hawaiian islands
edible
Celebrating the Harvest of the Aloha State, Season by Season
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No. 3 Winter 2008
Recipe for Sustainability • Chef's Inspiration Edible Schoolyards • The Pleasures of Eating Member of Edible Communities
Winter 2008 Contents
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Departments 4 Letter of Aloha 6 Masthead 22 Cooking Fresh 37 Book Review 39 What’s In Season 41 Subscription Form
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Features 8
`aina honua Nalo Greens A Recipe for Sustainability Edible Schoolyards
20 Chefs Inspiration Chef Olelo Pa’a Faith Ogawa 26 Talk Story Shadows of a Honolulu Childhood in the 1920s
42 Sustainable Extras 45 Editor at Large 46 Farmers’ Markets
30 Edible Nation The Pleasures of Eating 40 Recipe Wave
49 Advertiser Directory 50 What is it? How do you eat it?
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Photo by Carole Topalian
LETTER of
Aloha
Here we are 2008, in this new year, Edible Hawaiian Islands is dedicated not only to supporting our local growers, producers and fishers, but also dedicated to the education and support of good healthy eating and cooking habits for our keiki. Studies show that children are more likely to eat better and with more variety when they have an understanding of where their food comes from. Children who have planted a seed, nurtured and watered the plant, then been rewarded with the harvest, are excited to eat what they have sewn. This leaves a lasting impression the children will keep throughout their lives. Knowing where their food comes from is important to their future in terms of healthy eating as well as understanding and supporting locally grown and produced food. Take the keiki to the farmers’ market, let them explore all that our `aina has to offer, talk to them about what is fresh and in season, include them in the food preparation—children love to cook. Try some of the wonderful suggestions throughout this issue It’s never too late or too early start. Wishing all our readers a healthy and happy New Year, may your dreams come true. Ahui hou,
Gloria Cohen Publisher/Editor in Chief
Congratulations to Sonja and Jim from Bar Acuda on the birth of their son—Jackson West Moffat. Cover “Midday Mangos” by Kim McDonald www.kimmcdonald.com 4
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edible Hawaiian Islands Publisher/Editor in Chief Gloria Cohen Editor at Large Steven Cohen Distribution & Advertising Terry Sullivan Contributors Stephen Munshin Melissa Petersen Tracey Ryder Carole Topalian
Artists Cindy Conklin Kim McDonald Mary Ogle Lola Pilar
Photography Lauren Brandt Oliver Cohen Steven Cohen Coriena MacNeil Steve Knox
Writers Kira Cohen John Cox Dahlia Michael Gallagher Sue Kiyabu Sonia R. Martinez Mari Taketa
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. Š2008. 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! Photo by Steve Knox
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Photos courtesy of Nalo Farms
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`Aina Honua DEAN OKIMOTO CAPTURES TASTE OF THE ISLANDS IN NALO GREENS BY MARI TAKETA
A gentle mist drifts down from the Koolaus as Dean Okimoto surveys his terrain. On this modest piece of windward O`ahu, acres of baby greens stud the earth like strands of rubies, emeralds and jade, their evocative names spanning the globe: Lolla Rossa, tatsoi, Kyona mizuna, Red Russian kale, French sorrel. Personally selected by Okimoto for their taste, color and nutritional value, his signature Nalo Greens have become a staple of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. “On the mainland, salad greens are usually grown in cooler conditions,” he explains. “Ours grow in volcanic soil, in 70- to 90-degree weather. The flavors are much bolder and zestier.” Okimoto leans back in his folding chair in an open-air shed, surrounded by stacks of produce boxes. His shorts and sneakers are clean and white against the dirt of a working farm. Today the 53-year-old owner of Nalo Farms leaves the bulk of day-to-day operations to his 15 employees and spends half of his time as president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau, lobbying legislators, supermarket executives and the community on the benefits of sustainable local agriculture. The ring of his cell phone interrupts his thoughts every few minutes. It wasn’t always so. When Okimoto joined his dad, Charles, on the family fruit and vegetable farm in the 1980s, it was almost as penance. His parents had put him through prep school in Honolulu and the University of Redlands in California, and then, in applying to law school, the brash Okimoto had missed the deadline by one day. When he was growing up, weeding had been his punishment for breaking the rules. When he missed that deadline, he had dirt caking his nails every day. But he stayed. When his dad retired, Okimoto took over and planted his acreage in herbs. Most of the land, in fact, was planted in basil in 1989, when the Fusarium wilt fungus decimated the crop and left 90 percent of his fields fallow. By then Okimoto was married and the father of a toddler. “I was ready to quit. I would have gone on food stamps,” he recalls. “Then a friend of mine brought Roy over, and Roy told me to plant baby greens.”
Roy was Roy Yamaguchi. One of the founders of the fledgling Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement, the young chef had recently opened his first Roy’s restaurant in Hawaii Kai and was looking for some multi-flavored local salad greens. Okimoto had nothing to lose. Together with one employee he started planting, cutting, packing and delivering a variety of greens, tailoring the mix to Yamaguchi’s requests. As Roy’s took off, so did Nalo Greens, which began appearing on menus throughout Hawaii. An invigorated Okimoto looked up menus of top restaurants across the country, and when he stumbled across an unknown green, flipped through his catalogs, ordered the seeds and experimented. Over time his four acres would eventually grow anywhere from 35 to 40 varieties of lettuces, microgreens including peppery Roquette arugula, red mustard and curly cress, and delicate corn and pea sprouts. Then master sommelier Chuck Furuya—the friend who had introduced him to Yamaguchi—invited him on a trip to California. They rented a car and spent 10 days tasting their way through vineyards from Eureka to Santa Barbara. Revelation came to Okimoto somewhere in between, when Furuya had him taste two Chardonnays—one from a sea-level vineyard, the other from grapes grown at 3,000 feet. “This was exactly the same grape, but the difference was dramatic. The sea-level Chardonnay was pungent and bold. The one from the higher elevation was buttery and mellow,” Okimoto says. “Chuck said, ‘What is wine? It’s farming.’ I thought, ‘Yeah!’” With that, Okimoto came home and started buying salad mixes everywhere he could find them, including Costco. All were from the mainland; salad greens were considered non-mainstream, diversified agriculture in Hawaii, and no grower had the production capacity or the processing facilities to meet the food safety standards required by most supermarkets. Okimoto found that the taste differences between his warm-weather, sea-level produce and the mainland imports were as dramatic as those from Furuya’s Chardonnay lesson: his cresses and arugulas popped off the plate with their pungency, anchoring the sharper side of his flavor profile and balancing out the softer red and www.ediblealoha.com
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green oak leaf lettuces and the sweet bursts of his Swiss chards and Bull’s Blood beet leaves. The flavor distinctions sharpened his marketing. Okimoto’s greens, grown with organic pesticides and tons of compost, commanded high prices compared to mass-produced mainland imports. He had on his side the powerful arguments of freshness (Nalo Farms’ mission statement: “We cut in the morning, we deliver in the afternoon, and it’s on the customer’s plate that night”) and local sourcing, which island chefs liked. Now he could add terroir: the presence of the Waimanalo climate, soil and landscape in the taste of his greens. His land was in the shadow of the Koolaus only a mile from the ocean, catching the northeasterly trade winds and the rain from the clouds that stacked up against the green-curtained peaks in the winter and spring. He even began to notice that the peppery microgreens he grew softened their flavors during the cooler months and roared back in the heat of summer. Those who liked to eat noticed the differences as well. The popularity of Hawaii Regional Cuisine percolated from upscale down to mid-range and even some mom-and-pop plate lunch eateries, and helped spur a resurgence of farmers’ markets throughout the state. Okimoto made sure Nalo Greens were a fixture at every level. He brought back herbs and braising greens to his offerings, and found they did well too. With Yamaguchi, now a good friend, he recently launched Da Farmer and The Chef, selling salad dressings through supermar10
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kets in Hawaii and California (dafarmerandthechef.com). And when his processing facility is completed this month, Nalo Greens should become available on more supermarket shelves on O`ahu and other islands later this year. Okimoto glances out over his fields. Today’s misty drizzle follows several days of pounding rains. It’s been another rainout day, when drops push tender leaves into the soil and fleck them with dirt, killing some and making the rest impossible to harvest. He knows that throughout the state, other farmers are looking out over waterlogged crops and calculating their losses as well. As president of the 1,600member Hawaii Farm Bureau, he’s grown into the habit of thinking collectively, and has plowed his marketing energy into forming Local Island Fresh Edibles, which uses Nalo Farms’ infrastructure to distribute other growers’ Hau`ula Vine Ripened Tomatoes, Kahuku Super Sweet Corn and Kula Country Strawberries to restaurants in Honolulu. Okimoto’s political energy, meanwhile, is focused on sustainability. He worries that the high cost of agricultural land and infrastructure is a disincentive to would-be farmers. He worries that only 4 percent of the gross state product comes from agriculture, even as demand for locally grown food continues to rise. He worries that if he and others fail to raise the alarm with legislators and the public, Hawaii in the future will become even more dependent on imported foods. “If I walk into a place and see they’re already using local greens, I don’t even try to compete,” he says. “As long as they’re buying local, we all win.”
