Two Farmers' Markets in Two Nights

Wednesday night, after a day of THREE appointments in a row, we headed for the bustling Blaisdell Farmers' Market. We ate, as usual, at The Pig & The Lady, Vietnamese street food. No photos of what we ate - it's all in our tums - but it was all good! From the kim chee bruschetta - so messy it squirted out on my shopping bag and slacks - to the bun cha (yes, I know bun is noodles, but only pork patties, pickles and other goodness on crusty French bread) to the oxtail pho - so, so yum!

Then there was Mr. Le's series of "special" drinks - from the iced coffee to the delicious tea made even more so with some ginger syrup, meant for the tofu dessert. All the Le family members have fantastic, inventive palates! After the sun goes down, the Blaisdell Honolulu Farmers' market turns into a cool oasis of relief.

Cheese plate: Naked Cheese Bastille Day dinner

We came home with Ho Farms Indigo Rose tomatoes, a large watermelon radish, enough TP&TL leftovers for lunch, and Naked Cow Dairy Waianae Sunset tomme cheese and cultured butter. I spoke to her for only a few minutes, but congratulations to cheesemaker Gida Snyder on her recent, well-deserved award from Les Dames d'Escoffier International!

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The next night after work, we headed for the Thursday night market at St. Clement's, in Makiki. If you get there just around 5:30, there's ample parking on Wilder next to Makiki Park. We headed straight to our favorite food vendor and got 2 plates of the shrimp stir-fry: well seasoned with a pile of fresh vegetables. We both had enough leftovers for another meal. I was happy to see a new produce vendor, and picked up an avocado and a bunch of watercress.

Before I left, I stopped at the Sweet Revenge tent to congratulate Kathy Masunaga, the second Hawaii recipient of the Les Dames d'Escoffier International award.

Two farmers' markets, two award winners. No coincidence here; this is where you'll find the best food. And the best people in Hawaii.

Bastille Day Cheese Dinner at the Naked Cow Dairy

The DH and I are townies, so anything beyond city limits is an excursion!

Last week Saturday, we headed out to Waianae, old-school map and GPS, with two lady food writers, @NonStopMari, & @Melissa808. Our destination was Naked Cow Dairy, where Gida Snyder cooked us an amazing dinner. Gida has just been recognized - deservedly so - with an entrepreneurial legacy award by Les Dames d'Escoffier for her locavore activism and mad cheesemaking skills.

Earlier in the week, Gida commented that she'd never cooked for us before. She needn't have worried - we were blown away by the menu she devised, from the champagne/cherry aperitif, to the entree, cheese course and sweet ending!

I can't stop thinking about the first course of red, white & bleu sauce with sweet potatoes, chard and entrecote - that has embedded itself in my taste memories! It is astounding that all the vegetables were so delicious: from the arugula to the Tokyo negi! Here's the rest of the menu from NonStopMari.

I remember we toasted to "local", and that was the most marvelous part of it - that 90+% of what we ate that night was grown or raised in our islands. Butter & cream from the Naked Cow Dairy cows, and other cows. Rabbit from Kapolei, beef from Waianae. Local vegetables, herbs and fruit. All the ladies - NKD and adjuncts - were lovely. Especially Sabrina/Sam and Monique! You must read NonStopMari's account of the evening, including a newborn calf, and fabulous photos from @dallasnagata - she of the "hottest kiss" - and some from @MikeSumida!
The flip side to that story is that most of the time, 90+% of what we eat came from somewhere else! Since I started going to farmers' markets regularly, we eat a lot more fruit and vegetables that were grown here: from the mango and cantaloupe ripening in my baskets to the local eggs, beets and cucumbers.

Here is some of what came to be after this memorable cheese dinner:
I took the leftover butter from my Indiegogo NKD grilled cheese sandwich perk to work, along with artisan bread baked by Christopher Sy. One coworker was hooked on the butter, so I bought her some the next time I was at the farmers' market. Another one loves the bread! Still another asked me what my latest food adventure was, so I'll let her know when the next cheese dinner is scheduled. As a librarian, I never knock people on the head with information, rather, I introduce them gently, with a taste. A taste of change.

Dinner @ Home

How boring? No!

The night after we came home I made a watermelon salad dressed only in chili pepper water with mint and cilantro. The DH shucked opihi from Hawaii island so fresh, it was moving! Just add shoyu and lime. Stew luau from Hawaiian Style Cafe - just outside of Kamuela - came as a portion so huge, we brought half of it home, frozen in the tiny ice tray section of our hotel mini-refrigerator. I added a heaping saimin-spoon of powdered coconut milk to tone down the saltiness, heated and served it with day-old poi and chili pepper water. Rounds of purple Okinawan sweet potato completed the meal - a feast!

How do you gild a lily? Go for a walk, then come back to vanilla ice cream with Kona King mango (from the Hilo Farmers' Market) cubes - so buttery they could crown an expensive French/Japanese pastry!

