Cook: Surf and Turf

The disappointment on my dinner cruise along the Na’Pali coast was the filet mignon and broiled shrimp served. My jaw dropped when I heard a server tell the cook that a client said it was the best meal he had ever eaten on the island. No way. Tourist food is the mediocre. And they served a typically premixed sweeter Mai Tai than my lower calorie version of passion fruit juice and sparkling coconut pineapple water with dark rum.        

After my vacation, I planned on grilling proteins and homegrown vegetables for a meal that would be an improvement on that cruise dinner.

And so last night, I charcoal grilled my version of surf and turf: ribeye steak and salmon along with grilled zucchini and yellow squash as well made a tomato salad (vegetables all came from our garden). I wonder if I retired to Hawaii, could I grow a lot of our meals like I do here on the mainland?                    

I was complimented by the hubs on my surf and turf, for I had not overcooked the steak (medium rare), nor the salmon (likewise medium rare). And rather than a bagged salad with cherry tomatoes all shipped from California to Hawaii, my salad were gorgeous heirloom tomatoes (Berkeley Tie Dye, Taxi and Green Zebra) sprinkled with salt and chopped basil and drizzled with organic olive oil and balsamic vinegar.                               

Twas a good day swimming and sunning by the pool followed by a nourishing and delicious dinner.

Cook: Spamsilog

I’m still in vacation mode as I was in Kauai by cooking elaborate fried rice breakfast, but this time it’s Spam instead of Portuguese sausage. And our homegrown tomatoes instead of the flavorless beefsteak or hothouse of the island. Strange that a better tomato can’t be grown on a tropical island.    

And I did buy that cute petite yakitori grill which fits perfectly in a kitchen drawer.                                         

I suppose I don’t need a food processor if I have a Vitamix blender—the only appliance on my kitchen counter.

Post-vacation Rest

The highlight of my island trip was the sailing along the Na'pali coast.

And I also loved the smell of the plumeria and gardenias, but also the sight of hibiscus blooms like the one pictured above. I remember only scarlet hibiscus in the Puerto Rico of my childhood. En route home, I was famished and gave in to eating a breakfast sandwich at the airport, but this jalapeno hot sauce on the table that I kept pouring on my sandwich was delicious and I vowed to find some more of it to eat at home.

And I’m back. Ironically an island paradise was not restful for me because I slept so poorly. I blame an uncomfortable fold-out sofa mattress and having a roommate though Julie was very hospitable and generous to share her VRBO with me. I just relax more in solitude. Nevertheless I do enjoy travel for discovery and experiences I wouldn't normally enjoy at home, and the boogie boarding and hiking and sightseeing and beaching were definitely fun. But travel also makes me miss and immensely grateful for home. I asked hubs to sauté summer squash from our garden to eat with the leftover spaghetti and meatballs still in the fridge.                                      

And I love the variety of colors in hubs' latest floral arrangements.

As I did in Hawaii, I listen to NPR and discovered this Fresh Air episode I missed while traveling.

While sailing the Na'pali coast, I talked to the cook, Garrett who relocated to Kauai from Dallas. My face must have fallen when I asked him if he was vaccinated and he replied no and that he thought he was pretty safe from the virus being on the island. I didn't verbalize my judgment, but I wonder if his attitude is because he's from Texas where cases of COVID are on the rise especially among the unvaccinated. 

Kauai is not a destination for shopping though I did buy T-shirts and chocolate for the hubby and coffee and rum for myself. While replenishing my pantry yesterday and on the search for that hot sauce I tasted at a Phoenix airport, I bought island booze since I didn't get to sip brews or listen to Hawaiian music at Kalapaki Joe's.                    

 

I fell in love with this tiny grill. If it ever goes on sale, I will definitely buy it and grill Filipino bbq sauced skewers of pork.

I also found the bottle of rose that was recommended to me at the wine shop in Koloa. My friend, Julie asked how much it cost on the mainland and was a bit shocked at the difference. But yeah everything including a lot of foods are shipped to an island, and proprietors there have to make a living too, so I don't balk at paying more in Hawaii. Whereas it cost me $21.99 at that wine shop, it cost $13.99 at BevMo (Total Wines and More was out of it).

But I was grateful for that couple who owned the wine shop and their recommendation of that rose as well as their gift of my airport reading (I posted a review of Oona Out of Order: a Novel on GoodReads). I also bought dark rum to make mai tais with the passion fruit juice and coconut pineapple sparkling water while shopping to replenish my pantry. I had also bought a gallon of spumoni ice cream, but I'm craving a more gourmet ice cream flavor.

I'll likely pick up Sea Salt with caramel ribbons for the hubs and the honey lavender for myself.

