Hawaii Day 5: In Which we Eat Noodles, Jacob scores a surfboard, and Dylan Orders the Worst Shave Ice Ever.

Today we woke up to rain again. Actually, it wasn’t just raining, it was freakin’ POURING. It was raining sideways in a way that makes November in Victoria look like rain kindergarten. It was ridiculous. It was also one of those days when none of us could get our shit together to do anything. We flopped around, looking out the window, sitting down on the couch, making tea, getting up again, looking out the window again.

Finally we decided to get back in the car and find the sun. We had planned to go to Koke’e National Forest Reserve, with a stop at a local saiman (noodle) shop in Lihue.

After driving all around Lihue for forever and a day, and managing to actually drive right past the damn place without knowing it, we finally made it in the door. According to the locals, it is completely packed all the time, regardless of day or time. Today was no different. We stood inside the door forever waiting for a place to come free at the Formica  counters that wound through the room, and watched in amazement as a little old lady boiled, grilled, and fried order after after. Two other women took orders and ‘cleaned’ tables.

We finally got a seat and waited for the waitress, who looked like she may have been in the restaurant since 1964, (that’s her on the right above) to take our order. There isn’t much choice; it’s basically noodles, noodles or noodles, with a couple of variations like shrimp or pork on the side. This is helpful for the Ancient Grumpy Waitress Lady as she doesn’t speak, English or otherwise, unless entirely necessary. She has reduced the whole business of taking orders down to a sharp tipping back of the head/jutting out of the chin motion , in the general direction of the person ordering, combined with a dismissive backhanded wave toward anyone else who may have the nerve to want to order.

So we ordered noodles (just to keep things easy), and waited for them to show up. And waited. Once or twice Ancient Grumpy Waitress Lady came by with something we hadn’t ordered and we tried to explain to her that we hadn’t ordered it. She would frown and either take it back to the kitchen, or give it to some other unsuspecting customer.

 

Eventually, we got our food, and it was definitely worth the wait.

Except for the Spam. That wasn’t on the menu.

The best part was the Lilikoi Chiffon Pie for dessert. SO GOOD.

After lunch, we ended up at the a thrift shop, where Jacob scored himself a ‘new’ shortboard.

Which luckily we could fit in the car.

We still hadn’t found any sun so we carried on driving around the south west coast of the island to Waimea, where it is obligatory to buy a Shave Ice at Jojo’s. They must be absolutely terrible for you, but they do taste good. I had POG and Zoe was into the rootbeer and raspberry.

One little tiny guy in front of me ordered the horrific sounding coffee, lime and blueberry. Or rather, his dad (who I will call Brian) ordered it for him, apparently without thinking if that was a good idea, or if the mom (Kirsten) would approve:

Brian: Yeah I’ll get a strawberry for myself and Dylan here will have a…what did you want Buddy? Coffee, Lime and Blueberry? Yeah he’ll have Coffee, Lime and Blueberry.

Dude: That’s one strawberry and one Coffee, Lime and Blueberry? You sure?

Brian: Yeah thanks that’s good. Right Buddy?

Brief musical interlude while we wait for Brian and Dylan to get their shave ices, and Dylan’s mom, Kirsten, appears on the scene….

Dude: One strawberry and one coffee lime and blueberry

Kirsten: Dylan did you order that? Brian did you let him order Coffee…oh that looks disgusting. And it smells awful! Why didn’t you get pineapple? Coffee? and lime??? gross!

Dylan: mummy can I have my ice

Brian: That’s what he wanted…sorry I didn’t…

Kirsten (with icy look at Brian): Dylan honey mummy’s going to get you a better shave ice. Daddy wasn't thinking. Again. This is just like that time with the steak and mushrooms.

Dylan: but mommy

Kirsten: We’ll have a strawberry and pineapple please. Why did you ever let him order coffee and lime together? And blueberry!

Dude: I’m not here to judge…I just take the orders.

