the alaska of the tropics, part two (big island)

P:

So, Alaska. I mean, Hawaii. I mean ... We (inevitably) got a little long-winded in our post about the first island we visited, which meant that I didn't get to explaining the title. Well, guess what? The title only gains more clarity on the Big Island.

As we drove along the edge of Kailua on our last day on Oahu, I suddenly had an insight (!) that Hawaii was a lot like somewhere I'd been before: Alaska. Maybe it's their isolation from the continental 48. Maybe it's that both states tendered prominent political candidates this year. Maybe it's their similar climates. Wait, scratch that - it's actually hard to put my finger on what exactly gave me that idea. But there are some similarities between the two states that are worth pointing out:

-a disenfranchised native population that's a tourist-draw (totem poles and luaus)
-incredible natural beauty
-rich and hearty local cuisine (moose? plate lunch?)
-senior citizens on tour buses (and cruise ships)
-blue tarps (seven out of ten homes in both states have a plastic tarp covering some sort of junk in the front yard - it's an empirical fact)

Granted, a place like Waikiki is a far cry from "The Last Frontier" to the North, but we did an admirable job of avoiding the touristy resorts and sticking to a little more of an off-the-beaten-path trip, making my comparison a bit more understandable. In the end, Alaska and Hawaii boast their own quirky cultures, where people lead lives unique from anywhere else in the states. I mean, where else would A have run off first thing in the morning in her pajamas to pick giant, tropical fruit from the top of a fence off of a neighbor's tree? Yeah, it probably wouldn't have been Alaska, but my point remains: Alaska = Hawaii.

A:

We had papaya trees in our front yard. Having arrived at our rental in the middle of the night, I first glimpsed the trees when I awoke the next morning. I picked the first papaya right off of our back lanai, but it was a small, under-ripe specimen and I knew it must be only the beginning. Thus, I set off to explore the rest of our acreage, and came back with two enormous, deliciously ripe papaya.

I don't know what came over me, really - it was as if my true, animal nature came bursting out of me and I had to hunt and gather. So, I hunted the best papayas (which just so happened to be right beyond our fence on neighboring land)...and once I found them, I gathered. Below, you will see the fruits of my labor.


Papaya is particularly good eaten cold, but we were so excited to try the fresh-picked fruit that we sliced one right open. The perfume was intoxicating, almost overwhelming.
Perfectly ripe and seductively sweet, I can safely say that I have never in my life tasted a better papaya. We devoured the fruit in a matter of minutes, and I was hungry for more.

As we drove into Kona later that morning, I noticed a sign for the South Kona Fruit Stand and immediately requested a detour. Though the smoothie bar and cafe were closed, the stand had plenty of exotic fruits for sale, most grown organically next door. Struck with the idea that I probably would not return to a tropical island in the forseeable future, I loaded up on everything in sight - local Ka'u oranges, Rangpur limes, butter pear avocados, mangos, organic estate-grown coffee, abiu, and haupia/lilikoi (coconut pudding with passionfruit). The pudding was a nice, mid-morning snack, as all of the fruit was a day or two from ripeness. The abiu - small, yellow fruit with a translucent flesh that has the texture of lychee and the sweet, rich flavor of vanilla pudding - were the most unlike any other fruit I've tried. Our bags bulging with treats, we trekked off to find snorkeling gear for P's introduction to the sport.

P:

As the storm clouds gathered closer to shore, we suited up for my inaugural foray out snorkeling. Even though it may make me a weenie, I'm not a big fan of swimming in lakes - the feeling of plants and fish brushing past me in the murky waters just gives me the jeeblies. So, to put it mildly, I was withholding judgment on snorkeling. It remained to be seen whether I'd be better with non-pool swimming if I could see with whom I was sharing the waters, or if it was best left to my imagination.

We'd been steered towards a sheltered bay that boasted a lava rock shoreline and a historic park: Pu'uhonua o Honaunau. The waves slapped me against rocks as I fumbled with my flippers, before I made an ungainly plunge out into the waters. Holy. Crap. That is one strange, claustrophobic feeling to be breathing underwater, through a tube, with your eyes wide open. But wow, did I see some cool fish: puffer fish, trumpetfish and too many butterfly fish to count. At about the same time as I reached my limit for swimming with the fishes, a torrential thunderstorm broke over the coast. I'd just climbed out of the waters, but A (a true lover of the sort of quiet time that snorkeling affords) was drifting further and further out, oblivious to the weather. She did eventually look up from her aquatic reverie to realize we were calling her back to shore.


