Saturn Return--Watch Out!

There I was on New Year's Eve, reviewing the past 365 days and contemplating the course of 2010 (while pre-gaming some papaya cocktails in anticipation of an evening of dancing)...probably thinking a little too much for my own good, no doubt...and those contemplative gears have been turning ever since. So what can I say about 2009? It started off mellow, then exploded in a fiery shit-storm and slowly is re-shaping in entirely unexpected ways. I took some time to ponder about what the hell is in the air that so many of my friends and neighbors are also in the midst of major life shifts. After a little research (and by this I mean 15 minutes of Googling), I've come across an interesting theory: the dreaded Saturn return.

Here's my expertise on this phenomenon, which I've culled from a highly sophisticated internet search:

1. Astrologically speaking, Saturn rules responsibilities, life lessons, and structure...all very adult things. Keep in mind that Saturn is also Kronos, the Greek god who ate all his children as they were being born...which kind of sums up the horror of 2009.
   
2. Saturn is a slow moving planet, staying in the same house for up three years and taking about 28 years to cycle through the entire zodiac. So when it comes back into the same house it was in when you were born, you get a phenomenon called the Saturn return.
   
3. Supposedly this planetary return signifies a major watershed, a testing of character and the way you've structured you life. If your life's structure is out of sync with your true character and values, then it is a time of upheaval and change so that your life more closely aligns with your ruling stars.
   
4. At the end of your first Saturn return (around your 30th birthday) you have been sufficiently tested to move into the adult part of your life (major trials as an initiation into a new life phase and all that jazz).
   
5. The best place to read more about your Saturn return is from the totally hip and savvy Saturn Sisters, pictured above. Look at these ladies! I'd trust them to tell me the direction of my adult life...their accessories alone breed confidence!

This would definitely explain why all of my friends (who are of course my age, myself having just turned 28 last April) are going through similar crises. It also happens to be a very convenient way for me to explain the total meltdown that occurred this year ("It's not my fault! It's my Saturn return!") So acting as the responsible adult that I am soon to be, I decided to invest in my future by ordering my very own, personalized Saturn Return Chart from the Saturn Sisters. Since I seem to have lost all faith in my own decision making abilities, I figured, what the hell...maybe I need to consult the stars for some advice this go-round. It certainly can't hurt. I'm still waiting, so I end this post with the tantalizing words:

TO BE CONTINUED....

Steelgrass Farms

I would be a great big asshole if I didn't at some point give proper props to the man that made Kauai fun, the inimitable Will Lydgate. This man took me all around the island, taught me songs on the ukulele, attacked me with an apple pie and in general rocked my world with his awesomeness. So here I want to give a shout-out to the man, the myth, the legend (and the chocolate farmer) William Hibbs Lydgate.

Will, in addition to being a kick-ass bass player, makes his living by Steelgrass Farms on Kauai, a farm that give the best ag tour of all time: three hours dedicated to tasting and talking about chocolate. You start the tour by sampling a little of the good stuff (a luxury at 9 in the morning), take a leisurely stroll around the farm getting educated about the unusual plants grown there (papyrus for one, vanilla orchids for another and a really strong variety of bamboo from which the farm gets it's name), tasting the tropical fruits and generally being entertained by the dry humor of your tour guides.

pretty little "poor man's orchid"

cute sister-in-law with the papyrus stalk


rambutan hair tie

vanilla orchid pods

cacao tree

Then you get to the part everyone's been waiting for, the star of the show: the chocolate. The unassuming little trees have these weird looking pods growing on the bark and these weird looking pod contain the real magic...the chocolate seeds. In case you didn't know, chocolate is made from the huge seeds of the chocolate fruit. How you might wonder? Let me tell you the long and intricate process of making that delictible dark treat that drives so many of us to ecstasty. First, you harvest the cacao seeds (that's right, the plant is actually called cacao, not chocolate), then you ferment them in banana leaves for a couple of days, dry them in the sun, and then send them to plants to process the beans. The next step is one of my personal favorites: they crack open the shell of the bean and extract the cacao nib. I think I just love any excuse to use the word nib. I'm sure I'll throw it in a couple more times in this post for good measure and my own personal amusement. So after you've extracted the nib, it gets all ground up and usually coco butter is added to make it extra creamy. Some fools add other stuff too, but we won't talk about that here...it would be blasphemy. It's mixed and ground up a lot to make is smooth (this is called conching) and then heated and cooled at precise temperatures to ensure that the molecules are all lined up in the right way.