DEAN’S AWESOME TOMATO SAUCE 15 pounds vine-ripened tomatoes (Dean takes home castoffs) 2 medium onions, diced 2 bell peppers, diced 3 Tbsp. minced garlic Olive oil Salt to taste 1 bag Nalo Farms Spaghetti Mix herbs (oregano, basil, thyme, parsley) Cut tomatoes in half, remove calyxes, throw skins-on into large stockpot with olive oil and everything except salt and herbs. Simmer uncovered 3–4 hours, stirring occasionally. Throw in bagful of Nalo Farms herbs and let simmer 15 more minutes. Add salt to taste. Purée in blender. Freeze most. To serve, sauté spicy sausage, stir into sauce and serve over pasta.
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Photo by John Cox
Sustainability A RECIPE FOR
By JOHN COX
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The problem with following recipes is finding the right ingredients. We assume that recipes tasted good when they were created, otherwise someone wouldn’t have bothered to record them—yet somewhere in the aisles of a giant supermarket decisions are made that set the cook up for failure. Maybe it was the avocado they pushed on just hard enough to convince themselves it was ripe, or maybe it was the parsley they picked out because the cilantro bin was empty. With so many ingredients it is no wonder people find themselves making concessions and substitutions when following recipes. “Garbage in, garbage out” is an expression you can hear in kitchens around the country, meaning quite simply that if you start with poor quality ingredients you will end up with poor quality food. Even the best chef can’t overcome this basic law. All food is in a constant state of evolution. Fruit, especially the more exotic varieties, has only a few hours to be enjoyed at its apex of ripeness; if eaten prematurely it will be sour and astringent, yet if given a day too long on the shelf it can turn into a pile of cloying mush. The day after an ahi is caught it is best used as sashimi; the following day it might be used as tartare or ceviche, and by the fourth day it is best cooked. After that, the fish is no longer useful to the chef. Creating a perfect meal requires that you are able to identify multiple ingredients at their peak and combine them in a way that preserves the integrity of each item—while elevating the entire dish. The best solution may be to approach your next meal backwards: Start by searching for the perfect ingredients and then use your cookbooks and recipes for inspiration. There is no better place to begin writing a menu than at your back door. Quite logically, the closer an ingredient can be found, the more likely it is to be fresh and the fresher the ingredient the more flavor it will have. Food that has been harvested by neighbors and friends does not need a fancy recipe to be memorable; even the simplest preparation will be a success. Often the most rewarding part of cooking is the never-ending quest for perfect ingredients: the delicate stem of watercress plucked from beside a volcanic streambed or the seductive perfume of a Jamaican lilikoi fresh from the vine. Hawaii is blessed with countless farms and fishermen, a resource we should not take for granted. Even here in Hana, on the far eastern side of Maui, we are fortunate to have dozens of farms and fishermen as part of our community. Whether I am planning a simple meal at home or an elaborate tasting menu for guests in Ka’uiki, I always start with local ingredients. As a chef you can never forget the work and sacrifice that goes into every ingredient before it ever reaches the kitchen. For this reason
everything from a humble bag of earth-clad carrots to the most valued cut of sashimi-grade tuna must be treated with respect and care. I believe in using ingredients that have a soul. I want to know exactly where each item in my kitchen came from. I want to be able to visualize the clearing in the rainforest where the beets were harvested, smell the saltwater at the pier where the fish was brought to shore and picture the perfect rows of lettuce growing high above the ocean in Kula. I want to know who picked the herbs that are going in tonight’s salad and who caught the snapper that I am about to sauté. Without a profound knowledge of an ingredient’s past, you cannot identify its future. By utilizing these items in our cooking we not only create incredible meals, we also help support and perpetuate these regional treasures for future generations.
Maui Resources Laulima Farm—Kipahulu, Maui Molokai sweet potato Ginger root Fresh turmeric root Begonia blossoms (small pink blossoms with a delicious citrus flavor) Ono Farm—Kipahulu, Maui Coconuts Lilikoi Hawaiian limes Allan Nago—Kula, Maui Thai basil Cilantro Pea shoots Mike McKoy—Kula, Maui Petite shiso Micro watercress Steve Gold—Lower Nahiku & Hana, Maui Gai choy Purple bok choy The Lind Family—Hana, Maui (one of the many dedicated Hana fisherman) Onaga snapper The Pantry Alae sea salt Coconut oil
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LILIKOI GLAZED SNAPPER Lilikoi Glaze 1 cup lilikoi seeds and juice 2 Tbsp. cane sugar 1 Hawaiian chile pepper 1 tsp. finely chopped ginger 1 tsp. finely chopped turmeric 1 tsp. Alae Sea Salt Cook all ingredients in stainless pan until reduced to syrup consistency. Sweet Potatoes 3 pounds steamed Moloka`i sweet potatoes 3 cups coconut milk (blend coconut meat and coconut water) 2 Tbsp. sea salt Steam the potatoes whole until tender (about 20 minutes). Peel the potatoes using a kitchen towel. Bring the coconut milk to a simmer. Crush the potatoes and coconut milk with sea salt to taste. Coconut Sauce 3 cups fresh coconut milk 1 local lime, juiced 1 Hawaiian chile 1 tsp. crushed ginger 1 tsp. sea salt 1 Tbsp. sugar Bring all ingredients to a simmer and then blend to emulsify. Do not blend until ready to serve to ensure the sauce is airy and not dense. Salad You can use a number of herb combinations—but here are some I recommend. Micro Shiso Small Thai basil leaves Small Opal basil leaves Pea shoots Small mint leaves Cilantro Micro watercress Begonia blossoms Hawaiian lime Coconut oil Sea salt Dress the herbs gently with the coconut oil, lime juice and sea salt.
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The Choys 2 small gai choi 2 small purple bok choy Quickly blanch in salted boiling water, cut each lengthwise into quarters. Make a diagonal cut at the base of each section to remove as much of the woody stem as possible without making the leaves come off. The Fish 1 medium Onaga snapper—about 3 pounds Filet the fish and remove the skin. Cut each side into two equal-size portions. I also like to remove any excess bloodline as well as the belly section of the filet.