At which point we left as Brian was starting to look a bit pissed off. I was hoping to hear more about the steak and mushrooms but it was getting a bit late.

On our way into town, we had spotted an area where lots of cars were parked along the side of the highway. Always a good sign that something interesting is nearby, in my experience. We parked and found a trail through the trees. About 200 metres later, the trail opened onto this:

These secret beaches are the best – no one around, just sand and waves. We had a great couple of hours here, and Jacob tried out his new board:

Comment of the day goes to Zoe, while playing in the waves: “I’m never getting out of here, ever!”

After the sun went down, we packed everything back to the car for another nighttime drive back to Hanalei, where the torrential rain was still coming down. Ah well. It will be sunny tomorrow.

Thanks for reading

Cheers,

Jane

Hawaii Day 4 In Which We Find the Sun, Rhonda Puts in Her Earplugs, and It’s Still Christmas.

We had a bit of a late start to the day and it was raining again so we decided to head South again to Poipu beach to find the sun.

You have to pass through Koloa town on your way to Poipu, and as we didn’t leave until late, it was time for lunch on our way through.

One of the staples here in Hawaii is the Plate Lunch. This consists of a scoop of white rice, some macaroni salad, coleslaw, and either Kalua pork, or BBQ chicken or fish, usually Ahi.

I usually have this once, while I’m here, and that is more than enough.

We had our plate lunches at the Fish Market in Koloa. I love this place! They sell a good variety of Hawaiian Poke, a raw fish/sashimi ‘salad’ that is hugely popular here.

It is typically a combination of Ahi (yellowfin tuna) chili, garlic, tomatoes, onions, and the roasted and crushed nut of the candlenut tree. I’ve only ever had the octopus poke before and it was delicious.

You could also pick up any kind of fish you could ever want here:

Not exactly cheap…

After lunch we hit the beach and had a couple hours of swimming and relaxing. It was awesome, except that I happened to find myself next to larger-than-life Manny and Rhonda (I think), from Lihue (main town on Kauai) who thought that this would be a good time to discuss the intricacies of their relationship. In detail. Manny, with his bald head, huge muscles and shaved armpits would comment on how Rhonda, who had clearly spent many many hours in the sun, had fallen asleep for the fireworks, and she would respond back that she needs more than fireworks to keep her awake, and then Manny would say something about how she didn’t really respond to anything at all these days and that if fireworks couldn’t keep her awake, nothing could. Then Rhonda let fly a zinger and said something like ‘exactly, you got nothing, honey. I keep telling you.’ At this point I was really hoping they would stop, and that maybe I had some earplugs in my bag. I turned around to try and stare them down, only to see Rhonda pull a pair of earplugs out of her bag and put them in her own ears! Even she was getting tired of listening to herself, it seemed. Thank god for that.

At this point, a large humpback whale began breaching just offshore and so thankfully attentions were drawn elsewhere, including my own, and life went on sans Manny and Rhonda’s drama.

After the beach, I dragged everyone to the Spouting Horn, (a lava tube that fills with the surge from the ocean and shoots sea water up into the air) which I drag everyone too all the time and will drag you to as well, if you come to Hawaii with me. It’s kind of awesome. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I love the Spouting Horn! And plus I always see a turtle or two there. There was some discussion that perhaps it was a fake one that is actually just a buoy, shaped like a turtle, but I don’t even care.

We waited around for a the biggest ‘action’ and of course I tried to take a picture but it never really captures the effect:

For all you know, it could be only 12 inches high…

I like to annoy Jacob by constantly trying to take a picture of the two of us – he always rolls his eyes but I did manage to get this one.I was standing on a stump and he wasn’t…

After the Horn, we hit up the National Botanical Tropical Gardens, which are right across the street. It was completely enchanting. It was also still Christmas there and all the trees were hung with huge Christmas balls.

Mel and I got a bit goofy together. Love that girl.

And this one too…

On our way home we stopped near Poipu at Savage Shrimp for some more garlic shrimp. It is customary to sign the walls when you eat here.