Cook: Silog

If you go to a Filipino breakfast cafe, it will typically serve “silogs” or garlic-fried rice (made from leftover rice served at dinner the night before) and eggs and a side of meat like Spam or longanisa (sausage) or tocino (bacon)—hence called logsilog or tosilog. And so I’ve been cooking silog breakfasts for my host here in Kauai but with a Hawaiian staple of Portuguese sausage. I’ve tried two brands now on the island, my favorite is from Redondo’s.     

And I picked up the habit of taming down the sugar in fruit juice with sparkling water when I traveled long ago in Germany (juice and sparkling water there is called schorle). Lilikoi or passion fruit has always been my favorite flavor, and I loved drinking it in an island environment.

Cook: Poke Appetizers

Dinner last night was basically all the pokes I bought from the seafood counter at Safeway: mussels, garlic shrimp, scallops, spicy ahi tuna and wasabi ahi tuna. And the sunset view for my meal was stunning.  And so were the vistas on today’s hike on the Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail, which I entered from Shipwreck's Beach.          

           

Rest and Relax: Kauai

I guess I created my own quilt getaway by persuading a friend to let me crash at her VRBO condo in Koloa, Kauai.                  

And the views of course on the garden island are spectacular. I especially love trying to live like the locals. With restaurants only slowly reopening after a pandemic and at a reduced capacity, and because I love cooking anyway I’ve been making breakfast and supper for me and the roommate. I also have been trying to support the local economy by bringing back souvenirs like chocolates, rum, and coffee.                         

Most frequent travelers to Hawaii (aka the Asians I know) go to Costco to pick up food to cook from their vacation condos, but since I was only to be in Kauai for a few days, smaller grocery stores were fine plus a chance for me to consciously buy local. Last night I wanted to grill—my favorite cooking method. I shopped at the grocery store, Big Save Market the first night I came here where I bought wasabi ahi AND spicy ahi poke, a bag of jasmine rice, a tomato and a bunch of green onions, a dozen eggs, and a couple of Portuguese sausages. A couple days later at Foodland, I bought Hawaiian bread and chicken drumsticks. And the next day at Safeway, I bought lettuce and the local rum as well as lots of poke.

My friend Julie told me she doesn't like zucchini which she said she had to eat as a kid. I think my method of grilling it changed her mind about the vegetable. And I had been longing for salads after so much rice for breakfast.

I almost forgot to serve the jasmine rice with the grilled chicken. Also I had made additional glaze for the chicken by boiling down soy sauce and lilikoi syrup.

And of course we ate dinners from the balcony after I had shown Julie how to use the propane grill in the shared community space of the condo.

Remember when I said I bought lots of poke? I went a bit nuts at the fish counter, where I told the guy behind it that I was like a kid in a candy store. I was used to only at the most 3 kinds of poke in my home city's Safeway.

I was keen to try EVERY kind of poke there was and wish I were there longer in Kauai to do so. And so I decided on the scallops,

the mussels,

the garlic shrimp,

as well as more wasabi tuna which I consumed though I still had spicy ahi poke at home. Really there was no need to go to a farmers market because I bought enough poke to make rice bowls for lunches or dinners. However, Julie’s not really into poke, so I had also bought a salmon to grill for tonight’s dinner.

Cloth: Christmas in July

Before flying off to Kauai, I thought I’d finish a couple sewing projects. I stuffed these toy dogs and stitched them close.                                  

It only took me three years, and I’ve since lost touch with the babies I was going to give them to, but another grandniece was born during the start of the pandemic, and sheesh , she’s already over 16 months old. And so I’ll be mailing my Xmas in July present when I return from my Hawaiian vacation. I also pondered what color pink stripes from my Kona collection to sew into a pillow that will coordinate with a pillow of coral stripes.                                

I think these pinks will work, and I will cut and stitch these  stripes on the Saturday of my return. While hanging up the completed coral striped pillow I just finished, I found this Christmas table runner in progress. I thought I had finished it along with a matching tree skirt. Nope. Its sandwich still had yet to be quilted, which I finished this morning.                                

I love, love, love it, but was stumped on how to attach the 2-inch binding I cut and pressed to its ends which are basically two triangles, making the runner a long hexagonal shape. YouTube to the rescue, and so this is another Christmas project for me to resume before the end of my summer break. Basically the video tutorial calls for lining up the raw egg of the binding against the raw egg of the quilt. But instead of folding a triangle in the binding to sew over the corner of a square or rectangle, you lower the raw edge of the binding a little ways down from the raw edge of the quilt and then snip an 1/8 inch which will be stitched down before lining up the raw edges of both the binding and the quilt before hitting another hexagonal corner. Makes sense to my brain right now, and hopefully I’ll remember and know exactly how to stitch when I pick this project back up. I’d also like to attach a firing of mini Pom poms on this runner like I did on its matching Christmas skirt.