Putting the Dish Together In a large sauté pan heat a spoonful of clarified butter until it barely starts to smoke. Season the portions of fish and gently set in the sauté pan; avoid splashing the hot butter. Carefully shake the pan to slide the portions of snapper—this will help keep the fish from sticking. Allow the snapper to cook in the pan over high heat until you can see the bottom edges just barely start to brown. With a perforated fish spatula—or fork—gently turn each portion. Add 1 Tbsp. of cold whole butter to the pan and spoon the melting butter over the top of the fish. Transfer the pan to a 400-degree oven until cooked to your liking. I prefer snapper medium: just two or three minutes in the oven. Remove the snapper from the oven and top each portion with a spoonful of the lilikoi glaze. Make a pool of the coconut sauce in the middle of each of four plates. Place a scoop of hot sweet potato purée on top followed by the gai choy and bok choy. Finish the plate with the glazed snapper and garnish the plate with the herb salad.
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LOVE OF FOOD
BLOSSOMS
IN EDIBLE SCHOOLYARDS BY SUE KIYABU
When Amanda Rieux started the Mala’ai, the Culinary Gardens at Waimea Middle School, she didn’t have tools, water or a shed, much less a semblance of a garden. “It was literally a windswept field,” says Rieux, garden leader at the school. So she and her students spent time talking about the land. They discussed the sandalwood trees that became railroad ties on the mainland, the kikuya grass that crowded out the native grasses, and the military history of the site. And they talked about what they wanted to grow. “At first it was really wide open,” Rieux, says. “We started with a field and some ideas, and it grew from there.”
Where Does Food Come From? The interest in edible schoolyards has escalated dramatically in recent years. On Hawai`i Island, as many as 30 new programs are under way. Statewide concerns about childhood obesity, proper nutrition and future sustainability remain driving forces for most programs. Garden coordinators all had anecdotes of children who knew little about the natural world—kids who can’t recognize a freshly harvested carrot, kids who have never played in dirt—and they had great faith in the process, that growing and nurturing a plant can impart lessons that apply to curricula, but also connect kids to the `aina and a larger world. Educators also say that gardening can provide an antidote to classroom stress, and it can aid those who find traditional methods of learning difficult, says Nancy Redfeather, garden coordinator at the Kohala Center. A former educator, Redfeather says schoolyard gardens are especially valuable for students who learn by doing. The obvious models are in biology and botany, but lessons can be adapted for language arts, the physical sciences, nutrition and sustainability. “An immense amount of learning can take place,” Redfeather says. “On one hand [gardening] is a practical skill you could use in many ways. But it connects you with the land and your food in a whole new way. Because we have lost touch with where our food comes from. We think it comes from the frozen food aisle at Costco and Mom brings it home and she microwaves. But it’s a really long distance between 16
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home garden and frozen food aisle at Costco. It would be good to come more toward the center.” At Lahainaluna High School on Maui, Carol Rosetta marries biology and agriculture, teaching her kids about food choices and nutrition but also food production, the social implications of agriculture and genetically modified organisms. “I may start out asking them something as simple as ‘Where does your meat come from?’” Rosetta says. “And some will say, ‘The grocery store.’ But then, they have to do research.” She teaches them to read labels and to research the origins of everyday products like tofu, or coffee. In turn, they learn about fair trade, coffee or soybean production and the complications of our modern food supply. Rosetta says “a lot” of her students have changed their eating habits. Some have even altered their families’ eating habits. “They are much more aware of sustainable agriculture,” Rosetta says.
A Growing Movement The modern concept of edible schoolyards comes from powerhouse chef Alice Waters. In 1994, she and a Berkeley middle school principal, Neil Smith, took over an asphalt lot next to the school and eventually turned it into a model of schoolyard organic sustainability. The garden program integrates curricula for students, creates an environment for healthy eating and enforces Waters’ credo that healthy food not only tastes good, it fosters community. In Hawaii, many schools had gardens that served the community beyond the basics of education. Dairies on school grounds provided milk for the community, school gardens provided food to the cafeteria. Due to high liability and modern food processing, the majority of school milk now comes from the mainland and many schools don’t have the means to prepare food onsite. Programs that once taught kids how to manage a dairy may now focus on other aspects of Hawaiian life, such as golf course maintenance. But a few are turning things around. A handful of successful programs—both private and public—do exist and fledgling programs are
Pphotos by G. Natale
emerging. Helping to coordinate efforts on O`ahu is the Kokua Hawai`i Foundation. The brainchild of musician Jack Johnson and his wife, Kim, `Aina in Schools (`AINA IS) began as a pilot program in 2006 with five schools, `Aikahi, Makaha, Sunset Beach, Wai`alae and Wheeler Elementary Schools. The program, which hopes to reach out to more schools beginning in 2008, sought to address three main goals: childhood obesity and healthy eating habits, environmental stewardship and creating an institutional market for Hawaii’s farmers and their produce. Programs at Wheeler and Makaha were already in place when the program began, says Kaliko Amona, program coordinator for `AINA IS. “We’ve had a lot of positive feedback so far,” Amona says. “But we are still trying to figure out how to meet the variety of school needs. Because every school is different, each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and we are still trying to figure out the best way to provide support.” The hurdles to creating a school garden are numerous but the most challenging ones are funding and support. Even funded programs with paid garden educators need support from principals and staff. Teachers, already pressed for time and under pressure with increasing
standardized tests, may not want to alter their curricula. Custodial staff may not want to water. And funding for a new shovel when some kids can’t afford lunch? In the hierarchy of needs, school garden programs may be last in a long line. Garden educators often work in isolation, unaware of the program two miles away. Too few tools, too little knowledge, too little support—they survive on the chutzpah and the good will of volunteers. But it doesn’t seem to dampen the enthusiasm of those parent/educators like Margaret Gill, who works at Hanalei School in Kaua`i. “We wish we could have more time with them, but better yet, the kids wish we could have more time,” says Gill, who began twice-weekly classes in October. “They come at recess, they come at lunch. They water, they weed, they would come every day if they could.” In her classes, which she coteaches with Joni Nuhi, they aim to expose their kids to a broader range of healthy produce, in addition to lessons on native plants. And Gill says they will “gobble up” vegetables like raw radishes and baby bok choy. “Kids are far more likely to eat a food they’ve grown,” Gill says, echoing the sentiments of garden educators around the state. “It’s www.ediblealoha.com
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Edible Schoolyards The schools and participating organizations listed vary. Some have funding, others do not. Some have gardens; others are still in the planning stages. We list the schools as a reference point for individuals who wish to help within their community through donations or time, and perhaps to give garden coordinators a chance to connect with each other. OAHU Foundations AINA IS – www.kokuahawaiifoundation.org Mala ‘Ai ‘Opio (Ma’O) Youth Organic Farm www.waianaeorganic.com Just Add Water, Mala Laulima – www.just-add-water.biz
something they have planted and attended to, and they are not only are interested, they are clamoring over each other just to taste it. It has exposed them to a broader a range of foods and they see how delicious it is when food is not just from the garden, but in the garden.”
Strengthening Island Roots Three years later at Mala’ai, with school and community support, Rieux now has a garden that provides lessons in science, social science, sustainability, math and nutrition to hundreds of kids a year. In the roughly 70 garden classes a quarter, they have grown vegetables and trees, built bamboo windbreaks, made snacks from the garden, learned seed-saving and composting. She works with Kuma Hula Pua Case to incorporate the Hawaiian language and the model for Hawaiian agriculture in each lesson, which Rieux says teaches kids respect for the land and the connectedness to all the elements. The kids at Mala’ai begin each day with two minutes of silence and Hawaiian wisdom words, which they reflect upon while working in the garden. At the end of the session, each student shares their experience with the group. “They look at these [Hawaiian] concepts and apply them to themselves,” says Rieux, who taught at the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley. “It helps to personalize the experience and the culture that is here…. By knowing the world around us, we imbue the things that exist around us with meaning.”
