipahu District Park (People’s Open Market) 94-230 Paiwa Street, Waipahu 8:15–9:15 a.m.

Wahiawa District Park (People’s Open Market)

64-604 Mana Road, Waimea, HI 808-887-0023 100% organic Tues. & Fri. 2:00-5:00pm

Mililani District Park (People’s Open Market)

WEDNESDAYS AND SATURDAYS

94-1150 Lanikuhana Avenue, Mililani 11:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Corner of Mamo and Kamehameha Ave., downtown Hilo Saturdays, 8 a.m.–noon

WEDNESDAYS Naalehu Farmers’ Market

N. Cane & California Avenue, Wahiawa 10–11 a.m.

Fort Street near Wilcox Park Honolulu (in front of Macy’s) 8 a.m.–2 p.m.

Manoa Marketplace Honolulu 7–11 a.m.

Ace Hardware lawn 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

Waikiki Farmers’ Market Waikiki Community SUNDAY Pahoa Farmers’ Market Luquin’s/Akebono The-

Center Parking Lot 7 a.m.–1 p.m.

ater parking lot 8 a.m.–3 p.m.

WEDNESDAYS Palolo Valley District Park (People’s Open

Makuu Farmers’ Market Keaau-Pahoa bypass

Market) 2007 Palolo Avenue, Honolulu 6:30–7:30 a.m. .

Old Stadium Park (People’s Open Market) 2237 South King Street, Honolulu 8:15–9:15 a.m.

road 8 a.m.–2 p.m.

Kekaha Neighborhood Center (Sunshine

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Kalanianaole Highway at Keahole Street, Honolulu 7:30 a.m.–3 p.m.

Volcano Farmers’ Market Cooper Center, Wright Rd., Volcano 6:30–9 a.m.

South Kona Green Market At the Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden Captain Cook 9 a.m. – I pm

Queen Kapiolani Park (People’s Open Market)

O`ahu

Hawai`i Kai Towne Center

MONDAYS Manoa Valley District Park (People’s Open Market) 2721 Kaaipu Avenue, Honolulu 6:45–7:45 a.m.

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Monsarrat and Paki Street, Honolulu 10–11 a.m.

Kalanianaole Highway at Keahole Street, Honolulu 7:30 a.m.–3 p.m.

Honolulu Farmers’ Market at Neal Blaisdell Center Local Bounty 808-848-2074 4:00-7:00 pm

THURSDAYS Waimanalo Beach Park (People’s Open Market

Waialua Sugar Mill 8:30 a.m. –Noon

WEDNESDAY Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei

41-741 Kalanianaole Highway, Waimanalo 7:15–8:15 a.m.

Hawai`i Kai Towne Center

Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Road 8 a.m.–4 p.m.

Kailua District Park (People’s Open Market) 21

Kalanianaole Highway at Keahole Street, Honolulu 7:30 a.m. –3 p.m.

Farmers’ Market of Maui-Honokowai

South Kainalu Drive, Kailua 9–10 a.m.

Waianae Framers’ Market

Hawaiian Motors parking lot (across from Honokowai Park) 7 a.m. –11 a.m.

Kaneohe District Park (People’s Open Market) 45-660 Keaahala Road, Kaneohe 10:45–11:45 a.m.

Manoa Marketplace Honolulu 7–11 a.m.

The Kailua Thursday Night Farmers’ Market Kailua town 5–7:30 p.m. behind Longs on

Waialua Farmers’ Market

Makaha Resort 84-626 Makaha Valley Road Waianae, 808-848-2074 1st and 3rd Sat of the month 7:30 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Maui Mall Farmers’ Market & Craft Fair

SUNDAYS Hale`iwa Farmers’ Market

The Maui’s Fresh Produce Farmer’s Market Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center (center stage

The Heart of Hale`iwa Traffic Signal @ Kamehameha Hwy. & Cane Haul Rd. Next to the North Shore Marketplace (free parking) 9am.-1pm.

Kailua Road

FRIDAYS Halawa District Park (People’s Open Market) 99-795 Iwaiwa Street 7–8 a.m.