It was another long drive home at night back to Hanalei but the stars were out and the air smelled sweet so it was all good.

Thanks for reading

Cheers,

Jane

Hawaii Day 2 & 3 in Which We Just About Forget New Year’s Eve and I learn about Spam.

New Year’s Eve always sneaks up on me. One day it’s Dec 1, then it’s Christmas Eve and everyone is freaking out about whatever, and then boom it’s New Year’s Eve and I am, once again, completely unprepared and end up totally laming out. Well I like to be predictable so this year was no different, except that I am in Hawaii and not at home.

We decided to spend the day at Poipu Beach, which is on the Southern tip of the Island. It’s lovely and hot and you can snorkel or swim or body surf or boogie board to your heart’s content. We did most of these things quite happily with the exception of the extended period of time I spent wrestling myself into a mask and snorkel. Thank God I don’t have to do that every day. I‘m pretty sure the launch sequence for the space shuttle is a shorter and less complicated procedure. At various points, I had the mask and snorkel on upside down, my flippers on the wrong feet, my hair completely tangled in the snorkel, the mask full of sand. And so it went. Then a wave would hit me as I sat balanced in the water and knock me over just as I had it all sorted out, and everything would fall off and I would have to start again. I’m usually pretty adept in water but not today. I think it took me about 20 minutes just to get in the water, most of which I spent looking like a complete idiot.

Once in, I was rewarded with the requisite brightly coloured fish and dead coral. Here was a blue-bottomed potato fish, there a yellow finned tuktuktoonana or whatever it’s called. All quite lovely. the only problem was that the fish were outnumbered by the shear number of snorkelers, all of whom seemed to be having no problem at all with their gear, I might add. They were, however, having a problem with seeing where the hell they were in the water, and who they might be kicking in the head with their huge flippers (me). I’m surprised all the fish weren’t floating dead in the water from massive head injuries. At one point I found myself behind a particularly enthusiastic fellow, probably Rick from Nebraska or something like that, who had managed to scare away every last fish with his ferocious kicking. Rick was trying, in vain, to get to the bottom to pick up an unsuspecting sea cucumber but it wasn’t working. He was giving the breaching Humpback whales a run for their money with all the splashing and thumping.

He soon gave up but by then there wasn’t much to see (probably because my mask was full of sand and water) so I gave up and went back to the beach.

We had planned to do a spot of shopping at Costco before heading home to Hanalei for New Year’s Eve, but these plans fell by the wayside as soon as we learned there was a festival at the beach. So we hung out and ate fish tacos and listened to live music as the sun went down. It was awesome.

We had a bit of a drive back to Hanalei and Mel and Pepi’s little guy Silas fell asleep on the way home, despite his plans to stay up until midnight. Then Zoe packed it in around 10pm, and the rest of us lay on the couch watching TV until I realized it was 11:59pm at which point we woke Kent up, and stumbled around hugging each other. Kent halfheartedly banged a couple of pots together, and then we all fell into bed.

New Year’s Day was a cloudy rainy affair that we spent at our place watching movies and napping. It was actually perfect. We did make a brief foray into Hanalei for supplies. I don’t know if you know about the Hawaiian Spam Phenomena, but the place is rife with it. It became a staple for both troops and locals during WW2, mainly due to the fact that it never goes bad and is cheap. Unfortunately, it replaced many of the local healthier foods like Taro, and is still one of the most popular foods here on the islands. It can be found everywhere, even in Sushi where it is combined with eggs and soy sauce. Not my favourite but whatever…

Anyway – we were at the grocery store and I was snapping pics of the Spam section when I got busted by the security guy, Roni.

Roni: Ma'am I couldn’t help noticing you are taking pictures…?

Me: Oh…yes…I was interested in the Spam

Roni: the Spam?

Me: Yeah…there’s like 12 different kinds!

Roni: Is that weird?

