Our Island Plate

More Maui adventures

Wanda — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:25:37 +0000

Spent a long weekend on Maui, which explains the blog-less days of last week. My mother’s home is Internet-free. Every time I go there, I suffer severe withdrawal, though not quite severe enough to send me to Starbucks (or Wailuku Coffee Co.) every day. Best meal, home division: The shabbat (Sabbath) spread I put on [...]

A tale of kale

Wanda — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:37:09 +0000

Boy was I proud of myself on Valentine's Day! For a while, anyway. I planned a red main dish: Indian butter chicken, which has a tomato-based sauce, accompanied by cardamom rice (1 cup long grain rice, steamed with 2 cups water, a tablespoon of g

A trip to Babylon — the imagined and the real

Wanda — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:06:50 +0000

When the new Safeway opened on Beretania, I approached with caution. I used to live in Makiki and the old store conveniently shared a parking lot with my bank. It was right-sized, neither dauntingly big, like Costco, nor cramped, like Foodland Bereta

Planting the seeds of agricultural change in the Islands: ‘Ingredients Hawai’i’

Wanda — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:45:32 +0000

Twenty years after the Hawaii Regional Cuisine chefs group set out to improve the numbers, we still import 92 percent of the food eat here in Hawai'i. But that can be changed. It should be. It will be. That was a central message Saturday night

Local food deep-fried and supersized: It’s good to be bad

Wanda — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:06:23 +0000

OOOOPS! I thought I posted this Thursday night. So here it is!... PLEASE NOTE: I posted twice today — see the one before this if you like caramel and butterscotch! Having savored a melting misoyaki butterfish on the Valley Isle, I wanted to

True confessions and the final cut

Wanda — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:03:56 +0000

True confessions. I've never been to Punahou Carnival. And yet again, this year, I'm not going (got a cooking class coming up and story deadlines). But today, I'm making Punahou Caramel Cuts, like penuche candy, only in cooking form. I love pe

Thoughts on housewifery . . . and the perfect vacuum cleaner

Wanda — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:24:28 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot about housekeeping lately as I ponder a young friend who will soon leave for college and doesn’t have a clue of how to care for a living space. Raised by a grandmother who thought I’d be a housewife whatever else I ach

Bean there, ate that — rediscovering a snack that grows wild

Wanda — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:59:00 +0000

The men in my family — both on the Portuguese and the English-Irish sides — are enthusiastic storytellers who love nothing better than to capture others' attention, catch them by surprise or even amaze them. My cousin Anthony, 84, a retired A

Brother, can you spare a rib?

Wanda — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:27:45 +0000

I've been wandering many recipe roads in the past few days: researching school-days dishes from the '40s-'70s, brainstorming a cooking course I'll be helping with at Grand Cafe & Bakery in March that will include some homey, old-style prepara

Forgotten fruit?

Wanda — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:15:50 +0000

An upcoming recipe competition on the Big Island will celebrate Hawai'i's largely unappreciated one-time staple, ulu or breadfruit (see details below). Breadfruit, starchy, bland but filling, wasn't Hawaiians' favorite; they preferred kalo (