Ewa Beach Community Park (People’s Open Market) 91-955 North Road, Ewa Beach 9–10 a.m.

Maui Mall, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m.

area) Kaahumanu Avenue, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m.

THURSDAY Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei

Kapolei Community Park (People’s Open Market) 91-1049 Kamaaha Loop, Kapolei 7–8:30 a.m.

Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Road 8 a.m.–4 p.m.

Royal Kunia Park-n-Ride (People’s Open Market) Kupuna Lp/Kupohi Street, Waipahu 9:30–11 a.m.

FRIDAY Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei

Waikele Community Park (People’s Open

Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Road 8 a.m. –4.00 p.m.

Market) Waipahu 11:30 a.m. –12:30 p.m.

Pokai Bay Beach Park (People’s Open Market) 85-037 Pokai Bay Road, Waianae 11–11:45 a.m.

The Mililani Sunday Farmers’ Market at Mililani High School 95-1200 Meheula Parkway, Mililani High School Parking Lot 8 a.m. –Noon

The Maui’s Fresh Produce Farmer’s Market Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center (center stage area) Kaahumanu Avenue, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m.

Fort Street near Wilcox Park Honolulu (In front of Macy’s) 8 a.m. –2 p.m.

Manoa Marketplace Honolulu 7–11 a.m.

Waikiki Farmers’ Market Waikiki Community

Country Market & Craft Fair

Center Parking Lot 7 a.m. –1 p.m.

Waimanalo Homestead Community Center 1330 Kalanianaole Hwy. 9 a.m.–4p.m.

Maui Mall Farmers’ Market & Craft Fair

Maui

SATURDAY Maui Swap Meet MCC 7am.-2pm.

SATURDAYS Banyan Court Mall (People’s Open Market) 800 North King Street, Honolulu 6:15–7:30 a.m.

Kaumualii Street (People’s Open Market) at Kalihi Street, Honolulu 8:15–9:30 a.m.

Kalihi Valley District Park (People’s Open Market) 1911 Kam IV Road, Honolulu 10–10:45 a.m.

Salt Lake Municipal Lot (People’s Open Market) 5337 Likini Street, Honolulu 11:15a.m. –Noon

Hawaii Kai Park-n-Ride (People’s Open Market) 300 Keahole Street, Honolulu 1–2 p.m.

North Shore Country Market at Sunset Sunset Beach Elementary School, Haleiwa 8 a.m. –2 p.m.

The Saturday Farmers’ Market at Kapiolani Community College Campus 4303 Diamond Head Road, Honolulu 7:30–11 a.m.

Farmers’ Market of Maui-Honokowai

MONDAY Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Road 8 a.m.–4 p.m.

Farmers’ Market of Maui-Honokowai Hawaiian Motors parking lot (across from Honokowai Park) 7–11 a.m.

TUESDAY The Maui’s Fresh Produce Farmer’s Market Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center (center stage area) Kaahumanu Avenue, Kahului 7 a.m. –4 p.m.

Pepito Valdez 298-4289

Maui Mall Farmers’ Market & Craft Fair Maui Mall, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m.

Ms. Cynda Hearn 871-1307

Hawaiian Motors parking lot (across from Honokowai Park) 7 a.m.–11 a.m.

Maui Mall, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m.

Makawao Eddie Tam Center Upcountry 8a.m.-1p.m.

Hana Fresh, Hana Medical Center M. 3p.m.-6p.m., TH. 11a.m.-3p.m.

Sat. 7:30a.m.- 1:30p.m.

Ono Organic Across from Hasagawa General Store, Hana M. 10:30a.m.- 6

Lana`i SATURDAY Lana`i Market Place Lana`i, Dole Park 8 a.m.-1p.m.

Moloka`i

Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Road 8 a.m.–4 p.m.

SATURDAY Ala Malama Street Kaunakakai 7a.m.-1p.m.

