Discovering New Traditions

Our First Christmas in Hawaii.

Subtitle: Are we supposed to eat this?

You can tell a lot about a culture by the items featured at the ends of aisles in grocery stores. For example, in Havana, Florida where we lived for 9 years (for you non-Floridians, Havana is a rural suburb of Tallahassee), the aisles of the Harvey's store were alternately capped with massive stacks of collard greens and smoked ham hocks-pig cheeks-pigs feet, and bags of masa corn flower and fresh queso. At a FreshMart in Northeast Tallahassee, you'll find artfully arranged piles of pistachios, belgian chocolates, organic strawberries and arugala.

At the KTA in Hilo, aisle ends are filled with "things" that look like a white hat, with a tangerine on top, tied up with a pretty gold bow. All the packaging is printed in Japanese, only the nutritional information on the bottom gives a hint that this is a food item. Wait! I see an English word-Mochi! Mmmm! I love mochi. This must be some kind of Japanese New Year tradition. I'll buy the $4 one (they go up to $20, weighing about 8 pounds). See below for my own adventures in home made mochi. Anyway, I crack it out of it's covering to discover a rock hard clump of pounded rice, devoid of all moisture. I saw off a hunk and nibble.... blech, slpt, spit it out! It's like wax! Who eats this stuff?

Well, after a little research, I discover that these rice cakes are made by pounding glutinous sweet rice, then stacked and used as offerings to household gods. Hilo having a very large Japanese population. So now I'm thinking the checkout girl was wondering if I was a convert to Shintoism or something. And apparently, you're supposed to boil it in a soup after Jan. 15. It becomes very sticky, hard to chew and people die from it every year. There is even a warning inside.

Perhaps in the future I should do my research in advance of making potentially dangerous food purchases. I'm picturing a foreign visitor to America, intrigued by the fresh smelling pine trees on sale in early December, buying one, taking it home, chopping it up, boiling it and trying to eat it. Maybe it needed more salt?

So-back to Christmas. My mom is visiting from Maui. We bought a new couch for her to sit and sleep on. The old futon frame was popping springs and was literally a bed of nails. She and Dash are hanging out all day reading, playing catch outside, and playing with new Christmas toys.

We drove to South Point today (you guessed it, it's the Southernmost point in the 50 States), very windy-even has a wind farm. We had to make a stop at the famous Punalu'u Bakery in Na'alehu for some Mango Cheesecake.

Gifts. Dean got me 4 new tires for our car. I got him a new battery and an oil-change for our car. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like massive auto repair.

Christmas Dinner. We had a ham, because they don't sell Turkey for Christmas here. Or maybe they do but I failed to order it back in October.

Other Food Adventures. I made sushi for breakfast last week.

Adventures is Mochi. Mochi, mochi, how can I describe you. There's mochi (pounded sweet rice, hardened, utterly flavorless), and then there's MOCHI. It's rice flour, sugar, fruit flavoring, soft and chewy, sometimes stuffed with bean paste (reminiscent of black-eyed peas), sometimes stuffed with chocolate. Look at these two pictures and see if you can tell which is my attempt. Hint: I have not published a book on Mochi.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..

Mele Kalikimaka

We just survived a nasty storm, non-stop rain for 4 days, over 20 inches, accompanied by high winds and blasting thunderstorms. But when it all cleared up, we were surprised with snow on both our mountains. This pic is Mauna Loa, I just drove around the corner to get a good shot of it this morning. Now it's pouring rain again, with thunder.

Dash has been home with a sore throat the last 2 days. A friend gave us a bag of about 14 DVD's of family movies so he is okay. I just finished a community Christmas party, the "Kilauea Kalikimaka." Complete with the hula team from our church, and a Hawaiian Santa.



We enjoyed a festive Thanksgiving at our next door neighbors. It was a traditional turkey dinner, but we did get to play ukulele and sing afterwards. I sang all 2 of the Hawaiian songs I know. Dean strummed along on his new ukulele that I got him for his birthday.


And Dash got baptised! Most of our church drove to Hilo and had a big party (with lots more ukulele and singing of course). I love this picture of all of us holding hands, overlooking Hilo Harbor. And below is Wendell, our ukulele teacher. We had a huge potluck afterwards, with kalua pork. Somebody brought coleslaw so I made a pork sandwhich that was almost like Sonny's BBQ, but without the sauce. I'm seriously craving Sonny's BBQ..
School gets out this week for the holidays and doesn't start again for 3 weeks. Dash just finishd his first big project on the Hopi Indians, including a 3-page report, a poster, and a papier-mache model of a pueblo (with the help of Dean).

I think we're officially in the rainy season now. And it's getting colder, it was in the 40s yesterday morning. But it does warm up to the 60s during the day. My Mom's coming over for Christmas--so I have to run out and buy a new couch!