Schools ‘Aikahi Elementary Sunset Beach Elementary Wheeler Elementary Makaha Elemenary School, Hoa’aina O Makaha and Na Keiki O Ka ’Aina (Children of the Land) Wai’alae School Waianae High School, The Cultural Learning Center at Ka’ala BIG ISLAND Foundations The Kohala Center, www.kohalacenter.org Hoa ‘Aina O Makaha – ahualoa.net Schools Mala’ai: The Culinary Gardens of Waimea School, www.malalai.org Pa’auilo School Innovations Public Charter School Honoka’a Elementary KAUAI Foundations Malama Kauai – www.malamakauai.org Schools Hanalei Elementary Kilauea Elementary School MAUI Schools Lahainaluna High School Haleakala Waldorf School
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Chefs INSPIRATION Chef Olelo pa’a Faith Ogawa BY SONIA R. MARTINEZ
From the very first time we met several years ago, I knew that Big Island Waikoloa resident Olelo pa’a Faith Ogawa was “the real thing.” Since then, I have had occasion to meet with her several times, both in the culinary arena and by personal contacts. My first impression has been more than reinforced. I was attracted by her approach to food. Her love and respect for the food she prepares shows in her handling of it and also in how she uses it: simple ways but with delicious and spectacular results. Olelo pa’a means “forever the very spark of existence,” a name given to her by a beloved Hawaiian mentor when Chef Ogawa participated in a self-identity and spiritual retreat, practicing the ancient Hawaiian custom of Ho’oponopono. The name was well chosen. Chef Ogawa is truly a bright spark in the Hawai’i culinary world. Olelo pa’a, as she prefers to be called, was born and raised in Waipahu, O`ahu, on a sugar plantation. She is a graduate of Leeward Community College’s food and hospitality program and was a chef instructor at Kapi’olani Community College, also in O`ahu. She is recognized as one of the pioneer female chefs of Hawai’i. Chef Olelo has a unique flair for preparing and presenting fresh food as simply as possible in a setting that both energizes and soothes the senses by creating a completely harmonious experience for the guests. Chef Olelo pa’a cooks out of inspiration and love. She seeks guidance and clarity in all areas of her life. One of her analogies is that our minds should be like a computer, where we can choose to push the delete button and erase it clean of all negativity. She firmly believes you can destroy wonderful produce if you cook it with negative thoughts, and when food is infused with anger or resentment, the bad energy will be transmitted to the food being prepared to the detriment of the diner. We should all take time to enjoy not only the results of preparing a meal, but also every step along the way, from the harvesting and cleaning of a vegetable—admiring the shape and color, feeling the texture—on to the final cooking and presentation. Her creativity includes suggesting table settings that will complement the food, which are then interpreted by her long-time friend and 20
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collaborator Laura Lewis-Motta of Hilo. The complete table experience will involve all your senses. Long before she ever thought of going into the culinary world, she credits her mother and her grandmother, an O`ahu farmer with Okinawan roots, with giving her a solid foundation with which to start on her food adventures. Fresh vegetables, simply prepared, were a part of every meal in their home. Her introduction into the professional culinary world was almost through the back door. While attending Leeward Community College as a liberal arts student, she participated in a test to determine where her interests lay. Little did she dream that all her answers would point her directly to the school’s brand new culinary program. It wasn’t until this “light-switch moment” that she discovered that this is what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Working in the hotel trade for many years taught her discipline, but the inspiration to reach a wider audience through divinity, clarity and love came as a true revelation of what her real passion was: to spread her culinary zeal through closer contact with the public by teaching and catering. Through her Waikoloa-based company, Dining by Faith, she has become a shining star in the Big Island’s culinary firmament. Her many travels throughout the mainland United States, Europe and Asia, have added an extensive background in food preparation and presentation. Recently she was inspired to create several new value-added food products, which she introduced to the public at the Third Annual Hilo Chinese New Year Festival a few years ago. The first product in the line is a tea mixture that features lemon grass, peppermint, chamomile flowers, alfalfa leaves and lemon peel. It is a soothing yet invigorating brew she named Glow Tea, since, as she says, it “sets you glowing.” Her other products are island-produced Glow Honey, island-grown coffee and macadamia nuts. Olelo pa’a has named her style of cooking Conscious Hawaiian Cuisine. She is a founding member of the Hawai’i Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International and was recently inducted into the Hawai’i Culinary Hospitality Hall of Fame.
FRESH HAMAKUA HEARTS OF PALM AND PEPEIAO SALAD “One day this November it rained for several hours; it felt like the land was being cleansed. The next morning I saw snow on Mauna Kea. This was the first time in 18 years that I had seen snow on Mauna Kea in November. The heap of salad represents Mauna Kea. The white hearts of palm are for purity and the Pepeiao for our rainforests and mother earth.” 1 cup fresh Hamakua hearts of palm, julienned ½ cup fresh Hamakua Pepeiao mushroom, rinsed and julienned 1 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar 1 Tbsp. mirin 2 tsp. Meyer lemon juice Salt to taste Mix all ingredients and serve with fresh greens, tomatoes and goat cheese. This is a clean and light salad. Delicious served with crabmeat or shrimp. Serves 2.
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COOKING
fresh KEIKI IN THE KITCHEN
Photo by S. Cohen
BY DAHLIA
I learned to cook by watching my mother. She was my first teacher. By the age of 6, I was standing next to her, frying eggs and flipping mini macadamia-nut pancakes for my younger sister and brother. I was turning out batches of such quick breads as banana-nut bread, mountains of muffins, mango bread and pineapple upside down cakes by the time I was 10. I was grounded the entire summer I was 13, so I baked fresh fruit pies with decorative lattice tops. In the winter, I switched to fluffy cream pies, chocolate coconut and lemon meringue; banana cream pie was my specialty. Using treasured recipes from my Kapuna wahine—my grandmother—I taught my first cooking class when I was in 10th grade. My students were my home economics classmates, all with the blessing of our teacher. By senior year, I was in the food business. I prepared candlelight dinners for two for my guy friends when they wanted romantic time with their girlfriends. In a sense, I started a free catering service; I was their personal chef and in exchange, they drove me anywhere I needed to go. I would cook a decadent multicourse supper at the boy’s house and quietly disappear before his guest arrived. The guys took the credit; no one believed them, but no 22
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one knew it was I who prepared the dinner. I was a girl chef before chefs were celebrities. I don’t remember my baby brother or younger sister eating jarred baby food or convenience foods. Everything we ate was freshly cooked and well made. Mom spent most of her day preparing foods for her flock of four plus my dad and the relatives who liked to come by at dinnertime. She never complained; in fact, my mom prepared dinner while making breakfast because that’s when she had the most energy. We woke to the aroma of sautéed onions most every day. Raising my own keiki, I was up early and, like my mom, cooked supper while preparing breakfast. From refrigerator to vegetable garden, my basket filled with greens and plucked ripe mango, papaya and bunches of red bananas from the back yard. “Wiki wiki”!— Hawaiian for quick—back to the kitchen, dinner simmered on the stove while coffee brewed. From the time our children graduated from nursery to elementary school, I gained a reputation as a chef among the parents and the administration. Alex, our youngest, won prizes from his teachers for the lunches I packed. It was no surprise that I started a cooking school during that time and taught moms how to cook everything from the ex-
edible hawaiian islands
otic to simple baby food. My first baby-food class was for young mothers; everyone had great fun making and tasting the different concoctions. At the end of each class, the babies showed up with a high chair and an appetite. “Komo mai eai”—come in and eat. The tots didn’t spit, sputter and drool but smiled with glee with every spoonful. The babies donned mini chef’s hats that I provided and the chef’s tasting menu was served in bento boxes. The first class was a lesson on how to make fresh vegetable and chicken stock. Homemade stocks enriched with lentils and dried peas are important because they add protein and a rich flavor to the cooked vegetable purées. Into two 6-quart stockpots we layered chopped and peeled carrots, potatoes, squash, zucchini and seasonal vegetables with a cup of dried peas or lentils. Into one of the pots of vegetables we added skinless organic chicken. Then to both pots we added enough water to cover the vegetables and simmered both till reduced to one-third of their original volume. Once the stocks are reduced, strain through a colander and discard the vegetables. Save the cooked chicken and add it to the vegetable purées.
