On one of our last days on Oahu, we looked out the window. Raining again. Phooey. I remember driving around, finding most things were closed… no tourist activities for today – Even the Polynesian Cultural Center, which we had hoped to get to, was shut down to due to the severe weather. !whatever!
Consulted the guidebook again, and found that we just had to get the best macadamia nut pancakes on the island! I was pretty much sure the place would be closed, but I called them and alas, they were OPEN! A little bit of nervousness that we would get stopped on the side of the road by policemen who were blocking off the roads didn’t stop us. We kept going. And we Made It.
Apparently we weren’t the only ones looking for SOMETHING to do on this rainy Hawaiian morning. We had a 45 minute wait outside – none of those handy beeper things to keep you updated… luckily their little waiting area shielded us from the rain. Phew!
After all the hype, we both had to get the famous pancakes with macadamia nut sauce. Oak chickened out and got it on the side – WHATEVER! Eat it like it’s meant to be eaten! (Of course, anyone who knows Oak, knows he’s a big dipper… things like ketchup and syrup NEVER go on top of the food! hellow.)
You can see here what they’re meant to look like – yummy. It was mighty tasty, but otherwise the place was basically like a diner. There was only one waitress, so we never got refills on our drinks or anything. Definitely worth the adventure though!
If we had these pancakes BEFORE the amazing pie, they probably would have gotten a rave review. That pie has ruined me forever.
I was rather excited to watch the Martha daytime talk show when she mentioned that the author of Generation T : 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt was going to be a guest. Surely I would learn some new life-altering tshirt transformation techniques.
So, I tune in, fast forwarding 3/4 of the show (Who cares about a lion-shaped cake? I don’t). Thank goodness for DVR. Anyway, I got to the right segment, and what does the author demonstrate? A Lace-up tshirt!!
If you don’t remember, this was a Queen motifas project: the Queen motifa t-shirt makeover. Hellow! Soooo 2003.
How did I go so long without writing a new entry? I swear, this month has just flown by. I was being so good there for awhile. Well, don’t worry, I will get to installation #3 of the Mac nut series soon.
These Fridays before holiday weekends remind me a lot of sitting in classrooms right before summer vacation. The wonderful weather beckons, but yet, work must be done. At least now I have no view of the windows to make things more difficult, and the air conditioning fools me into thinking that my cubicle is in an everlasting winter.
We have big plans for the Taste of Durham festival this weekend. Even though we’ve been to most of the places that will be vending their fares that day, that’s okay. You can never have enough Locopops or exotic asian selections from Grasshopper.
In addition, we are going to shampoo the carpet. Somehow that doesn’t seem as exciting.
Hilo, instead of being the volcano hike-filled day, ended up being the day of the amazing macadmia nut discoveries.
We were driving around the southern coast of the Big Island, focused on finding a market/restaurant that was described in our borrowed copy of The Big Island: Revealed. We drive around and around, and of course, after asking at a gas station, discovered that the place closed about 2 years ago (Lesson learned: either buy an up-to-date guidebook or call ahead to make sure the place is still open).
It was a happy mistake. We first attempted to eat at the “Westernmost bar in the US (or something like that)” It had some boring-ish pub food on the menu but we were willing to give it a shot, until the waitress informed us that the chef hadn’t shown up yet. Being that it was 12:30pm, and the place technically opened at noon for lunch, we decided that eating there probably wasn’t a good idea.
We drive around some more and find Hana Hou. It’s the local place owned by some hippies that love cooking with fresh, organic food. A much better option than the shady deep-fried-from-frozen pub stuff. I forget the exact dishes we ordered for lunch – I had a noodle dish, and Oak had a sandwich. Both were delicious.
We spotted a big glass case of pies when we walked in, and made sure to save some room for them for after lunch. We had spotted a pie that looked basically like pecan pie, but with macadamia nuts instead. I’m not such a huge fan of the pecan pie (even now, being a semi-Southern belle) but I thought maybe mac nuts would improve the situation.
When the waitress came along to ask if we wanted dessert, we said we were interested in the macadamia nut pie. She asked – which one? Well, we hadn’t realized that Macadmia nut CREAM pie was an option!
So, it arrives. The bottom layer is like the macadamia nut pecan pie-esque mixture we were expecting. Then, the most delicious layer, a macadamia custard-like filling that was to DIE for. Not too sweet, but not bland either. Topped with fresh whipped cream and chopped macadamias.
As you can see in the picture, Oak obviously agrees with the sign – that Hana Hou is “m m m m – GOOD.” We somehow managed to share the piece of pie without getting in an argument over who gets the last bites, etc.
We were sure to ask the waitress if, by chance, they would ever considering shipping their pies to the mainland. Unfortunately, they don’t (even though we’d probably pay a ridiculous price for it!). She said, “Well, you’ll just have to come back!” A thought that we definitely did entertain for awhile – but that’s quite a distance to travel for a piece of pie!
Over the weekend, Nirav was explaining to us how to make an indian dish. He said something like… “So yeah, you have to put a drumstick in there.”
Oak and I look at each other, very confused. Why would Nirav (a vegeterian) be putting a chicken leg into his food? I thought for a moment, that he must be talking about some kind of Morning Star Farms fake chicken product.
He then, of course, had to prove to us that a drumstick wasn’t always made of chicken, but is this long bean that is used to season dishes. Curious.
Surely we couldn’t be the only ones that thought a drumstick was only made of chicken, so Nirav wrote to Slashfood – and lo and behold, it is the
featured article of the morning!