Me: ummm…

Roni: don’t you have Spam where you are from?

Me: Yes but only one kind.

Roni: Spam is native to Hawaii

Me: Well…not really. Like it doesn’t grow here. Ha ha

Roni: It’s been a staple ever since the war. It’s still in Rations here.

Me: Oh. well…don’t worry, I’m not giving away your grocery store secrets to the competition. Sounds like Spam is in every store in Hawaii!

Roni: Have a nice day.

I’ve actually edited that a bit – he also started to go on about Tabasco sauce but I’ll leave that bit out.

They also like Corned Beef here:

We ended off the day with some fireworks that we had forgotten about on New Year’s Eve and an early night. Not the most exciting New Year’s ever but a good one anyway.

Happy New Year to you and thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Jane

Hawaii Day 1, In Which Raoul Covers Some Ground and Eggs Have Shells.

 

The thing I love the most about stepping off the plane in Hawaii is how warm and sweet the air smells. At least I think it does. It could be that it’s just soo much better than the so called ‘air’ on the plane. Seriously, what is that stuff. It smells like bunk and makes everyone sick. I think actually they have tanks of it that they pump into the planes when they build them and then they never change it, like, ever again. Gross.

Our flight started out pretty well, even though we were sitting right at the very back of the plane. Like, right-beside-the-washroom back of the plane. Which meant I spent a good chunk of the flight staring at other people’s asses. Why do they have to turn in the aisle so that their butt is in my face? Does it not occur to them that maybe I don’t want ass in my eyes? Here’s a tip for you if you are flying anytime soon, if you are loitering in the aisle, stand facing the front or the back of the plane. There is no need to turn and stick your stuff in anyone’s face. You’re welcome.

Also, the back of the plane is where they put the babies, which is fine I like babies. We had little Raoul (or something like that) three rows up from us who was probably about a year and a half. He had a little truck that he was playing with and I guess his parents thought it would be ok for him to crawl around on the floor. Well he let go of his truck and it slid all the way back to our row at the back and so he decided he would just crawl back under a couple rows of seats and get his truck. Yep. Imagine Zoe’s surprise when she looked down at her feet and saw a little bum wedged under the seat in front of her. We quickly determined that is was Raoul, which was confirmed by the father, who casually wandered back to our row and apologetically announced that his son was ‘down there under the seat’.

Dude. Your kid. I guess he was getting an early start on learning how to stick your ass is someone else’s space while on a plane. Good thing he was super cute. (Raoul, not his dad).

Fortunately, Jacob was able to retrieve Raoul with minimal tears and return him to his dad.

I was more concerned that the people in the rows in front of us appeared to be completely oblivious to the fact that a baby was crawling through their legs and under their seats. Wouldn't you notice something like that? How far would this kid have gotten if he had been up at the front of the plane? I guess these are the same people who think nothing of sticking their crotches in my face so I shouldn’t be too surprised. Hello.

That was about it for excitement and the rest of the flight passed in relative boredom (which is good) with the exception of some rather severe turbulence that threw us all around in our seats, until we landed and the mechanism that keeps the drink carts safely locked in their cabinets and stops them from shooting out and careening down the aisle when the plane lands, snapped off as soon as the plane landed and the poor flight attendant had to stretch out her foot from her seat to try and keep the damn thing from shooting off down the aisle. I was ready to be the hero and stop the thing with my super human strength, but it wasn’t necessary and we all lapsed back into boredom for the 30 minutes it takes them to open the door,(what exactly is the delay, I always want to know – just open it already) until it was time to get off the plane and breathe some real air.

We picked up our luggage, and car, stopped for some garlic shrimp, and then made it to our rental house is Hanalei to meet our friends Mel and Pepi. It was dark when we arrived, and we were all a little grumpy by this point so it was time to go to bed.

When we woke up next morning, it was to beautiful blue skies and sunshine. And chickens. Actually, roosters. Loud roosters. Kauai is rife with feral chickens – they are everywhere. Especially right outside our room at 5am.