Photo by G. Natale
VEGETABLE STOCK 6 quarts water 3 carrots, peeled and quartered 3 celery stalks, quartered 1 large onion, peeled and chopped 2 zucchinis, cubed ¼ large Butternut squash, peeled and cubed 2 potatoes, cubed Place all ingredients in a large stockpot. Simmer over a medium flame, skimming the solids from the stock, for 1 hour. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Strain out the vegetables and discard.
CHICKEN STOCK 6 quarts water 4 organic chicken thighs or legs, skin removed 3 carrots, peeled and quartered 3 celery stalks, quartered 1 large onion, peeled and chopped 2 zucchinis, cubed ¼ large Butternut squash, peeled and cubed 2 potatoes, cubed Place all ingredients in a large stockpot. Simmer over a medium flame, skimming the solids from the stock, for 1 hour. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Strain out the vegetables and discard. Reserve the chicken pieces to use with the vegetable purées.
The following baby-fare combinations are not formal recipes; they are guidelines for making easy purées that will surely please your baby. Consult your own pediatrician as well. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Simmer cubed potatoes in broth till tender and mash in the ricer or with a fork; add bits of cooked chicken. Roast cubes of peeled sweet potato and squash in the oven at 400 degrees till soft and mash with broth. Simmer potatoes in broth till soft; add spinach leaves, cook for 3 minutes and whirl in the food processor. Whirl cooked rice with broth in the food processor with bits of chicken. Cook peeled, chopped carrots and potato cubes in broth till tender and press through a ricer. Mash ripe avocado with one cooked egg yolk. Mash ripe papaya with a ripe banana. Whirl pineapple cubes in the food processor with ripe banana. Whirl mango cubes in the food processor with fresh young coconut meat. Mash ripe avocado with dates and ripe banana. Mash ripe mango with ripe banana and dates. Make a soupy version of fried rice or a rice noodle dish you have prepared for the family. Blend ripe banana with avocado and carob powder and dates in a mini food processor. Mash cooked sweet potato with bits of chicken. Mash cooked carrot and sweet potato with bits of cooked chicken. Purple potato cubes cooked in broth Passion fruit, seeded and mashed with ripe banana Soft-scrambled organic eggs with cubed avocado www.ediblealoha.com
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Photos by Rod Gallagher
Recipes for these photos and more, can be found in Michael’s book The Maui Chef Seafood Cookbook at a bookstore near you, or web site www.mauichef.com
Maui Chefs
DAUGHTERS BY MICHAEL GALLAGHER
When Gloria Cohen called me and said she was looking for someone to write an article about Maui, food and children, I jumped at the opportunity to write about my own twin daughters, Kelly and Alana. I have been a chef here on Maui for over 18 years and my 11-year-old daughters were born here. My dream was to have children and raise them on Maui. As I watch them grow up dancing hula (for the Napili Kai Foundation), swimming and surfing all over this beautiful island, I realize my dream is coming true. Now, over the past few years, they are becoming interested in their father’s occupation: cooking. It has been a great delight to teach them the basics in the kitchen and watch them take pride in their efforts. Safety and sanitation were my first lessons, as nothing is more important. Cross contamination is one of the leading causes of food-borne illness. I recommend starting with breakfast, as I believe most parents do. But in Maui it is banana macadamia nut pancakes with coconut syrup; omelets with Portuguese sausage, Maui onions and cheddar; and, of course, the staple: steamed rice. We have also started with some lunch dishes such as fresh tuna salad with balsamic vinegar and lime cilantro aioli on toasted English muffins; peanut butter and jelly Ritz crackers; fresh sliced mango, kiwi Kula strawberries with assorted cheeses. My daughters love smoothies and Kelly’s favorite is a strawberry papaya smoothie. For dinner, Alana has been reading cookbooks and made a fantastic lemon chicken breast with Bocconcini grape tomato avocado salad with roasted garlic fresh herb vinaigrette. Kelly wants to help and also makes great salads and dressings as well. I am really enjoying working with my daughters in the kitchen
we get to veal demi-glace, but their knife skills are improving and they are beginning to become creative and experiment with new ideas. From generation to generation cooking techniques and recipes have been passed down from parent to child. Some of those children go on to become award-winning chefs, others have their own children and use what they have learned to feed their families and cook for their friends. My mother was the greatest influence on my culinary career, which has spanned over 25 years. Because of her teachings I became the executive chef of the Yankee Clipper Restaurant, chef de cuisine at the Maui Marriott, executive chef and banquet sales manager at the Sea House Restaurant at Napili Kai Beach Resort. I have been able to write two cookbooks: Gourmet Cuisine Island Style and The Maui Chef Seafood Cookbook, both published by Island Heritage. I have prepared meals for over a million customers. Now I work with many of the local chefs procuring their products for HFM Morrad, one of the largest broad-line distributors in Hawaii. My children may become chefs or may not; the choice is theirs, but either way I know teaching them to cook is helping prepare them for life and someday feeding my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to come. Life on Maui is good; the air is clean, the seafood is fresh and the fabulous produce from the volcanic soil of Haleakala is some of the best I have ever tasted. What more can a father ask for? On occasion my children and I go upcountry to feed the horses and see my friends on the farms. If you ever come to Maui, a must-see would be going to the Fresh Island Herb Farm to meet owner Michael McCoy and tour his microgreens and herb gardens, as well as Surfing Goat Dairy. Tell Michael and Thomas I said aloha!
and seeing the curiosity in their eyes and the pride they have when preparing food for the family. We made meatballs and angel-hair pasta and “Grandma Gallagher’s Meatloaf.” We still have a ways to go till we www.ediblealoha.com
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TalkStory
My father died in Monterey, California, in 1975, but he was born in Honolulu. These are some pieces of that time in the long-past Territory of Hawaii that were told to me, and which I discerned over the 17 years I knew him. My grandparents came to Hawai`i sometime after 1914, drawn there because of my grandfather’s work as a thermal engineer. Doug, my father, was born there on August 24, 1923, and he thrived in a time and place that seemed perfectly designed for his character. Or maybe his singular character was designed by the perfect time and place. The result was a person captivated by nature, gardens, foods and interwoven cultures. Doug’s favorite friend of his early years was the Japanese gardener who tended their property on Kahala Avenue. Doug spent hours on his haunches alongside this man, whose name I’ve never known and who quietly and thoroughly nurtured Doug’s lifelong love of plants and the insects that inhabited them. Indeed, years later he chose to study entomology at Cornell University’s agriculture school. The feel for earth and flora was of course intensified by the almost constant lack of shoes on his feet. Even on Halloween in his Lawrence of Arabia costume, his feet were bare. And of course he at-
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SHADOWS OF A HONOLULU CHILDHOOD IN THE 1920S BY KIMBALL WORCESTER
tended school barefoot, at least through the early grades. How envious I was of this little perk of growing up in Hawai`i! He didn’t leave this proclivity behind in the Islands—all our lives the first thing any of us did upon entering our house in San Francisco was to shed the shoes and pad around barefoot. (It was an interesting way of life for my mother from northeastern Ohio.) We used tatami mats at the beach in Santa Cruz—and were the only ones doing so. Just the smell of those lovely grassy mats creates powerful time travel. Other smells that lingered from his Hawai`i childhood were the pikake and plumeria oils that were kept in the bathroom for years. I often opened the bottles to take in the fragrances of the islands he came from so long ago. Since he himself seemed to have so many layers, it was clear to me that the Hawaiian Islands did so, too. Pikake was his favorite. Doug brought to our family’s table in the 1960s an openness to and love of a wide-ranging variety of foods that were sparked by his childhood of Asian-Pacific culture in Hawai`i. When available, island fruits were featured at breakfast. His great favorite was the poha berry, also called the Cape gooseberry, which, sadly, was not available on the
mainland. Early on he taught me how to properly cut and prepare pineapple. He was not fond of poi, was in favor of sugar cane, and loved pretty much all variations of Chinese, Japanese and local-style food. These things were still somewhat unusual in the 1960s even in San Francisco. His palate for such foods was refined and choosey, although never exclusive. Hot-and-sour soup was a particular favorite. Doug attended Punahou from kindergarten through 12th grade. He and his pals apparently spent much of their time gabbing in Pidgin, of which he taught me a few words acceptable only to schoolboys. Clearly he delighted in this other expressive language that he was lucky enough to speak as his second nature. He made fond references to his acquaintance with Sammy Amalu, the versatile con man/journalist/Hawaiian patriot, who was also a Punahou alumnus. Doug claimed to have met the legendary Duke himself, which is not unlikely. Imagine the days of the ’20s in Hawai`i when any traveling between the islands was done by boat only and even then not very often. Doug’s first trip to the mainland was when he was 9 years old, quite an event, but it wasn’t repeated until he left for Cornell in 1940. Perhaps one of my favorite stories of Doug’s childhood was his memory
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Arbor Day in front of Punaho School. Doug is to the right holding the sprouting palm tree.