As you probably know, Hawaii is famous for its macadamia nuts. We hadn’t really intended on visiting Mauna Loa, as it’s a huge tourist trap, but we saw it on our way back from Volcanoes national park, so we decided to stop by.
Oh, boy were we impressed. This fine establishment housed not only a rather large nut-centric gift shop, you could take the “factory tour” of the macadamia nut plant!
It all begins with your friendly tour guide “Mac the macadamia nut.” Through a handy video available in 8 languages, you can learn about the process of the picking, sorting, shelling, roasting, salting, packaging, and shipping of macadamia nuts. Through windows on the exterior of the factory, you can look in to see all the machines at work. What a marvel of modern technology!
Our favorite part was the free samples that were being given out at the gift shop. Unlike our friends on the tour busses, we were not on a time limit in which to choose our gifts and sample the macadamia nuts. I made sure to go to the sample bin several times to try the Maui onion, honey roasted, and the chocolate-covered varieties. Never mind the part when the friendly macadamia nut lady yelled at Oak for sampling too many at once. (WHOOPS!)
After all that shopping and sampling, we actually did not purchase anything at Mauna Loa – you could buy their fine goods at the ABC store for about 10% less.
If Mac the macadmia nut was not enough to entertain you, stay tuned. I have two more entries planned on Macadamia nut goodness!
This is entry #2 in my newly founded series on Hawaiian food. (Of course, you remember Entry #1 on Durian, don’t you?).
Most of our honeymoon was in pursuit of odd and wonderful nourishment, mostly because 3/4 of our vacation was a minor monsoon, closing several of the fine national parks, monuments, and hiking trails we had hoped to conquer. (Yes; we drove to the top of Waimea Canyon in Kauai, only to find fog. The top of Haleakala in Maui also had fog. Pearl Harbor was closed on our first attempt due to a national emergency. And so on…)
Not to complain. On the latter half of our trip, we were driving up the east coast of Oahu and we began to see hand-painted signs on the side of the road, claiming that “Fresh steaming laulau” was soon to be had. The informed tourists that we are, I opened up our copy of Oahu Revealed (the Revealed books are a must-have for any Hawaiian traveler):
Laulau: Pork, beef, or fish wrapped in taro and ti leaves, then steamed. (You don’t eat the ti leaf wrapping.)
OK – that certainly sounded like something we could handle! We pull off at the most interesting-looking laulau establishment – this nice trailer facility. (Then again, all the laulau was being sold in trailers.) We could tell that quality cuisine would soon be had because a large group of Hawaiian blue-collar workers were enjoying their lunch and some Budweisers that they had apparently stashed in their work vehicles.
So, we stand there examining the menu for a few minutes, quickily noticing that many of the dishes are plate lunches, that include, among other things, shrimp. Our goal, of course, was the Laulau – that had no other description other than “Laulau” – which, at this point, we thought could be just about anything wrapped up in a leaf. Because Oak is allergic to shrimp, we thought we’d ask what kind of laulau it was – after all, shrimp could be lurking inside.
Bad idea. The proprietor of the fine laulau establishment obviously did not have the best multilingual skills. To respond to our polite question of what kind of laulau it was he replied, “Laualau IS LAULAU!” Uuum, okay. So we decide to ask what is in the laulau. Again…. “Laulau IS LAULAU!”
So, we decide that we’ll just order the damn laulau and I will take the first bite to make sure that there isn’t any shrimp in it. So, we get to our seats, obviously the only tourists at this locals-only establishment, and dig in. I wish I had taken a picture of our laulau, but it seemed terribly embarassing considering the group of workers seemed to be wondering what these two tourists were doing at their hangout. It basically looked like this.
I dug in. Luckily, our laulau did not contain any fruits de mer, so Oak was able to partake. The Laulau itself was exactly as the guidebook described. A rolled up leaf was presented next to some steamed rice and clear rice noodles. I opened up the leaf to reveal pork. I was not particularly impressed; it was fairly bland. To someone who is used to the smoked pork of the Southeast US, steamed pork is disappointing. I did enjoy the steamed rice and clear noodly jobbers that came along for the ride. Oak took one for the team and consumed the majority of the pork.
We spent the remainder of the vacation screaming “Lauau IS LAULAU!” in a broken accent whenever the least bit frustrated.
We had a nice quiet weekend at home. Almost everything we did was related to the growing, preparing, acquiring, and consuming of food.
On Saturday morning, we went strawberry picking. We were not that impressed with the specimens compared to last year. I think it’s because we got a few days of downpours earlier in the week, along with some cool weather that caused the berries to be a little less sweet than we remembered. We’re going to try again in a few weeks to see if we have better luck. (At $1 per pound at pick-your-own, how can we complain?) The strawberries we got did make a delicious topping for waffles made with our new professional-grade waffle maker, and french toast made with Hawaiian sweetbread. Lup lup!
Then, yesterday, we went to the Raleigh farmer’s market. It is so nice to have such a large farmers market within a 15 minute drive. Among some food goods, we bought a couple plants for our container gardening: Rosemary, Lemon grass, and tomato. We also planted some basil and oregano seeds. Hopefully our black thumbs are a thing of the past.
However, we did not research the tomato plant thing ahead of time. Apparently you need an 18-24″ pot for each plant. Hellow! That’s seriously large. I think we have it in a 12″ pot right now. We’ll see what happens…. at least the farmer market is there if we end up killing our poor seedlings. 