Anyway. I wasn’t going to talk about my breakfast cuz really, WHO CARES but I did want to tell you about my new favourite food ever – coconut sweet bread. I have so far eaten waaay too much and have no plans to stop anytime soon.

And I wanted to tell you about a new thing they have here: eggs with shells.

I’m not sure if you knew it or not but eggs have SHELLS. The shells PROTECT the eggs. Here in Hawaii, they advertise this fact right on the package as if they came up with the idea themselves. What a relief! I was actually looking for the ones without a shell, and I was really worrying about how I would get them home without the egg whites and yolks running everywhere willy-nilly and making a huge mess. Thankfully, I found this brand that already has a shell on it. Amazing!

Wtf.

Anyway, I digress. Again. What I meant to say was that we spent the rest of the day at the beach at Hanalei Bay.

It was tough.

The next day was also rough- Poipu beach for New Year’s eve. More on that tomorrow.

Mahalo for reading

Cheers,

Jane

San Francisco Day 1 (there's actually only one and a half days so this is it…) In Which Everyone is Gay.

That’s the Bay Bridge, people… Golden Gate was too far away.

I may have mentioned before how much I love San Francisco, but in case you haven't read that blog, I'll just say it again here, I really LOVE San Francisco. I've been a few times, but I've never had the chance to take Jacob and Zoe before so I was super psyched to have 24 hrs there on our way to Kauai.

We arrived late afternoon and took a while to get sorted at our hotel (we made a pit stop at the manager’s hosted happy hour for free drinks and, to Zoe’s absolute amazement and delight, bottomless goldfish crackers, pretzels and Bits n’ Bites) before heading downtown check it all out.

One of the first things I always observe in SF is how freakin’ skinny everyone is. Let's face it, it’s a bit weird. I mean, the US isn't known for having the slimmest population in the world. I'm not trying to be an asshole here, it's just the truth. Americans are better known for other things than being skinny, things like William Faulkner and string cheese and Grits. Don’t get mad, US friends – you’re all lovely and I love the US, but it’s true. Unless, apparently, you are from San Francisco. Somehow, the entire city is full of super-buff, extremely fit people sipping coffees, or swilling triple-distilled 'Smart' water from their glass water bottles, or out jogging the entire length of the San Fran waterfront or whatever they are doing in their perfect little workout shorts. Seriously who are these people? It makes me think maybe San Francisco should be its own country. I'd live there. I’d have some work to do before fitting in with all the skinny gays but it would be fun.

And also, everyone is gay in San Francisco. Not just the gay men, but EVERYONE. More on that later.

Our first stop was some shopping at the The Ferry Building. Love that place. I could go on about it but I won't other than to say that it is cool and also there was this shirt:

which doesn’t really work with the whole skinny thing except that  the LARGEST man I have ever seen was buying one.

Why.

I think he was maybe on his way back to Hog Hollar, Tennessee.

He was not from San Francisco, of that I am sure.

One of the best hotels in San Francisco around Christmas is the Hyatt downtown as they have this ridiculously amazing 10 floor high Atrium that they decorate with hundreds of strings of Christmas lights, and an extensive Christmas Village. I am a sucker for this sort of thing so I dragged the kids there, and they loved it.

After a spot of shopping, we jumped on a street car (bonus: all transit free in San Fran that day due to the 100th anniversary of something or other…being gay probably) and took the kids to the Castro district.

If you have been to the Castro, then you are probably thinking that this is why I think that everyone is San Fran is gay. Because everyone in the Castro is gay. Bus drivers, waiters, transit police, street cleaners. Even the cats and dogs are impeccably dressed, super polite, funny, sipping their cosmopolitans. But the best thing about hanging out in the Castro, or pretty much anywhere in San Francisco, is that absolutely NOONE is interested in harassing you, if you are female. I could probably run naked down the street singing the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack and no one would even bat an eye. No word of a lie. I guess it is obvious that I’m not a lesbian, so they aren’t interested, and EVERYONE else is gay. Even I was a gay  guy while I was there. Seriously. I was totally checking out the guys. No I’m kidding. But really I could send Zoe two blocks up the road, in the dark at 2am, tell her to cross the street, buy herself a herd of Rainbow My Little Ponies from the Brony shop (google it) and she would be as safe as houses because everyone is gay. I love it!!