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of the adults’ dinner parties. It wasn’t about the food, because of course the children weren’t invited. It was the special activity the children of the guests and hosts were allowed to do: their nannies took them in their pajamas to the cinema, where they feasted on another delicacy of the time and place: samurai movies. Samurai movies always occupied a special place in Doug’s heart. Alas, he missed out on John Belushi’s exquisite reinterpretation of them. Doug never took us to Hawai`i. He kept it something of a mystery for us, perhaps to keep it pure for himself. This was disappointing but also strangely satisfying because it remained a place of long ago and stories and curious words that sounded like a poetic, elongated English. Toward the end of the war (which he spent stateside in 4-F status, to his deeply buried shame) he was back in the Islands, having graduated from college, and he told me stories of pushing cigarettes through the fences of POW camps to the Italian prisoners of war. After that he went back to the Islands only once, in, I think, 1970. Imagine now a very different Hawai`i from his special place of childhood and adolescence. He never returned, and one can easily guess why. He is, however, buried there, which is a good thing.
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Photo by Carole Topalian
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New Year’s Revolutions —What City People Can Do—
Pleasures of Eating
The
By Wendell Berry
Many times, after I have finished a lecture on the decline of American farming and rural life, someone in the audience has asked, "What can city people do?" "Eat responsibly," I have usually answered. I have tried to explain what I mean by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt there was more to be said. I would like to attempt a better explanation. I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as “consumers.” If they think beyond that, they recognize that they are passive consumers. They buy what they want — or what they have been persuaded to want — within the limits of what they can get. They pay, mostly without protest, what they are charged. And they mostly ignore certain critical questions about the quality and the cost of what they are sold: How fresh is it? How pure or clean is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? How far was it transported, and what did transportation add to the cost? How much did manufacturing or packaging or advertising add to the cost? When the food product has been manufactured or “processed” or “precooked,” how has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value? Most urban shoppers would tell you that food is produced on farms. But most do not know what farms, or what kinds of farms, or where the farms are, or what knowledge or skills are involved in farming. They apparently have little doubt that farms will continue to produce, but they do not know how or over what obstacles. For them, food is pretty much an abstract idea — something they do not know or imagine — until it appears on the grocery shelf or on the table. The specialization of production induces specialization of consumption. Patrons of the food industry have tended more and more to be mere consumers — passive, uncritical, and dependent. Indeed, this may be one of the chief goals of industrial production. The food industrialists have persuaded millions of consumers to prefer food that is already prepared. They will grow, deliver, and cook your food for you and (just like your mother) beg you to eat it. That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into our mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so. We may rest assured that they would be glad to find such a way. The ideal industrial food consumer would be strapped to a table with a tube running from the food factory directly into his or her stomach. Perhaps I exaggerate, but not by much. The industrial eater no longer knows or imagines the connections between eating and the land, and is therefore passive and uncritical — in short, a victim. When food, in the minds of eaters, is no longer associated with farming and with the land, the eaters suffer a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous. www.ediblealoha.com
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Photo by S. Cohen
Like industrial sex, industrial eating has become a degraded, poor, and paltry thing. Our kitchens and other eating places more and more resemble filling stations, as our homes more and more resemble motels. "Life is not very interesting," we seem to have decided. "Let its satisfactions be minimal, perfunctory, and fast." We hurry through our meals to go to work and hurry through our work in order to "recreate" ourselves in the evenings and on weekends. And all this is carried out in a remarkable obliviousness to the causes and effects, the possibilities and the purposes, of the life of the body in this world. One will find this obliviousness represented in virgin purity in the advertisements of the food industry, in which food wears as much makeup as the actors. If one gained one's whole knowledge of food from these advertisements (as some presumably do), one would not
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know that the various edibles were ever living creatures, or that they all come from the soil, or that they were produced by work. The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality. And the result is a kind of solitude, unprecedented in human experience, in which the eater may think of eating as, first, a purely commercial transaction between him and a supplier and then as a purely appetitive transaction between him and his food.
And this peculiar specialization of the act of eating is, again, of obvious benefit to the food industry, which has good reasons to obscure the connection between food and farming. It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams, or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around. And, though her sympathy for the slaw might be less tender, she should not be encouraged to meditate on the hygienic and biological implications of mile-square fields of cabbage, for vegetables grown in huge monocultures are dependent on toxic chemicals — just as animals in close confinements are dependent on antibiotics and other drugs. The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry — as in any other industry — the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price. For decades the entire industrial food economy has been obsessed with volume. It has relentlessly increased scale in order (probably) to reduce costs. But as scale increases, diversity declines; so does health; and dependence on drugs and chemicals increases. Capital replaces labor by substituting machines, drugs, and chemicals for human workers and for the natural health and fertility of the soil. The food is produced by any means or any shortcuts that will increase profits. And the business of the cosmeticians of advertising is to persuade the consumer that food so produced is good, tasty, healthful, and a guarantee of marital fidelity and long life. It is possible, then, to be liberated from the husbandry and wifery of the old household food economy, but only by entering a trap (unless one sees ignorance and helplessness as the signs of privilege, as many apparently do). How does one escape this trap? Only voluntarily, the same way one went in: by restoring one's consciousness of what is involved in eating; by reclaiming responsibility for one's own part in the food economy. One might begin with the illuminating principle of Sir Albert Howard's The Soil and Health, that we should understand "the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal, and man as one great subject." Eaters, that is, must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and
how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used. This is a simple way of describing a relationship that is inexpressibly complex. To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as we can, this complex relationship. What can one do? Here is a list, probably not definitive: 1. Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life. 2. Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and will give you a measure of "quality control.” 3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence. 4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the reasons listed for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers. 5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to the food that is not food, and what do you pay for those additions? 6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening. 7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.
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The last suggestion seems particularly important to me. Many people are now as much estranged from the lives of domestic plants and animals (except for flowers and dogs and cats) as they are from the lives of the wild ones. This is regrettable, for there is such pleasure in knowing them. And farming, animal husbandry, horticulture, and gardening, at their best, are complex and comely arts; there is much pleasure in knowing them, too. It follows that there is great displeasure in knowing about a food economy that degrades and abuses those arts and those plants and animals and the soil from which they come. For anyone who does know something of the modern history of food, eating away from home can be a chore. My own inclination is to eat seafood instead of red meat or poultry when I am traveling. Though I am by no means a vegetarian, I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable in order to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade. And I am getting almost as fussy about food plants. I like to eat vegetables and fruits that I know have lived happily and healthily in good soil, not the products of the huge, bechemicaled factory-fields that I have seen, for example, in the Central Valley of California. The industrial farm is said to have been patterned on the factory production line. In practice, it looks more like a concentration camp. The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy and remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think of it as bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort. Wendell Berry, born 1954, is a Kentucky-based writer and farmer who believes the good life includes sustainable agriculture, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, and the interconnectedness of life.
