A Moveable Feast

Let me tell you – when Hamakua Springs hosts a cookout, it’s not just any old backyard-type event where somebody slaps together a few burgers.

Chef Alan Wong recently made his annual trek from Honolulu to the Hamakua coast, bringing chefs and other personnel from his restaurants to visit and meet the farmers whose products they cook with everyday.

And while they were here making the rounds and visiting their farmer friends, they came to Hamakua Springs and prepared a 12-course feast—a thank you—for friends and farmers here who, incidentally, supplied most of the fresh local ingredients.

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Alan Wong cooking

Richard pointed out that Chef Alan and his crew created a really unique atmosphere for this group of farmers. Though they all know each other, most usually only see each other in work-related situations—maybe on a tour, or while showing their products at a booth, or at a meeting. “This was the first time they all could talk story in a purely social situation,” he said, “and that was very special.”

The event was called a “cookout,” but that doesn’t properly describe this memorable dinner. Wanda Adams of the Honolulu Advertiser put together a video about the event, which you can view here.

The food was absolutely delicious. There were “beer sausage” pupus, with grass-fed beef from the North Shore Cattle Company, and smoked pork lechon salad. Garlic bread was topped with Dick and Heather Threlfall’s Hawai‘i Island Goat Dairy goat cheese, and there was a Hamakua Springs tomato salad with crispy pipikaula. One really popular (and delicious) appetizer was the guava-smoked Big Island goat cheese on shiso leaves and topped with pancetta. Yum.

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Guava-smoked Hawai‘i Island Goat Dairy cheese on shiso leaves with pancetta. Photo by Macario

Our smoked sausage, made by Kimo and Tracy and “The Pig Man” Alvin Jardine, was on the menu, as well as grilled, Big Island ribeye and grilled strip loin from Kulana Meats, and a grilled rib steak with chili lemongrass and goat cheese dressing.

In addition to their other varieties, Bob and Janice Stanga of Hamakua Mushrooms brought Chef Alan samples of their new product, the endemic Pepeiao mushroom, which is not available on the market yet but coming soon. It ended up in a mushroom and snow pea chow fun dish.

There were many, many other delicious dishes, too, including fresh prawns from the farm’s streams, fish, and an unbelievable paella.

Paella

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Paella. Photo by Macario

Our chef friends cooked with Wailea Agricultural Group’s fresh, tasty Hawaiian Heart of Palm, and every kind of Hamakua Springs produce.

Chef Alan even used Hamakua Springs bananas, cooked in butter and sugar, in the otherwise traditional s’mores (made of local chocolate) that they served at the end of the meal. In case anyone was still hungry.

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photo by Macario

All of the incredible food was prepared by the chefs who work at The Hualalai Grille by Alan Wong, as well as at Alan Wong’s Restaurant, on King Street in Honolulu, which was recently named by Gourmet magazine as the 8th best restaurant in the country.

What an incredible crew it was at work under the green- and white-striped tent. Some wore their street clothes and looked like the guy/girl next door—but it was clear they were not. These were professionals.

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It was interesting to watch these chefs, accustomed to working in the most upscale kitchens, working out-of-doors in a makeshift kitchen on a gravel lot. Nobody missed a beat. There were coolers and big pots everywhere, and most of the chefs had white- and green-striped kitchen towels tucked into a pocket. Skillets rested upside down atop other skillets atop propane grills, acting as lids. As a dish neared completion, its cook would bring a spoonful over to Alan Wong – “Chef,” they call him – who, I noticed, would conduct the definitive taste test.

So many people joined us and helped make it what it was. From the Hawai‘i Community College culinary program there was Chef Allan Okuda and his wife Kay, Chef Sandy Barr and six students. In addition to Wanda Adams from the Advertiser, other food writers in attendance were Sonia Martinez and Joan Namkoong.