Gays should run the world. Really. Could you please get on with it. It would be a much better place I’m sure of it.

Anyway I digress. We wandered about for a while, encountered a homeless guy (homeless gay, I mean) who had been going through a garbage can that he declared to be ‘golden’ and found himself a perfectly good Blackberry discarded in a new iPhone box.

We were all getting a bit tired by this point so we found ourselves a café for tea and red velvet cake and called it a night.

Our hotel offered a free full breakfast buffet so we braved that and stocked up on everything you could possibly imagine for breakfast, including, again to Zoe’s sheer delight, as many Fruit Loops as you can eat. I am not making this up, people. Only in San Francisco would there be endless Fruit Loops.

I swear that is all she will remember from this trip. That and the no-limit fishy crackers.

Out first stop of the day was Macy’s for some shopping. There is an entire department store here JUST FOR MEN. It’s full of books like How to Find Your Wallet and The Butter: Where Could it Be? and special toilet paper that has the news printed on it.

Zoe and I left Jacob and Kent there and headed over to the Women’s store where I found this beauty:

Dude. Your nose…

Anyway, we shopped and then headed over to Treasure Island which is a retired US naval base half way across the Bay Bridge. We had heard about a funky flea market that was happening on the island and who can resist that? The architecture there is original Art Deco and they were using this cool font long before anyone else thought of it.

The flea market didn’t disappoint, except for this old electric chair or whatever it is that was for sale:

Yeah I’ll take that. Whatever. It will fit on the plane.

Speaking of planes, it was time to get ourselves to the airport. We’ll have 6 hours in San Fran on our way back and with the awesome BART trains we will have time to do a bit more hanging around before flying home.

Our flight to Kauai was pretty good, if a bit event-filled, but I will tell you more about that later.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Jane

In Which I Share my Salmon BBQ Recipe, Which is not as Interesting as the Olympics, but Tastes Better…

Let’s face it, I eat too much. Too much cheese, too much bread, too much blah blah blah. Frankly I should probably eat half as much as I do. I should say here that I actually do try to curtail the eating habits now and then but when you live here on the West Coast, it’s just not that easy. Everywhere I look, someone is growing something amazing, or cooking up a batch of awesome or has just caught something outrageously delicious and is insisting that we all sit down right away and eat it. Well if I must.

Exhibit A, ridiculously large local spot prawns we pulled up in Howe Sound while visiting my family on Gambier Island. Held by my also ridiculously large son, Jacob. We ate a bunch, and froze the rest for later, which happened to be only a few days…funny that.

Throw these babies in a pot of boiling water until their eyes cloud over (MAX 2mins) and then dip them in butter and lemon. Yep that’s right. Don’t bother cleaning them out or taking their head off etc. Just dump them in, boil, remove, rip off the head, dip in butter and eat.There’s not much better on this side of the continent.

I’ll admit here that Jacob has also been known to eat prawns raw right out of the ocean, brew his own tea from Spruce needles and blackberry leaves, and pick mussels right off the rocks and steam them over a beach fire. He is a foodie in the making and also an awesome fisherman, and last weekend, he and his dad managed to catch 4 Coho salmon which we were forced to BBQ and eat with new potatoes from our garden.

Someone has to do it, people, and it may as well be me.

I’m happy to take one for the team…

I try to get most of the dirt off the potatoes, toss them with some olive oil and sea salt and fresh ground pepper, maybe some Jamaica Me Crazy seasoning, some peeled garlic cloves (whole) and then close them up in tinfoil packets, throw in a few chunks of butter when no one is looking, and chuck them on the BBQ.