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Photo by Carole Topalian
“How does one escape this trap? The same way one went in: by restoring one’s consciousness of what is involved in eating; by reclaiming responsibility for one’s own part in the food economy.”
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BOOK REVIEW By G. Cohen
Pathways to Abundant Gardens A pictorial Guide to Successful Organic Growing written and photographed by Craig R. Elevitch
If you are looking for inspiration and guidance in growing your own food using natural methods, this is a must read and see. Filled with beautiful photographs, the author highlights the voices of over twenty outstanding gardeners and farmers, many have certified organic gardens and farms—all adhere to practices that meet or exceed organic standards recognized worldwide. According to Elvitch, “Even though all the people interviewed live in Hawai`i, they have experience from all over the world and their advice transcends geographic location. Although this book presents some how-to information, its primary purpose is to inspire novice and experienced gardeners alike. Available at your favorite bookstore $14.95 plus shipping or www.agroforestry.net/abun. Craig Elevitch has written several other books including Agroforestry Guides for Pacific Islands (2000), Growing Koa: A Legacy Tree (2003), Noni: The Complete Guide for Consumers and Growers (2006) and more.
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What’s in season
Winter Vegetables:
Fruit: Atemoya Avocados Bananas Limes Longon Orange Papaya Starfruit Tangerines
Bittermelon Chinese Cabbage Corn Hearts of Palm Mushrooms Sprouts
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REcipe
wave
SPICY POLYNESIAN AVOCADO DIP From Hawai`i’s Party Food by Muriel Miura 1 medium avocado 1 tsp lemon juice 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce 2 Tbs curry powder 1/4 tsp garlic salt Dash cayenne pepper 1 Tbs sugar 2 Tbs Macadamia nuts, chopped 2 Tbs crumbled crisp bacon Cut avocado in half: remove seed and skin. Mash avocado with fork, not too smooth. Combine with all remaining ingredients and mix well.
MOCHIKO CAKE By Jennie T. Yukimura A favorite for kids of all ages 5 cups mochiko flour (sweet rice flour) 2 tsp. baking soda 1 box brown sugar 1 can coconut milk 1 can tsubushi an or Japanese cooked red beans 2 cans of water from bean can Mix well, all of above ingredients. Pour into well greased 9X13 pan—sprinkle white and black sesame seeds. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour and a little more if needed until firm. Cool, cut and enjoy.
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email (optional): For more information or to submit story ideas, call or email us at: 808-828-1559, or info@ediblehawaiianislands.com. Edible Hawaiian Islands is published quarterly by Edible Hawaiian Islands LLC. Telephone: 808-828-1559. Distribution is throughout the state of Hawaii 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. © 2007 All Rights Reserved.
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Sustainable Extras Ollie Cohen Surf Collection #3 Photo: Steve Knox Surfboard: vecsurfboards@hotmail.com www.vecsurfboards.com
Sunrise In the Hawaiian Islands Photo: G. Natale 42
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Our cover Midday Mangos is the beautiful art of Kim McDonald Studio: 808-572-3811 • email: Art@KimMcDonald.com Studio visits welcome by appointment
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EDITOR AT LARGE The past few months have been very busy with holidays, family and traveling. I know you must be as ready for a change as I am. I decided to do something different. I am giving you something to feast your eyes on. Amazingly beautiful Protea. Protea farms are found on Maui and Hawai`i Island. Many will mail order to you. Just google Protea from Hawaii, and a long list of growers will show up. If you need help, we are in the process of putting a list together, just email info@ediblehawaiianislands.com Ahui hou, Your favorit EAL
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farmers’ markets Kaua`i Farmers’ Markets MONDAY West Kauai Agricultural Association Poipu Road and Cane Haul Rd, Poipu 8 a.m. Koloa Ball Park (Knudsen) (Sunshine Markets) Maluhia Road, Koloa Noon Kukui Grove Shopping Center Lihue 3 p.m. TUESDAY Kalaheo Neighborhood Center (Sunshine Markets) Papalina Road off Kaumualii, Kalaheo 3:30 p.m. Wailua Homesteads Park (Sunshine Markets) Malu Road, Wailua 3 p.m. Hawaiian Farmers of Hanalei Waipa, Hanalei 2 p.m. WEDNESDAY Kapaa New Town Park (Sunshine Markets) Kahau Road, Kapaa 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.
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FRIDAY Vidinha Stadium (Sunshine Markets) Hoolako Road, Lihue 3 p.m.
Waikoloa Village Farmers’ Market Waikoloa Community Church across from Waikoloa Elementary School 7:30 a.m.–1 p.m.
SATURDAY Kekaha Neighborhood Center (Sunshine Markets) Elepaio Road, Kekaha 9 a.m.
North Kohala Across from Hawi Post Office, under banyan tree 7 a.m.–noon
Hanalei Saturday Market Hanalei 9 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Waimea Hawaiian Homestead Farmers’ Market Mamalahoa Hwy., 2 miles east of Waimea town 7:30 a.m.
Hawai`i Island Farmers’ Markets
Honokaa Farmers Market Honokaa town near Honokaa Trading Co. Hilo Farmers’ Market
SATURDAY Keauhou Farmers Market Keauhou Shopping Center, Keauhou 8–11 a.m.
Wednesdays and Saturdays Corner of Mamo and Kamehameha Ave., downtown Hilo Saturdays, 8 a.m.–noon
edible hawaiian islands
Wednesdays Naalehu Farmers’ Market Ace Hardware lawn 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
Waipahu District Park (People’s Open Market) 94-230 Paiwa Street, Waipahu 8:15–9:15 a.m.
Kailua District Park (People’s Open Market) 21 South Kainalu Drive, Kailua 9–10 a.m.
SUNDAY Pahoa Farmers’ Market Luquin’s/Akebono Theater parking lot 8 a.m.–3 p.m.
Wahiawa District Park (People’s Open Market) N. Cane & California Avenue, Wahiawa 10–11 a.m.
Kaneohe District Park (People’s Open Market) 45-660 Keaahala Road, Kaneohe 10:45–11:45 a.m.
Makuu Farmers’ Market Keaau-Pahoa bypass road 8 a.m.–2 p.m.
Mililani District Park (People’s Open Market) 94-1150 Lanikuhana Avenue, Mililani 11:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Manoa Marketplace Honolulu 7–11 a.m.
Volcano Farmers’ Market Cooper Center, Wright Rd., Volcano 6:30–9 a.m.
Fort Street near Wilcox Park Honolulu (in front of Macy’s) 8 a.m.–2 p.m.
O`ahu Farmers’ Markets
Manoa Marketplace Honolulu 7–11 a.m.
MONDAYS Manoa Valley District Park (People’s Open Market) 2721 Kaaipu Avenue, Honolulu 6:45–7:45 a.m.
Waikiki Farmers’ Market Waikiki Community Center Parking Lot 7 a.m.–1 p.m.
Mother Waldron Park (People’s Open Market) 525 Coral Street, Honolulu 10:15–11 a.m.
WEDNESDAYS Palolo Valley District Park (People’s Open 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.
City Hall Parking Lot Deck (People’s Open Market) Alapai & Beretania Street, Honolulu 11:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Queen Kapiolani Park (People’s Open Market) Monsarrat and Paki Street, Honolulu 10–11 a.m.
Hawaii Kai Towne Center Kalanianaole Highway at Keahole Street, Honolulu 7:30 a.m.–3 p.m.