In October, we read a feature in Gourmet magazine about 20 great American restaurants from when the magazine was founded that are still going strong. Among them was the Manago Hotel, in Captain Cook, Hawaii, not far from where we'd been snorkeling. We'd called ahead that day to make a reservation, since the place still operates on plantation hours, meaning you need to be in by 7:30 pm to be served. The hotel dining room was not nearly as stately as that phrase makes it sound, but it was awesomely kitschy and probably hasn't changed since the day it opened. On the wood-paneled walls, a felt letter board menu listed the entrees and while almost everyone at the table ordered some local fish, I took the article advice and ordered the house special: a gravy-drenched pork chop.

Everyone at a table shared the family-style side sides, which came out with a pot of genmaicha tea before the rest of the meal. Sugary-sweet black-eyed peas, pasta salad, steamed vegetables and lots of white rice - island food circa 1950. With liberal dosings of soy sauce, we devoured most of the plates before our main courses even arrived. My pork chop was pretty delicious, covered as it was with a brown gravy and pan-seared on the bone, but A's choice of opelu, a less-fishy mackerel, caught all of our notice as the best-tasting fish at the table.

On our way back to our house that evening, we made a short detour to the southernmost bar in the US, Shaka Restaurant in Na'alehu. I don't mean to be a spoil sport, but they are resting on a tenuous claim - they're at least a few miles from the very southern tip of Hawaii. If someone wanted to be a huge jerk, that crown is there for the taking. Other than that, there's not much else to say on that front other than that my beer did taste very southern.

A:

Our third and final day on the Big Island was volcano day. After a breakfast of cold papaya, linguisa, and toast with jaboticaba jam (grapes that grow out of the trunks of trees - my brother's find at the fruit stand), we set out for a black sand beach. Punalu'u beach is known for the presence of endangered sea turtles, that often drift onto dry land to sunbathe on the warm sand. We were lucky enough to see three while we were there - surrounded, of course, by tourists trying to get there picture taken with the turtles. It always astounds me when people blatantly ignore both posted rules and common sense, standing within inches rather than the suggested fifteen feet from the basking animals. I'll admit that I am particularly attentive to rules - perhaps I should be an officer of the law when I grow up? - but, seriously, regardless of regulations, is it that difficult to understand that standing nearly on top of living creatures might distress them in some way? And that maybe if you distress these turtles too much, you might not have a turtle to take your picture with next time around?


Off of my soapbox, and onto lunch. On our way into Volcano National Park, we stopped to grab food in a small town that was rumored to have outstanding malasadas. Unfortunately, the donuts were only available on the weekends, but the rest of the food at the unassuming cafe was surprisingly tasty. I briefly contemplated a hamburger made with local, grass fed beef, but eventually settled on the loco moco with fish. Traditionally consisting of white rice topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg and brown gravy, ours replaced the patty with a cut of fish. Looking back, I wish I'd gotten the patty, but the meal was still a satisfying way to prepare for a hike through a lava crater.

Kilauae Ika erupted in 1959 and formed a lava pool at the base of the crater. The cooled lava now provides a short, scenic hike that begins and ends in rainforest and allows you to trek across the floor of the crater. We had lots of fun muttering from above about stupid tourists getting too close to the steam vents in the crater, only to head straight for them once we reached the floor. We even took a family photo next to one of them. It's always particularly touching when a family risks severe burns while posing for next year's Christmas photo.


As late afternoon wore on, we drove out to the edge of the park where you could watch eruption meet ocean. Before dusk, the site is impressive enough - as you drive up through the lava fields and hike over cooled lava coils toward the viewing area, a HUGE, billowing steam cloud looms ahead. Every so often, a spray of rocks shoots into the air and the crowd collectively "ooohs". As dusk settles and the sun sets, however, the real show begins. The base of the steam cloud begins to glow red, and the shooting rocks become red sparks that burst into the sky. These were far and away the best New Year's fireworks I have yet to see.

