Elly Extravaganza, Four Seasons

So remember that little pirouette that Elly's return plane ticket was doing? Well, it decided to surprise us all and take a flying leap to Thursday instead of Sunday. God knows how, but Elly came back to Hawi one afternoon with a boarding pass in her hand and told me she was leaving the day after tomorrow. And she had a plan. She wanted to go out in style and live it up big on her last night in Hawaii. She booked a posh room at the Four Seasons and we decided to lay around the pools and drink fancy cocktails all day with umbrellas. A little taste of the typical tourist vacay.

We were not disappointed by the Four Seasons. It had three gorgeous pools to choose from, a long white sand beach, deliciously comfy beds and leis waiting for us when we checked in. There was even a young man whose only job was to clean our sunglasses and ask if we'd like an Evian spritz to cool us down. We managed to pass an entire delightful day with playing gin rummy in the pool and trying to convince someone to light our drinks on fire (disappointingly there are regulations against such fun).


To Elly's delight, our room came with robes which worked perfectly as a holster for her new love--le machete.

And when I unpacked my things at the hotel, I found to my great delight that Cassandra was hiding in the depths of my luggage. I had lost her a few weeks before and was worried that my little orange companion was gone forever. A few nights before Elly and I had made a clay model in the hopes of luring her back to me. Sort of like a talisman or something. I even said some voodoo chants to bring her home.

Apparently, the talisman worked...it was an ecstatically joyful reunion. Really, I think she was just waiting for the right time to make her grand re-entrance. She showed up just in time for the Perrier-Jouët and sunset. I always knew she had a flare for the dramatic.

Elly Extravaganza, Kona Coast

Elly finally arrived last week and we had a whirlwind trip of adventuring around the island. I tried to be diligent and post while on the road, but finally had to admit that my iPhone cannot do everything and just enjoy the trip. It was so action-packed that I decided to post installments. This island is so beautiful and we were able to see so much of it, I don't want to leave anything out.

As soon as Elly touched down we raced over to a hula competition to see a spectacle that I can only describe as once-in-a-lifetime. I'd been looking forward to it all week and Elly's plane finally arrived just in time for us to make it to the performance. The cultural mish-mash that I am about to describe is truly mind-bending. Imagine the following three things all on one stage:

1. Hula
2. Old people
3. Thriller

Strange as is might sound, Elly's introduction to the Big Island was a tribute performance of Michael Jackson's Thriller performed by troop of senior citizen hula dancers at Hawaii's annual Kapuna Hula competition. These peeps went all out, with lights, a fog machine and an MJ song medley. If only some of the pictures had turned out...

The next morning we formed the loosest of plans and decided to do a round-island tour and just stop where ever we felt the urge. So we hit the open highway in our shiny red rental car and drove south from Kona. Our first road stop was for supplies, and as you can see, we really got the essentials. A label maker, wine-opener, road sodas and a copy of the National Enquirer. (Did you know that Brad and Angelina almost split up over his hash addiction?!? Shocking!) By far the real star power of that shopping trip went to the traveling sippy cups with a freezable outer shells. They even came with straw-spoons, perfect for eating all the delicious tropical fruits we encountered along the way. With this supply-kit, we were ready to do some serious exploring.

We really wandered that first day. I think it took us about six hours to make it down an hour and half of coastline. We stopped to taste some fruit from a coffee bush (vaguely sweet), frequented some roadside produce stands, found a beautiful old cemetery, taking lots of pictures of the elaborately engraved headstones, and stopped to chat with an old man named Bones about his pony rides (sadly you need an appointment).

Our foodie destination of the day was a little town at the southernmost part of the island (and the southernmost part of the United States) called Na'alehu. We stopped into a little place called the Shaka Bar (complete with a picture of the Pres giving a shaka to the camera), had some Hawaiian beer on tap and tasted the most delicious bar food I think I've ever had. The house special is a smoked ahi dip that the owner caught and smoked himself, served with piping hot tortilla chips. It was heavenly and I pressed him for the recipe, but it was like pulling teeth.
"What's in this?" I ask.
"Just ahi..."
"Really," I say. "What about bacon...it tastes like there's bacon."
"No bacon. Just ahi. And dill."
"Huh...what about sour cream. It tastes creamy."
"No, just mayonaise."
On and on it went until I extracted all the ingredients. It made me think of that scene with Steve Martin from The Jerk where he's getting kicked out of his mansion and keeps picking up lamps and dogs and telephones as he's leaving, all the while claiming that he doesn't need any of it.