So we saw the cacao trees, got the 411 on how to make chocolate and arrived at the last and most anticipated part of the tour: the tasting. We all sat down and got to try 11 different artisinal chocolates. Like wine, there are mass producers and then there are artists. All the chocolates we tried were single estate and all contained the same four ingredients: cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar and an emulsifier. But they all tasted amazingly different. I cannot believe what a foodie I am to be able to say this with a straight face, but you could taste the terroir of the chocolate. Feel free to guffaw at that statement, but it's true. Some of the chocolates were really sour, others bitter, some spicy or fruity or grassy. It was an amazing variety of flavors and they were all really good.

Here are my parting words for you chocolate fanatics: go to Kauai to pay homage to the cacao tree, give Will a high-five for me, geek out on chocolate at Steelgrass and always buy dark. It will change your life.

Kauai Retrospective

It's been far too long, my peeps, since the last entry, but the boss is back with some travel stories, recommendations and lots of pictures to make it up to you. I've got some catching up to do, so I'll start with the highlights of Kauai. If ever you find yourself of the Garden Island, here is my list of "must dos" to light the path for your good time adventure.

First and foremost, you must go to at least one waterfall while here. This island is just erupting with streams and with the winter rains there are new waterfalls cropping up every day. I personally loved Kipu Falls on the southeast end of the island (directions here). It's really close to Lihue and a short walk from the road through some seriously tall cane grass, whch makes it feel like an adventure when you arrive even though its really only about a 5 minute walk. The falls are beautiful and come complete with a rope swing from a gigantic banyan tree and a deep pool at the bottom perfect for making the 30 foot jump of death from the top. (Note: I did jump, but it took me a while to screw up my courage...too long in fact to continue calling myself a bad-ass.)

I also recommend going to a really cool cave on the north shore of the island. If you take the highway up the coast, past Princeville and Hanalei, you'll dead-end into Ke'e State Park and right after the first parking lot is a little trail up a hill that takes you to a magnificent cave with a huge pool of bright blue water. Locals call it the Blue Room. The first time I went there was at night...with no headlamp and no moon. It's a miracle that I'm alive to tell the tale. We headed up the rocky trail (of course with no shoes), somehow descended down into the cave in the pitch black and then proceded to swim around in the darkness, singing and yelling in a feeble attempt at sonar to keep ourselves from head-butting the cave wall. And, man, does that cave have some good acoustics. An impromptu Queen revival commenced, with all of us feeling more comfortable belting at the top of our lungs since darkness of course means anonimity. After that harrowing adventure, we ambled down the road to the beach, ate an apple pie on the sand, played the ukulele for a bit and stared at the perfect stars. Oh, what a night.

And you must go camping while here. There are both state and county sites for your camping pleasures, all of which are right on the beach, have very clean facilities, grills and electricity and are $3 per night. Yes you read that correctly: waterfront, clean camping on a tropical island for the low-low price of three measly dollars. It's amazing. I stayed at Salt Ponds Park, Anini Beach and Anahole Beach Park. Anini was by far the most beautiful and quiet. There really is no reason to stay at a hostel or cheap hotel when there are such beautiful parks. Plus you get to wake up just steps from the water each day.