P: That night, with the spoils of a surprisingly good local grocery store and farmer's market, we made up a hodge-podge dinner to celebrate New Year's Eve. Thai fish curry to take advantage of the local produce; hoppin' john for some New Year's fortune. After a long day of volcano hikes, everyone began to crash by 10:30, but not before A could run outside with a coconut, a dull machete and a few glasses of wine in her. Looking back, I can not believe I let her tippsily hack at coconut in the dark, but then again, I was distracted by the sparklers. Between her efforts and her mom's even-more-nerve-wracking chopping, they split the outer husk and set to work boring out a hole for the juice. With the help of a lava rock, they split the fruit for everyone to taste and I remembered that I don't really like fresh coconut all that much. Thanks for your hard work, sweetie! It probably wouldn't have been a good end to the trip to lose her finger in Hawaii.

the alaska of the tropics, part one (oahu)

A -
P was not thrilled that we were headed to Hawaii. From everything he'd heard, people who went to Hawaii spent half their time tanning (as many of you know, we don't really "tan") and the other half golfing (golf? we prefer croquet). Besides, Hawaii over the winter holidays? Isn't it all so very cliche?

All of his skepticism changed when our Hawaiian airlines flight attendants began slipping local words into their presentations, and P realized that words like "mahalo" and "wiki wiki" were incredibly fun to repeat. Even (especially) when they made no sense.

A: Would you like to rent a personal entertainment device for the long flight?
P: mele kalikimaka
A: You don't even know what you're saying
P: mahalo

At least it kept him entertained for the flight.

P -
I'll admit it: I was embarrassed to be headed to Hawaii for the holidays. It felt like the polar (tropical?) opposite of our standard vacations - no grimy city streets; no crumby weather; no urban culture; no long, meandering walks through questionable neighborhoods to find a food cart. I'm not really a "sit-on-the-beach-and-relax" kind of guy. It makes me tense. And seriously, what would we eat? Teriyaki bento?

So, I was surprised at how quickly I embraced the warmth that met us when we got off the plane. It probably had something to do with the sub-arctic weather Portland had gotten over the holidays. Immediately upon landing, I knew Hawaii was completely different from anywhere I'd ever been. The airport corridors were open to the outside weather. Alien-looking plants grew over everything. Vibrant-green, serrated cliffs rose up from the coastal shores. I started to feel as though I could manage a Hawaiian vacation. And we found lunch, which greatly put me at ease.


A month ago, I'd read an article about how Hawaiians were skeptical of their native son, Obama, until they witnessed him tuck into a big plate lunch at a local drive-in. To prove that a skinny, pale Oregonian was ready for the islands, I knew I'd need to try some. Conveniently, L & L Drive Inn was just a few blocks away from our first rental in Kailua. Essentially fast food with a local flavor, L & L offers the building blocks of a standard "plate lunch": protein, two scoops of white rice, and one scoop of macaroni salad. Within seconds of walking in the door, everyone in our entire group had clumsily decided to order the same thing. When our seven cartons of the "Hawaiian Special" were ready, we opened them up and dug in to the lau lau (pork steamed in a taro leaf) and a bastardized version of the luau-favorite kalua pork. Sure, it was probably seasoned with liquid smoke, but I'm not going to lie and tell you I didn't enjoy every mashed-together bite of the macaroni, pork and rice. On our way out, I noticed Spam musubi on the menu, but A held me back from stuffing myself with what is essentially processed meat sushi.

A-
Not that we didn't have Spam later during our trip. To be honest, putting this stuff in writing is making me feel a little ill and more than a little ashamed. But, we were just trying to get closer to our soon-to-be president.

Oddly enough, we were very close to the Obamas during our stay. My father was born in Kailua and the first part of our trip was a family reunion - a homecoming for my grandparents and their children. I had heard, as I'm sure everyone had (come on, who didn't see that picture of our shirtless president elect?) that the Obamas were staying in Kailua. Oahu being an island, and Kailua a small piece of the island, our rental was well under a mile from the Obamas' vacation getaway. I won't pretend that we saw them, but we did see some friendly looking secret service in Hawaiian shirts at one end of the beach we frequented. I wanted to scream, "Obama!!! Shriek!!" but P restrained me. Probably for the best - I would bet the secret service agents were still fairly nimble in flip-flops.