I get asked for my salmon recipe often  and I have to say that I don't really have a proper recipe that would stand up to any sort of scrutiny or testing, it’s more a bunch of ingredients that I use in more or less the same proportions each time, and it always works.

• maple syrup  - maybe 2 cups. And don’t even make me say it but DO NOT use Aunt Jemima or whatever that stuff is.
• juice from at least two limes.
• tamari (about a third as much as the syrup).
• fresh ginger root – enough to taste it. peel it and chop it up.
• two or three garlic bulbs crushed
• more pepper than salt

Mix it all together and taste to make sure the maple syrup isn’t overpowering the lime. Pour over your salmon fillets skin and all and let it sit for however long you have. Which should be about an hour.

We cedar planked our salmon – if you do this make sure to soak in water for a good hour before putting on the Barbeque (the planks, not yourself). This gives you time to light your BBQ coals (so much better than gas – sorry), and let the fish absorb the different flavours.

When your BBQ coals are ready, remove the fillets from the marinade, lay them out on the planks, put them on the grill, and close the lid. Check them after 10mins – you might want to drizzle some of the marinade on the fillets at the half way mark.

You will know they are ready when the flesh is opaque but still moist, and the fat has risen out of the flesh and is covering the fillets all over in creamy brown patches. Please don’t overcook your salmon.

The wet planks and the hot coals create a delicious smoky steamy environment in the BBQ. It’s all good. 

If you even sort-of followed my half-assed recipe, your salmon should look sort of like this :)

Take my word for it, fresh Coho tastes AMAZING and the smoky cedar scent from the BBQ combined with the maple ginger lime puts the whole experience over the top. Yum.

As if that wasn’t enough good food for a life time, I have also been consuming more than my fair share of this tasty number which I highly recommend for breakfast, lunch, appy, dinner, midnight snack, etc.

1. Go directly to Fol Epi Bakery and buy a whole wheat loaf. Yes you have to drive over the bridge. So worth it.

2. Go to Moss St. Market and buy a Little Qualicum Cheeseworks Brie.

3. Pick up a bag of fresh basil from the next stall over.

4. Go to the jam lady and buy a jar of red pepper jelly. Yes it’s a little spicy. You’ll be fine.

5. Try not to think about the fact that you just had to remortgage your house to afford all this. FYI farm local organic etc does mean delicious, but does not mean less expensive, in my experience. 

6. Combine in any way you see fit.

7. Devour

I also managed to squeeze in a trip to the new Paleta shop in town, Fruition. In case you are thinking “wow. stop eating for 5 seconds” I’ll have you know I rode my bike there with Zoe and we had to climb several hills so I felt perfectly fine about my decision to purchase 5 of these creamy refreshing ice cream/popsicles to die for: Guava Cream, Chocolate Dipped Raspberry, Coconut Lime, Lime, and Chocolate Dipped Ginger Cream.

Fortunately, they store them at –37C or something like that so they survived the trip home in my bike basket, all nicely wrapped in butcher paper. They did not, however, survive much past their arrival at my house and so you’ll have to imagine them or go there yourself. And no, before you go judging me again, I didn’t eat them all myself but I did sample them all and I must say the chocolate dipped raspberry bar was outrageously good. Just sayin.

Do you see that? Roasted Pineapple Ice Cream Bar? HELLO.

As you can see, it was a good weekend. I will now be at the gym for the next 72 hours straight, but it was all worth it.

Cheers,

Jane

In Which Sushi Chef Kai is in the House!