Of course there must be a food recommendation and here's the one shining gem of cuisine that I found on the island: a roach coach in Hanapepe called Mele's Kusina. Kate, Jess and I were wandering around the south shore near our camp grounds at Salt Ponds Park, playing on the swinging bridge and enjoying the totally darling little strip of downtown, when we walked past a sign that made all of us stop in our tracks: "Fried Ice Cream Fridays." Oh, the mouths started to salivate and, despite the fact that we had just eaten mere hours before, we all became ravenously hungry. Of course we couldn't just order dessert, and so decided to try two of the mix plates and a cheeseburger for good measure...that's how my posse rolls. Now, I want to insert a word here about cheeseburgers: I've had me some good ones, some great ones and some unforgettable ones and the $3 cheeseburger at this mobile food stand will go down in the annals of my life as one of the best. It was so good that we drove around the entire town of Hanapepe the next day inquiring after the whereabouts of this food cart. I still think about it and a single tear rolls down my cheek...sigh. But back to the main attaction--the fried ice cream. It was cooked to perfection with a light and fluffy coating and perfect, creamy vanilla in the middle. It reminded me of one of my favorite child-hood memories: sopapillas. When I was just a young lass, my mother waited tables at one of the only Mexican restaurants in Ohio, Three Gringos. As the name implies, there was not a whole lot of authenticity to this cuisine. Most of it was downright inedible. But the shining star of their menu was the sopapillas: fried dough with ice cream, chocolate syrup and whipped cream. To this day I fondly remember playing Miss Packman on the tabletop video game machine and eating sopapillas while my mom was finishing up her shift at work. This dish of fried ice cream brought back all those wonderful smells and tastes. It was dream ice cream. If you go to Kauai, look up Mele's Kusina. It moves around, but this is the information age after all and you can follow its path on Twitter or get a general idea of its whereabouts from reviews on Urban Spoon.

And while we're on the subject of culinary delights, let me tell you about the Locavore Food Festival in Lihue. It exclusively featured produce, pastured animals and culinary creations from the island and it was fantastic! There must have been at least 20 different booths, all full of little tasty bites of this and that, prepared by local restuarants. There was Hawaiian coffee, delicious Kauai beef tacos, banana ice cream, well-appointed mini sliders and tons of other creations that I've already forgotten. I got there late, but made up for lost time by collecting a sample from every booth that still had food and then chowing down to the most impressive spread of tasty treats I'd had in a long time. I binged like a champ, and it was totally worth every uncomfortable step on the way back home.

Oh, Kauai, how I miss you!

Get Your Thanksgiving Goat

Some folks celebrate their Thanksgiving with binge eating that mirrors their familial discomfort, but this year us Sargents opted out of that rich American tradition and instead decided to battle the elements. My sister and her wife arrived on Kauai a week ago for the first leg of our little family's holiday celebration. We have been camping around the island (a cheap and fabulous way to see Kauai) and and in the middle of the week, those two crazy broads decided to tackle the Napali coast. There is an 11 mile trail that takes you along the part of the island's coastline that has no road, mainly because the steep cliffs and constant mudslides and hurricanes have rebuffed all efforts to put down pavement. Oh and there's a swamp at one end that ate some construction trucks trying to build a road.

Some of you may recall from my earlier posts that Kate and Jess (sister and sister-in-law, respectively) are insanley fit and I am convinced that they are constantly trying to do me in with acts of inhuman physical exertion. This belief system has it's roots in my childhood where, from the moment I was born, my older sister has been trying to regain her status as an only child by daring me to do things clealry beyond my physical abilties in the hopes that i will either die or at the very least seriously cripple myself ("Wanna borrow my skate board, Jen-Jen? All you have to do is ride it down this gigantic ramp and do a back flip in the air!"). Maybe she's changed her intentions over the years, but I remain suspicious as a survival tactic. So they wanted to hike this crazy stretch of coast and stay on the trail for two nights. I really did consider it, but in the end decided that a couple days of solitude and safety sounded like heaven, so I stayed behind.