The morning after our arrival, plate lunch still heavy in our bellies, we were greeted with the sweet, slightly greasy smell of malasadas. The malasada is a Portuguese confection - a custardy, craggy donut covered with sugar that is a bit like a dense beignet. You may remember that neither P nor I have a strong love for donuts. These donuts, like those from Donut Plant in NYC, are the exception to the rule. Actually, I think I've come to the realization that I do like donuts - I just don't like crap.


Lest you think we ate only junk food in Hawaii, we did manage to enjoy two very traditional dishes, courtesy of my Hawaiian cousins. Alongside the pizza that had been ordered for our family reunion lunch, one of my cousins had contributed a few tubs of poke - marinated cubes of raw fish, like nigiri doused in tasty sauce - and a few bags of poi, or taro root paste. As a rule, my mainland relatives are not particularly adventurous eaters, but a few of us hovered expectantly over the tubs until they were graciously opened for our tasting pleasure. After running through the line of tubs - poke squid, wasabi tuna, and tuna with limu seaweed - and then trying each once again, it was onto the poi. Having never been to Hawaii, P was a poi neophyte. I have a bit of a soft spot for the slightly sour, purple concoction, but many are put off by its paste-like consistency. P certainly did not turn up his nose, but he admits that it is not something he would run back to try it again. I am holding out for a taste of poi with sugar and cream, as my cousins described. Seriously, how few foods are not better for the addition of those two ingredients?

P-
Despite how we're recounting our trip, it actually didn't revolve around food nearly so much as our typical vacation. Hawaii has a very funny food culture that sort of mashes-up Asian food with American fast food grub. There is a lot of gravy, pork, and rice. Not that any of that is bad, but it didn't give us much to go on. Still, we tried our damnedest to strong arm A's family into indulging our every hunger. For the most part, they gladly went along.

As we left Kailua, we detoured to Island Snow for a cone of shave ice at the Obamas' go-to shop. For a sense of how Obama-crazed the islands are, Island Snow, which doubles as a surf shop, had already reprinted their t-shirts with the 'O' in their name replaced by Obama's election logo.
More patbingsoo than sno-cone, Hawaiian shave ice can come with a scoop of ice cream, adzuki bean topping (sweetened beans found in Asian pastries) and a "sno-cap" drizzle of sweetened condensed-milk. I split mine half-and-half between coconut and lilikoi (passionfruit) and opted for the beans and sno-cap, creating a sugary, brain-freeze of a snack. So good.

After a brief hike up to a lighthouse on the Eastern-most point of O'ahu, we piled back into rental cars with A's family and drove to Honolulu to catch our flight to the big island. Before departing, we took a side trip for a late-afternoon lunch at a Filipino restaurant named Elena's. This place was much more in sync with our usual traveling style: a no-decor, florescent-lit storefront in the light-industrial/strip-mall fringes of the city. Their bathroom policy was stated as, "RESTROOMS IN NEARBY BUS TERMINAL." Classy. But really good. We don't have much experience with Filipino food, but we recently read an article about the cuisine that described it as "the comfort food of Asia," which made it sound worth trying. Owing to a wide range of European influences, Filipino food isn't nearly so spicy or pungent as that of its neighbors and much more reliant on stews and braises.


Enraptured by all of the unfamiliar dishes, we overloaded our table with a little of everything: pinakbet, pork adobo, crispy pork chicharon, banana lumpia, arroz caldo, and a house-special soup called sari-sari. The lumpia, which were little more than apple bananas wrapped in a deep-fried, egg roll wrapper, caused A and I to reconsider our aversion to the fruit. Especially when we dipped them in the ubiquitous seasoned vinegar that accompanied our meals. Even though the arroz caldo I ordered came out too hot to eat (not that I didn't try), I'd wager that it was one of the standouts of the table. A rice porridge of chicken, scallions, and loads of ginger, it was utterly satisfying. I've heard that it's a bad idea to eat mounds of food, particularly greasy food, right before a flight. Fiddlesticks. It worked for us. After all, leftover rice porridge wouldn't have fit in a 3 oz. container for our flight to the Big Island.

nothing to do but bake

It's snowing here. Small, constant flakes that are building up into light, fluffy mounds of snow. This is very unusual for Portland; our typical winter snowstorms consist of wet, sticky snowflakes that melt as soon as they touch the surface and inevitably turn into rain by afternoon. Another casualty of global warming, I suppose - but I can't complain.