Hawaii Kai Towne Center Kalanianaole Highway at Keahole Street, Honolulu 7:30 a.m.–3 p.m.
TUESDAYS Waiau District Park (People’s Open Market) 98-1650 Kaahumanu Street, Pearl City 6:30–7:30 a.m.
THURSDAYS Waimanalo Beach Park (People’s Open Market) 41-741 Kalanianaole Highway, Waimanalo 7:15–8:15 a.m.
Makiki District Park (People’s Open Market) 1527 Keeaumoku Street, Honolulu 8:30–9:30 a.m.
The Kailua Thursday Night Farmers’ Market Kailua town 5–7:30 p.m. behind Longs on 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. Pokai Bay Beach Park (People’s Open Market) 85-037 Pokai Bay Road, Waianae 11–11:45 a.m. Fort Street near Wilcox Park Honolulu (In front of Macy’s) 8 a.m. –2 p.m. Waikiki Farmers’ Market Waikiki Community Center Parking Lot 7 a.m. –1 p.m. 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.
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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 11:15 a.m. –Noon
Manoa Marketplace Honolulu 7–11 a.m.
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.
Hawaii Kai Towne Center Kalanianaole Highway at Keahole Street, Honolulu 7:30 a.m. –3 p.m. SUNDAYS Kapolei Community Park (People’s Open Market) 91-1049 Kamaaha Loop, Kapolei 7–8:30 a.m. Royal Kunia Park-n-Ride (People’s Open Market) Kupuna Lp/Kupohi Street, Waipahu 9:30–11 a.m.
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Farmers’ Market of Maui-Honokowai Hawaiian Motors parking lot (across from Honokowai Park) 7 a.m. –11 a.m. Maui Mall Farmers’ Market & Craft Fair Maui Mall, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m.
Country Market & Craft Fair Waimanalo Homestead Community Center 1330 Kalanianaole Hwy. 9 a.m.–4p.m.
The Maui’s Fresh Produce Farmer’s Market Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center (center stage area) Kaahumanu Avenue, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m.
Maui Farmers’ Markets
THURSDAY Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Rd. 8 a.m.–4 p.m.
MONDAY Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Rd. 8 a.m.–4 p.m. Farmers’ Market of Maui-Honokowai Hawaiian Motors parking lot (across from Honokowai Park) 7–11 a.m.
Waialua Farmers’ Market Waialua Sugar Mill 8:30 a.m. –Noon
Waikele Community Park (People’s Open Market) Waipahu 11:30 a.m. –12:30 p.m.
The Mililani Sunday Farmers’ Market at Mililani High School 95-1200 Meheula Parkway, Mililani High School Parking Lot 8 a.m. –Noon
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 Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Rd. 8 a.m.–4 p.m. WEDNESDAY Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Rd. 8 a.m.–4 p.m.
edible hawaiian islands
FRIDAY Farmers’ Market of Maui-Kihei Suda Store parking lot on South Kihei Rd. 8 a.m. –4.00 p.m. The Maui’s Fresh Produce Farmer’s Market Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center (center stage area) Kaahumanu Avenue, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m. Farmers’ Market of Maui-Honokowai Hawaiian Motors parking lot (across from Honokowai Park) 7 a.m.–11 a.m. Maui Mall Farmers’ Market & Craft Fair Maui Mall, Kahului 7 a.m.–4 p.m. SATURDAY Maui Swap Meet Puunene Avenue next to the Kahului Post Office 6 a.m.–1 p.m.
ADVERTISER DIRECTORY Aloha Canvas 4263 Halenani Street, Lihui, HI 96766 808-241-1357 mark.alohacanvas@hawaiiantel.net
Hawaiian Woodworks Custom Cabinetry & Furniture George Cudworth 6351-F Unit 4-B • Lala Road Lihue, HI 96766 • 808-635-7833 iww.george@hawaiiantel.net
Aloha Spice Company Available at Banana Patch Hanapepe: 808-335-5944 & Kilauea: 808-828-6522 www.alohaspice.com
Icing on the Cake 808-823-1210 www.icingonthecakekauai.com
Aurora Fund PO Box 565 Kilauea, HI 96754 808-828-0893 www.theaurorafoundation.org
Kaua`i Products Store Fine Locally Made Products Kukui Grove Shopping Center Kapa`a, Kaua`i • 808-246-6753
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
Kau Hale Cottage Hawaiian Style w/Panoramic Views 808-639-3867 www.kauhalecottage.com
Caffe Coco Casual Garden Dining Wailua, Kaua`i • 808-822-7990
Kilauea Fish Market 4270 Kilauea Rd. Kilauea, Kaua’i 808-828-6244 Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–8 p.m.
Cake Clothing *Accessories * Gifts Kong Lung Center Kilauea, Kaua’i 7 days a week 808-828-6412
Kilauea Town Market 2474 Keneke St. Kilauea, Kaua’i 808-828-1512 Daily 8:30 a.m.–8 p.m.
Claseric Custom Laser Center info@claseric • www.claseric.com
KKCR Kauai Community Radio PO Box 825 Hanalei, Kaua’i 96714 Listener Supported 808-826-7774 • www.kkcr.org
Garden Ponds Mauka of Banana Joe’s Kilauea, Kauai Classes: “Secrets of Water Gardening” 808.826.6400 • gardenpondskauai.com gia designs Fine Interiors ~ Custom Furniture ~ Color Consulting Roberta Jones • 808.639.8266 rmj.kauai@hawaiiantel.net Ginger Boutique Best Bikini’s * Coolest Brands Kilauea, Kaua`i • 808-652-9057 Hanalei Dolphin Restaurant & Fish Market 5-5016 Kuhio Hwy. Hanalei, Kaua’i 808-826-6113
Koa Properties 808-651-1777 • www.koakauai.com Pure Kauai 866-457-7873 • www.purekauai.com Lola Pilar Art & Graphix PO Box 232 Kilauea, Kaua’i Cell: 808-635-4047 Lolapilart.com • lolacooper@hotmail.com Joan Namkoong Food Lovers Guide to Honolulu at your favorite book store Natural Health Clinic 3093 Akahi Street, Lihue, Kaua`i 808-245-2277
North Country Farms An Organic Family Farm And Tropical B&B Cottages www.northcountryfarms.com One Love 11 917-345-6072 www.onelove11clothing.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. Hanalei 5-5161 Kuhio Hwy. Hanalei, Kaua’i • 808-826-0089 7 days 9 a.m.–8 p.m. www.papayasnaturalfoods.com Po’ipu Beach Estates Terry P. Kamen Call for a Tour 808-651-0071 www.poipubeachestates@yahoo.com Slow Food Hawai`i Island—Nancy Piianaia Nap2@flex.com Kaua’i—Patrick Quinn Icingonthecake.Kauai@gmail.com O’ahu—Laurie Carleson laurie@honoluluweekly.com Strings & Things Ching Young Village Hanalei, Kaua’i Yarn to Ukuleles • 808-826-9633 The Wine Garden 4495 Puhi Road, Lihu’e, Kaua’i Fine Wine, Vintage Port Hand-Rolled Kaua’i Cigars Tues.–Sat. 10 a.m.–6:30 p.m. 808-245-5766 Times Supermarkets At Home in the Islands O`ahu
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Cherimoya
what is it & how do you eat it?
Cherimoya, (annona cherimol) considered one of the best-tasting fruits in the world, Mark Twain called the cherimoya “deliciousness itself.� The taste is sort of a cross between papaya, banana and mango. How to eat it: The rich, creamy pulp has a custard like texture, and is usually eaten fresh, out of hand. However, you can cut your cherimoya in half lengthways and either: scoop out spoonfuls, or peel and cut into cubes and add to fruit salads. They are also The seeds are NOT to be eaten.
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edible hawaiian islands
Photos by G. Natale
great cold from the freezer and eaten like ice-cream.