Just a stone's throw away from Shaka Bar is Hona Hou, a diner which I had heard has the best macnut pie in the world. Elly and I wandered over there and both of their varieities with some kona coffee. The traditional pie is really similar to pecan pie and it was outstanding. I love me some pie, and this was definitely in the top ten. The other variety was banana cream with a layer of macnut on the bottom. Not as great, but still worth the stop.

Our last road stop of the day was the black sand beach. Elly and I jumped in the surf and swam around in the big soft waves. Our feet got all black from walking on the beach, and we stopped to pose with a gigantic sea turtle sunning himself on the beach. He was so docile and lovely. It was a great first day.

Farmer's Market Bonanza

The first thing that I wanted to do with my time off on the weekend was check out the farmer's markets. I'd been reading all about the local fruits and vegetables, most of which I'd never heard of before, and was really amped to try some new foods. The family I'm staying with lives on the north shore of the island in the Kohala district and the biggest farmer's markets in the area are in Waimea and Kona. Waimea, being awesome, has not just one, but TWO markets on Saturday morning, so right after coffee I headed over there with the other two WWOOFers staying at the house.

The first one we hit was pretty small, and kind of disappointing. Not much in the way of new produce, but it did have a little breakfast booth with Korean-style omelets, crunchy asian cookies and lots of flavors of kim-chee. I'll take any excuse to have bbq pork and pickled cabbage for my morning meal. The second market was at Parker School and they had more folks with prepared foods and some beautiful vegetables. And a little old man singing ukele songs in falsetto, which was totally darling. I was really impressed with the Sandwich Isle Bread Company stand. There was beautiful fresh bread coming out of a portable wood-burning oven sitting there in the sunshine. This guy (Kevin Cabrera) is something of a local legend, and folks line up early to claim the first loaves out of the oven. He gets his oven up to 600 degrees and can churn out a loaf of bread in minutes. I tried a few varieties, including his famous 20 seed bread, and it was heavenly and totally worth the hype. There was another vendor giving out samples of red veal sausage, a local specialty that comes from calves who have just started grazing on the pasture but have been weaned. Their diet and development gives the meat a distinct red color even when cooked. If you don't mind eating baby cows, it's totally tasty.

So Waimea had some cool artisanal stuff, but I was really wanting to just get down and dirty with exotic produce. We headed down to Kona and came upon a market on Alii Street (the main tourist drag) that was exactly the opposite of the markets in Waimea. It was clearly for tourists, not locals. There were crappy trinkets, shell necklaces and tee shirts with island motifs everywhere. And lots and lots of tropical fruits. Jackpot! It reminded me of the open air markets in the Bahamas and Jamaica with all their touristy junk and beads and smells, which I loved going to as a kid. It was busy with tourists milling around so I got to oggle the food as long as I liked and found tons of varieties of mangoes, papayas, bananas and checked out some new fruits I'd never seen before. I also apparently have a mango fairy godmother. Some random fellow plopped four bright and juicy mangoes in my hands as I was leaving with my dragon fruit. I'm a little afraid to eat them, fragrant as they are. Is it possible to put a crazy Hawaiian vodoo spell on a piece of fruit? I'm having delusions reminiscent of the evil witch in Snow White with her poison apple.

I was especially compelled by the dragon fruit, which just looks so damn exotic. It comes in both the yellow and fuschia varieties, with these amazing wings that spike off the outside of the vibrant skin. Opening them up is no disappointment either. They have firm bright pink flesh and little poppy-seed sized crunchy seeds. The flavor is a little disappointing, though. Mine was vaguely sweet but otherwise pretty bland. I did manage to get the red juice all over my hands and stain my fingers and lips sort of a violet color. I was really suprised at how much it reminded me of a perfectly cooked beet...

Me and my new WFOOFing buddies plopped down at a touristy place near the water and rewarded our morning labors with cheap happy hour cocktails while cooling our feet in the sand and looking at the sailboats in the bay.