Though we tend to ignore Portland's famously unreliable weather predictions, we nevertheless had planned for a full day of indoor activities; we're finishing up our Christmas gifts, and had hoped to attend two holiday cocktail parties this evening, to which we'd promised to bring cookies. One (large) batch of ginger pillows became two, with the leftover egg whites being turned into pink meringues, and with panettone on the menu as well, we had a packed day of baking ahead of us.

We took a brief walk in the morning to feel the snow on our faces and the soft muted thud under our shoes, and chuckled to ourselves as inexperienced winter drivers slowly skated away from the center of the road. At the market a few blocks away, we jostled past other brave souls to grab the much needed sugar for our afternoon pursuits, then trudged back to our home. At the time, the ground cover was going on an inch of snow, which is probably the most I've seen since moving here. Now, as the blizzard continues out our windows and the mounds outside become hefty drifts to our snow-virgin (or just largely abstinent?) eyes, it's becoming less and less likely that we will be able to make it out this evening.

Though I'm a little disappointed to be missing two of the only holiday parties we would have been able to attend this season, there is something undeniably romantic about watching the snow spin past our windows, as the oven warms the kitchen and the smell of baking panettone begins to waft throughout the rest of our apartment. I am looking forward to a lazy afternoon of baking and catching up on movies we've been meaning to see, spiked with a cookie or two and, perhaps, a steamy cup of hot-buttered rum. All of the ingredients necessary for a cozy winter day.

holiday tipples

After last weekend, I think I've realized why politicians repealed Prohibition in December; can you imagine the holidays without drinks?

FRIDAY 8:00 pm

Hot buttered rum and a movie.

Hot Buttered Rum Batter adapted from Lance Mayhew
1 stick butter, room temp
¾ c brown sugar
¼ cup agave nectar
½ tsp cinnamon
pinch salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp clove

Cream the butter in a stand mixer and, with the mixer running, add all additional ingredients and beat at a medium speed until incorporated. Scoop the butter out onto parchment or wax paper and roll into a well-wrapped log. Put it back in the refrigerator to chill until needed.

To make a hot buttered rum, simply slice a good dollop off of the batter, add to a mug with 2 oz of good, aged rum (Mayhew likes Bacardi 8), fill with hot water, stir to incorporate, and enjoy.

SATURDAY 1:30 pm

House Spirits Annual Holiday Booze Bazaar, with tastings of Marteau Absinthe, Ransom Grappas and Old Tom Gin, Sub Rosa Tarragon and Saffron Vodkas, and House's own Aviation gin, Krogstad Aquavit, Medoyeff Vodka and Apothecary Ouzo. A yearly excuse to eat an ungodly amount of free cheese and chocolates while sipping some the best artisan booze in the city.

SATURDAY 4:00 pm

Anchor 2008 Christmas Ale at the Bye & Bye. The beer and the company was better than our friend's unwittingly vegan grilled-cheese.

SATURDAY 7:30 pm

Table-side Spanish coffees at Huber's - Portland's oldest restaurant, specializing in "turkey-based meals." We'd never been and friends of ours thought it'd be fun for the holidays. I wanted to ask the bartender so many silly questions. Do you ever spill? Do you ever burn yourself? Is this why you guys have a carpeted floor? How do you light that match with one hand? Did you have to shave your head for this job?

SUNDAY 10:00 am

House-made eggnog from Moxie Rx. Gathered from around-the-corner in a snow storm, doctored at home with Buffalo Trace.

WEDNESDAY 8:30 pm

Looking at the forecast, tonight feels like a hot toddy evening

why an English mansion would be better than Portland in a blizzard

As the snow whips past the windows outside, we're just thankful for the internet. As long as the power holds out, we'll still have entertainment:

Seriously, though - who dreamed this collaboration up?

Thanks to Monitor Mix.

double-edged sword

All Songs Considered just ran their staff picks for best-of-the-year music. Good banter, a few great picks, and a couple really mediocre selections. Such is the life of a "Best Of" list.

Variations on these lists pop up every month (Best Cheap Eats, Best New Bands, Best Scarves You've Never Heard Of), but they only really come into their own at the year-end. The New York Times Book Review has put forth their top ten books of the year. Too many magazines to count have already compiled their '08 music picks and Pitchfork will post theirs this week.