I dropped them off at the trailhead and we arranged that I would come back to get them on Thanksgiving day at 3 o'clock. I had some nice time by myself, and then while I was sleeping in my tent on Wednesday night, the sky opened up and someone turned on the wind machine. I woke up to two inches of standing water in my tent, a muddy brown ocean and when I unzipped my tent it looked like a video from the Weather Channel with ticker tape along bottom telling you where to send your donation to the disaster relief fund. I packed up my wet things as best I could and got in the car to find some much-needed hot coffee. On the radio they were announcing the closing of the Hanalei bridge due to the flash flooding of the rivers, and this of course was the only road to the north end of the island where I was supposed to pick up the ladies. So I spent most of my morning trying to figure out a contingnecy plan if it didn't stop raining and the bridge didn't re-open. Turns out there is no park ranger on that side of the island and the police station was closed for the holiday. Lucky for me it started to dry out and they reopened the bridge at about 2PM. I picked up some fried chicken and beer for my sure-to-be-tired-and-hungry sisters and hightailed it to the trailhead. They were late coming out and I was starting to get worried, but then there they were, soaked and bug bitten and bruised, but all in one piece.

And they had some great stories. Turns out there are some crazy hippies who live out there in the wilderness, living in the jungle and surviving on whatever grows out there. Some dreadlocked dude was telling them how he survives on java plums (completely disgusting if you've ever tasted them) and asked if they'd seen any goats on the trail lately. He and his companions were armed with a butcher knife and little else. On the way back out of the trail, these same films were washing a headless goat in the river, which I have to say is amazing. I don't know how many of you have tried to catch a goat, but I have and couldn't get anywhere a three-legged goat in a pen with two other people helping, let alone on a steep cliff-side jungle with only a butcher knife. Props to you, crazy Kauai hippies!

The torrential downpour on Wednesday night was inconvenient for me in my less-than-waterproof tent, but for my sister and sister-in-law it was nearly fatal. There were four rivers they crossed on the way out and these rivers were huge after all the rainfall, chest high in some places. A naked old jungle man woke the ladies up in the morning to tell them that they probably wouldn't get out that day and would need to stay on the trail again tonight. Tempting as this man was making the campsite seem, they decided to chance it with the rapids. After the last especially harrowing crossing where they had to run across a stretch of beach with 20 foot crashing waves on one side and a raging river on the other, while holding on for dear life when the surf came in. My tiny sister literally was almost washed out to sea--yikes!!! I think I made the right decision by staying behind.

So out they came from the trail, droopy and soaked and happily ate their fried chicken and beer while telling me their harrowing tales. About all we could muster for a thanksgiving festivities was to rent a room in a bed and breakfast and find the Chinese restaurant (which was of course was one of the few places open). I was thankful for the shifty beef chow fun--at least it wasn't fire roasted wild goat.

Taro

Lets talk taro. It's the traditional staple crop if Hawaiian cuisine and most commonly the root is eaten by making it into poi. Poi is one of those weird foods that you have to grow up with to appreciate. It's a purple fermented paste that is eaten as a side dish with most Hawaiian meals. It tastes like glue and I have to say, it's grown on me. Probably much of this is due to the fact that it is almost always eaten with something else really tasty like ahi or kailua pork. Not to mention that it's really good for you, which I now know more than any mortal should after having waded through tons of dietary studies reasearching a grant for a poi company here in the islands.




For me the most interesting part of this interesting plant is the rich agicultural culture that has been built up around growing the plant. Taro is traditionally farmed in flooded fields, much like rice, and to my eyes is a stunningly beautiful crop. There are creation stories in Hawaiian folklore where taro (or kalo in Hawaiian) is the child of the gods and the oldest ancestor of the Hawaiian people, and therefore it is inappropriate to fight, raise your voice or be disrespectful while a bowl of poi is on the table. Even the Hawaiian terms for the taro plant are related to terms used for the family, with language to indicate which generation of the plant is being grown and where the corm (shoot used to cultivate new plantings) derives from.

I had the lovely experience last night of learning to make another traditional Hawaiian taro dish under the instruction of a group of locals. Lau lau is steamed pork, green banana, sweet potato, chicken or just about anything else you like, wrapped in taro and tea leaves and steamed for several hours until it's tender and delicious. The taro leaf (or luau...where the name of the touristy hula and roasted pig business comes from) ends up tasting like amazingly succulent spinach and the fillings all magically season one another as they cook. Hmmm...I love taro.