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ADVERTISER’S DIRECTORY KAUA`I A.J. Deraspe In-Home Organic Private Chef 808-635-5865 • www.foragingfork.com

KKCR Kaua`i Community Radio 808-826-7774 PO Box 825, Hanalei, Kaua’i 96714 Listener Supported • www.kkcr.org

Princeville Center 5-4280 Kuhio Highway Princeville, HI 96722 808-826-9497 T. • 808-826-9850 F. www.princevillecenter.com

Aunty Lilikoi Passion Fruit Products Award Winning flavor!

9875 Waimea Rd. Waimea, HI 96796 www.auntylilikoi.com

Kauai Granola Sugar Cane Snax Homemade Cookies, Tropical Granolas, Chocolate Dipped Macaroons In Historic Waimea • 808-338-0121 www.kauaigranola.com

The Wine Garden 4495 Puhi Road, Lihu’e, Kaua’i Fine Wine, Vintage Port Hand-Rolled Kaua’i Cigars Open everyday 10am-6:30pm 808-245-5766 • www.kauaiwinegarden.com

Bar Acuda Restaurant Bar @ 5 p.m., Dinner @ 6 p.m.

Reservations: 808-826-7081 5-5161 Kuhio Hwy., Hanalei, Kaua’i Closed Mondays www.restaurantbaracuda.com

Koa Properties 808-651-1777 • www.koakauai.com

The Eastside Pacific Rim Cuisine Music Tues. Sat. 5:30-9:00pm 1380 Kuhio Hwy., Kapaa Town www.theeastsidekauai.com 808-823-9500 Hanalei Dolphin Restaurant, Fish Market & Sushi Lounge 5-5016 Kuhio Hwy., Hanalei, Kaua’i 808-826-6113 Healthy Hut Natural Food Grocery On the way to Kilauea Lighthouse 808-828-6626

Mermaids Café In Old Kapa’a Town Lunch-Dinner-Catering, Homemade wraps, Sauces, salads, vegan & vegetarian always available.

1384 Kuhio Hwy • Open 11-9 everyday 808-821-2026 Moloa`a Camp Coffee Award Winning Natural Coffee Available online and at select Kaua`i Farmers Markets 866-722-2659 • www.moloaabaycoffee.com Moloa`a Sunrise Fruit Stand Corner of Kuhio Hwy and Koolau Road Farm Fresh Local Grown Produce, Smoothies, juices, salads & Sandwiches Open Mon thru Sat 7:30am–5pm Phone orders welcome • 808-822-1441

Hukilau Lanai Torch lit, airy setting, Kauai fresh cuisine.

In Kapa`a, behind the Coconut Marketplace.

Dinner & Cocktails begin 5pm, Tues – Sun. Reservations recommended 808-822-0600

The Palmwood A boutique Inn “An oasis in the midst of Paradise” Frommer’s 2008 808-631-9006 • www.thepalmwood.com

Icing On The Cake New Location Kinipopo Shopping Village 808-823-1210 www.icingonthecakekauai.com

Papaya’s Natural Food & Café Organic Produce, Vegetarian Café Kaua`i Village 4-831 Kuhio Hwy. Kapa’a, Kaua’i 808-823-0190 Mon.-Sat. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. www.papayasnaturalfoods.com

Kilauea Fish Market 4270 Kilauea Rd., Kilauea, Kaua’i 808-828-6244 Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–8 p.m.

Kilauea Town Market 2474 Keneke St. , Kilauea, Kaua’i 808-828-1512 • Daily 8:30 a.m.–8 p.m.

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Papaya’s Hanalei Natural Food & Café Organic Produce, Vegetarian Café 5-5161 Kuhio Hwy. Hanalei, Kaua’i 808-826-0089 • 7 days 9 a.m.–8 p.m.