For editors, I think lists can become addictive - a crutch to rely on for a space-filling fall-back article. Just look at the glossies on grocery store checkout lines. "42 Resolutions for a New You." "9 Wonder Foods to Eat Now." "73 Worst Confessions." You'd think the staff for these places had forgotten how to write headlines that don't include numbers.

I'll provide an exception for year-end lists. "Best-ofs" and "top-tens" are a definite guilty pleasure. I have to admit that I completely understand the love of categorizing things and making lists - I think it fills a human impulse to collect and organize. There is something in declaring "bests" and "favorites" that gives you a sense of ownership over your preferences. With this act, what were simply a group of books or albums become your books or your albums, because you gave them status.

But this also opens you up to deflation. Usually, these sorts of lists are written up by critics and taste-makers, or else by people with too much time on their hands; in short, a group of people with pompous confidence in their own opinions. Consider them a sort of annual, territorial pissing-match, when geeks can assert their dominance by criticizing what others think is cool. Epicurious.com recently declared their ten choices for food trends in '09, which the Portland Mercury readily mocked. And seriously, it's demanding all of my self-control to hold myself back from weighing in on those stupid predictions. Portland, Maine will be the new Portland, Oregon?! Who came up with that gem?

So with the perils in mind, we're going to run the whole gamut of '08 awesomeness and declare our best of everything from the year.

BEST OF AUGHT-EIGHT!
Dove Vivi pizza
Bon Iver
Homemade pickles and jams!
Hot Chip
Cabinet magazine
Doughnut Plant in NYC
The Magnetic Fields in Seattle
Infinite Regress Collective Mix Tape
Discovering Ayer's Creek Farm at the Hillsdale Market
Slow Food Nation
Lykke Li at the Doug Fir
The Chef Studio
O
Mike Daisey
North Portland
Chest freezer (A's choice)
Bike commuting
Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum

repeal day

Last night, I realized that it's been a few months since A and I have made a good drink. For my birthday last year, she took me to a cocktail workshop at Mint/820, which set us off on a heavy-drinking phase that meant lots of sugar syrups and sticky counters and cracked ice. I'm not saying that our heavy-drinking phase ended, just that we got lazier about it. While there's a lot to recommend a chilled cocktail on a hot summer day, a cold beer or a glass of rose wine can be just as refreshing, without all of the fruit-squeezing, measuring and shaking. Not to mention that our liquor cabinet was getting really out of hand.

Frankly, cocktails can be a boozy rabbit hole to fall down; once you get started, the ingredients and demands grow more and more esoteric. You start out learning how to make a simple, slightly embarrassing drink-or-two, like a cosmopolitan or a lemon drop, and soon you're mixing gin flips and scouring your liquor store for batavia arrack to make a 19th-century punch. It didn't take long before I was trying to mist an orange peel through a lit match to burn the citrus esters that would land atop my drink.

With most drinks, I've gotten over this baroque tendency, realizing that Portland has enough good ol' booze experts that it's worth leaving the mixing to more capable hands, with their libraries of tinctures and tonics and obscure liqueurs. But whether A and I go out for a drink or we try to pour one at home, none of this geekery would be possible had time stood still in 1933 and Prohibition remained.


Which is why it is our duty to celebrate Repeal Day on December 5. Maybe it just seems like something that was dreamed up by the Dewar's marketing department, but a lot of good holidays were originally just corporate sales ploys; at least this one provides a better-than-average excuse for a drink. The true beauty of Repeal Day is that while we may recognize it on the 5th of December, it can't be bound by a specific "day" or a "historic moment" - it is a holiday that resides deep inside each of us. In fact, I'll be celebrating Repeal tonight with a manhattan and tomorrow night at the Holiday Ale Fest. I may even celebrate Repeal Day after Friday with a few drinks over the weekend. You see? Repeal Day is only as much of a holiday as we make it.

So nowadays, if I reach for something besides beer or wine, it's normally just a good spirit, neat or on the rocks. But Repeal Day seems to call for something fittingly classy and old-school. Maybe it's time to dust off the cocktail shaker and bust out those brandied cherries we put up this summer. Tis the season.