Early Summer Dinner

Dinner last night - well, we should begin with LUNCH yesterday. I had the very rare Monday off, so we went to Whole Ox Deli for lunch. Always great fun to see Bob & Erica McGee, and the food is great! Ted had the chicken fried chicken sandwich, I had the porchetta.

I also got a piece of pork terrine - with cherries and hazelnuts - to go, and that was dinner! Along with cornichons from Ho Farms, a sliced heirloom tomato from Wow Farms, and Herb 'n Farmer cheese from Naked Cow Dairy at the Honolulu Farmers Market. There were also crisp slices of apple, rustic bread from La Tour Bakery. And there was wine. We ate all of this on the lanai as the sun went down.

Note that I didn't actually cook anything. Life is good.

When life gives you long beans

And you have eggplant and kabocha pumpkin, what do you make?

The custodians - specifically Rich - make a wonderful pinakbet. This is lots of healthy vegetables with a bit of  pork or shrimp which is more condiment than focus of the dish. The key ingredient is bagoong, a thick fish sauce. Instead, I used patis, a liquid fish sauce.

I had leftover Chinese roast pork from a foray into Chinatown, so I started with a little over one cup of those chopped pieces of pork. After they took on some color, I took them out of the pan and set them aside. I added a bit of oil to the pan and sauteed 2 long eggplants sliced on the diagonal until they had some color and were softened a bit. Removed those from the pan, added a little more oil and sauteed 1/2 an onion until they started softening, added 2 cloves of garlic, sliced.

I had about 1-1/2 cups kabocha from the freezer that I put in the microwave on the defrost-then-micro-one-minute each cycle, then added to the pan with 1/2 cup water. Place pork and eggplant back into the pan, cover and simmer for 5 minutes, then add about a cup of long beans cut to 2-3 inch lengths along with a tablespoon of patis and black pepper to taste. Turn vegetables gently, add 1/2 cup tomatoes cut in 1-in. pieces, then serve with hot rice.

Notes: because roast pork was used, this was richer and saltier than if you had used uncooked pork to begin with. The traditional recipe calls for okra, which I didn't have, and bitter melon, which I don't care for. There are enough leftovers for one very hungry person, or two with a side dish.

Naimas, masarap!

Salad Weather

It's just the start of June, and it's already hot. The golden shower trees are blooming beautifully.

When the produce is so fantastically ripe and perfect, doing very little to it is a marvelous idea. It's the right thing!

I've been craving this salad, and even made a version with roast pork and cracklings previously, but the fruit for this is now optimum: sweet, juicy and ripe.

Combine about 2 cups of seedless watermelon cut into one-inch cubes with the same size cubes and amount of ripe tomatoes. I used a combination of beefsteak and Roma tomatoes from WOW Farms. (We picked out a premium beefsteak that cost $2.50. I know. BUT it weighed TWENTY ounces! And YUM!)

Add a cup of mint leaves - large leaves torn - and 2 tablespoonsful of diced red onion. Gently toss all with dressing made with juice of one large lime, 2 tablespoonsful extra virgin olive oil, about 1/2 teaspoonful honey and coarsely ground sea salt to taste. Our coworker shared his Sudachi limes with us! Top individual servings with a sprinkle of Naked Cow Dairy queso. If you're not so fortunate to have access to this delicious local cheese, use a moist feta instead.

This salad was the perfect contrast to The Pig & The Lady Viet Loco Moco we brought home from yesterday's farmers' market at Blaisdell Center. This was jasmine rice topped with a local beef patty, poached egg, curry leaves and curry gravy. So delicious!

It's better with cheese from Naked Cow Dairy

There are no photos here. You'll just have to imagine how good these salads were, and how much they elevated the leftovers we ate with them last week.

The first was a whole bunch of purslane snipped from their stems, tossed with chunks of WOW Farms tomatoes and bites of Naked Cow Dairy Herb 'n' Farmer cheese, all in a simple red wine vinaigrette. This was happily and greedily gobbled up by both of us.

The second consisted of road kill avocado. Just kidding! This was foraged from the neighborhood. No, we did not steal! It was SOOO windy last week - we were on our evening constitutional, when we heard a big THONK. We were on our way home, and in the vicinity, we found a nice-sized avocado in the grass next to the sidewalk. After a couple of days, one spot was brown, but the rest buttery and delicious! This was served with slivers of sweet red onion, shreds of mint, more chunks of WOW Farms tomatoes, dressed with balsamic vinaigrette, and generously sprinkled with Naked Queso.

Which Naked Cow Dairy cheese do I like best? This is like asking a mother which child is her favorite! Fuggedaboudit! But I can't wait to get my Big Cream Little Rind brie!

Here's my first post on the return of Naked Cow Dairy to the Honolulu Farmers Market at Neal Blaisdell Center.