Post Cards Café Organic cuisine in Vintage cottage in Hanalei Nightly from 6:00 826-1101

edible hawaiian islands

Ver’de New Mexican Restaurant Ahi Tacos – Margaritas 4-1101 Kuhio Hwy, Kapaa Kapaa Shopping Center 808-821-1400 • www.verdehawaii.com O`AHU Aloha Air Cargo Shipping fruits and vegetables fresher. www.alohaaircargo.com Arturo’s Hot Flavors of Hawai`i Hawaiian Salsas & Sauces Candies, Cookies, Coffees & More All Kine Gifts – All Hawai`i Made 808-751-1811 www.hotsaucehawaii.com Chef Kathi Private Chef on O`ahu Weekly Meals, Healthy Eating, Parties 808-489-6530 info@chefkathi.com • www.chefkathi.com Hagadon Printing Co. World Class Printing Without Harming The World 274 Puuhale Road, Honolulu, HI 96819 808-847-5310 • www.hagadonprinting.com Honu Group Inc. 1001 Bishop Street, ASB Tower, Suite 2800 Honolulu, Hawai`i 96722 808-550-4449 • tabenoja@honugroup.com www.honugroup.com Sweet Paradise Chocolatier The Art of Chocolate Hawaiian Style 20-A Kainehe Street, Kailua 808-230-8228 www.sweetparadisechocolate.com

Whole Foods Market Supporting the local farmers and growers here on the Islands Kahala Mall in Honolulu 4211 Wai`alae Ave 808-738-0820 – 7am-10pm www.wholefoodsmarket.com

Ono Gelato Company Made fresh using local organic fruit.

115D Highway-Paia • 808-579-9201 815 Front Street – Lahaina 808-495-0203 Open 7 days a week 11 am-10pm www.onogelatocompany.com

MAUI

Ono Organic Farm Exotic Organic Tropical Fruit Tasting Tours Mon-Fri 808-248-7779 • www.onofarms.com

AKL Alii Kula Lavender Visit for a Day of Lavender 1100 Waipoli Rd, Kula 808-878-3004 • www.aklmaui.com Alive & Well Natural Health Foods 340 Hana Highway, Kahului 808-877-4950 www.aliveandwellinmaui.com Hana Herbs & Flowers Fresh Maui Fern Shoots Tropical Flowers & Gift Boxes hanaherb@maui.net 808-248-7407 • www.hanaherbs.com Hana Bay Picnic Co. Hand Made Sandwiches Hana Audio Guide Everything you need on the Road to Hana 111 Hana Hwy - Paia • 808-579-8686 Hana Fresh A True Hawaiian Harvest Daily Market in front of Hana Health 4590 Hana Hwy 808-248-7515 • www.hanafresh.org Kula Fields Farmers Market on Wheels Delivering to your door On Maui: 808-280-2099 On O`ahu: 808-281-6141 www.kulafields.com

Penguini Sorbet – Chocolate – Gelato 93 Hana Hwy In Paia Inn Bldg penguinigelato@yahoo.com HAWAI`I ISLAND Island Naturals Award Winning Market & Deli Hilo, next to Borders Pahoa, downtown Kona, Old Industrial, Kaiwi St. Kainaliu, Mango Court www.islandnaturals.com Kona Coffee and Tea Home of 100% organic Perfect Gifts for any Occasion World Wide Shipping 888-873-2035 • www.konacoffeeandtea.com Original Hawaiian Chocolate Made & Grown on the Island Of Hawai`i, Featured at Whole Foods Kahala/O`ahu 808-322-2626 NATIONAL Slow Food Hawai’i Island Shelby Floyd • sfloyd@ahfi.com Slow Food Kaua’i Patrick Quinn • Icingonthecake.Kauai@gmail.com

Maui Cattle Company Island Grazed & All Natural 808-877-0044 www.mauicattlecompany.com Maui County Farm Bureau Local Matters Look for Grown on Maui www.mauicountyfarmbureau.com

Slow Food O’ahu Laurie Carleson • laurie@honoluluweekly.com

Slow Food Nation www.slowfoodnation.org

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Jackfruit what is it & how do you eat it?

Jackfruit: Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam. The largest tree-borne fruit in the world, reaching up to 80 lbs, 36 inches long and 20 inches in diameter. The interior consists of large edible bulbs of yellow, banana-flavored flesh that enclose a smooth, oval seed. When ripe, the fruit emits a strong disagreeable odor, similar to decayed onions, however when opened the fruit smells of pineapple and banana. This fleshy part can be eaten as is; it is often cooked when not yet ripe. Send us your favorite Jackfruit recipe.

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