If you haven’t been to Mt Washington lately, I highly recommend it. Sure it’s small, and sure you sometimes have to wait twice as long in the lift lines as it takes to get down the mountain and yes, sometimes it’s a bit rainy or slushy, or icy or freezing or foggy or whatever, (it is a mountain, after all, people, not a mall) but to me, none of that matters. It’s local, and that’s what makes it great. If I had to wait 15 minutes in a lift line at Whistler, I am pretty sure I wouldn't know half the people in the line, like I do at Washington. And who cares if it only takes me 5 minutes to get from top to bottom. My quads couldn’t take much more than that anyway. Raining? I am forced to stay in the chalet by the fire playing scrabble, napping and watching movies. Tough. I’ll wait a few hours for the sun then grab a cold beverage, sit in the hot tub and watch it go down (the sun…not the hot tub).

At some point, the kids, who have had the run of the mountain all day, will show up and we’ll all stretch and wander into the kitchen. Soon, baskets of crackers appear alongside cambazola and brie, little bowls of olives and salty almonds. Someone opens wine. We’ll all debrief about the day, some of us will down a couple of ibuprofen, and then we start cooking.

We have a few favourites when we travel as a group: fish tacos, tamari maple salmon, BBQ beef ribs, roast chicken. We usually try to take a night each for cooking but that rarely works out and more often than not, we’re all in there, getting in each other’s way, looking for the potatoes (check the Nordic Cupboard) or the Chips(Alpine Cupboard), laughing, and having the best time ever.

But this past weekend, we wanted to try something different for our night. If you know Mt. Washington, you may or may not know about Sushi-Mon. Tucked away down by the Hawk chair, in the old Nordic Lodge, Sushi-Mon quietly turns out some of the best Japanese Food around. It’s an unlikely location for a Sushi restaurant, but it works, considering the other food choices on the mountain. (Actually, try not to think about the other food choices…). We can usually be found in there at lunch downing a bowl of Pork Ramen or a Seafood Curry noodle bowl. It’s often a bit of a wait, but the perfectly flavoured broth, crisp veggies, and delicious noodles makes it all worth while. Chef Kai can be seen in the kitchen, head down, turning out roll after roll, bowl after beautifully prepared bowl. If you catch his eye, he will welcome you with a deep bow and a warm smile, then get right back to making sushi.

On one of our visits we spotted a handwritten sign suggesting that we, the customer, might enjoy having Chef Kai come to our kitchen and make sushi for us. Might we? Indeed we might! A few phone calls later and we had ourselves a party. I whipped up an invitation and everyone was in.

 

No one brought a wolf suit. Disappointing.

Chef Kai arrived with his daughter Stephanie at 4:30pm and in a matter of minutes, had transformed the kitchen into a sushi restaurant. He accepted a beer, turned to face his work area, and didn’t look up for about 4hrs.

Occasionally I would try to ask him a question. He would politely answer me with his thick Japanese accent, which I couldn’t understand, and we would smile warmly at each other, whoever I was standing beside me would say “what did he say?” and I would say, through smiling teeth, “I’m not sure'”, and we would eat another slow roasted pork roll. At some point, someone turned on the Club music – I looked at Chef Kai to see how this would go over. He didn’t miss a beat and could be seen grooving, rolling and slicing.

After a while, watching him became mesmerizing. Sushi rolling is a true art and Chef Kai has it mastered. I think he could do it in his sleep. At one point I watched him expertly slice a avocado into perfectly uniform, paper thin slices, his hands moving just slightly ahead of his knife as the avocado fanned out before me. He then lifted the entire row of avocado and laid it down on top of a prawn tempura roll. He turned to me and said “for decoration”. Zen and the art of Sushi.

 

 

Lucky kids…

Towards the end of the night, Chef Kai made fruit rolls with cream cheese and strawberries in a pink soy sheet, and mango cream cheese rolls in a yellow soy sheet. These disappeared at lightening speed.

I grabbed a strawberry roll before they were all gone

Chef Kai left us with two plates of leftovers, after I had to beg him to stop as we had all eaten ourselves to a standstill.

Notice how everyone has assumed the ‘no more food please’ position.

What a great night. And after all that I still have no idea how to make sushi. But I don’t need to know – I have Chef Kai.

Cheers,

Jane