Harold and Eric Tanouye from Green Point Nurseries brought stunning flower arrangements. From the farm, in addition to Richard, June, Kimo and Tracy, there was Chris Respicio, Florence Lovell, Ida Castillo, Wilfred Hansen, Downey Kajime and Susie White. Charlotte and Rodrigo Romo and their girls Sydney and Hana were there, in addition to myself, my daughter Emma Rose and my husband Macario, who photographed the food.

Richard’s mom was there, too. Mrs. Ha doesn’t go out much at nights. But Richard asked her if she wanted to come to the cookout and she did. She said the food was delicious and that Alan and lots of others went over to talk with her.

On the way home, Richard’s mom told him, “Do you remember how we didn’t even have a tractor in the beginning? Now I’m taking home a plate from Chef Alan Wong.” They laughed and talked about the old days. Richard’s mom was there helping out at the farm’s very beginning and she is still involved. See How It All Started, Part One.

It was a magnificent offering by Chef Alan and his people. There was so much generosity, and aloha, in the air, and everyone present seemed to feel as I did – that we were absolutely honored to be in the presence of such great cooks, who were working so hard to prepare us such unbelievably delicious food, the likes of which is rarely seen outside of very upscale restaurants. Walking through that beautiful buffet line and loading up a plate with some of the best food I can recall having (and then going back for some more) was a thrill.

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photo by Macario

Chef Alan and associates (Dan Nakasone, Leigh Ito, Wade Ueoka, Michelle Karr, Kerry Ichimasa, Miya Nishimura, Nicole Tajima, James Ebreo, Allen Hess, Liz Suarez, Valerie and Chris): We thank you for the gift of your time, energies, enthusiasm and talents, and especially for the tremendous feast. – posted by Leslie Lang

Smoke Meat

Richard Ha writes:

Chef Alan Wong visited the farm recently. He was taking his chefs and other personnel from his restaurants on a tour of Hamakua farming operations. They visited farmers whose products they use in their restaurants.

We knew Alan was interested in seeing how Portuguese sausage was made, traditional style. And he was interested in seeing how to make smoked meat and pipikaula, so I asked Kimo if he would demonstrate.

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Tracy and Kimo stuffing sausages; that’s Alan Wong and Charlotte Romo observing

Kimo said yes, and he made a portable smoke house at the farm. He had it built in a flash with iron, a steel frame and some iron roofing we had around. They used ‘ohi‘a wood for the fire.

Over the weekend, Tracy marinated the meat and stuffed most of the sausage. Before when people used to hang meat in a smoke house, they would use iron, or a piece of hanger, that they bent with a hook on the end. But nowadays they use large paper clips. Kimo said, “You can tell—the guy wearing camouflage clothing who walks into Office Max looking for paper clips and looking lost, he’s a hunter and it’s probably the last time he ever goes into Office Max.”

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Attaching meat to the paper clips

Alan Wong was right in there with his hands, putting the paper clips on the meat. He jumped right in.

We smoked pig—the long strips in the front are the pork—and Portuguese sausage, which is behind. We also smoked tomatoes and some of our jalapeno peppers.

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Kimo learned how to do all this from Alvin Jardine, who’s on the right (below). He’s Kimo’s mentor in terms of stuff like this. We’ve known Alvin for about 14 years. He used to come and trap pigs at the Kea‘au farm. He must have caught hundreds of pigs over those 14 years. Now he has about 50 wild pigs at his place.

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Kimo with Alvin Jardine

Sometimes they dig out under the fence, but he feeds them so well the wild pigs always come back at night. He waits until it’s dark at night and they’re home, and then he fixes the fence. He starting working at the sugar plantation when he was 14 years old—he plowed the fields with a mule and plow. He’s been hunting since then and is still hunting today.

He spoke to our guests and gave pointers about preparing meat for sausage. It was interesting to listen to him. One of the people asked how much salt you use and he said, “Just enough.” The guy asked, “But how much?”

Alvin said it again, “Just enough.” I glanced over at Alan Wong and he had this big grin on his face because he understood exactly what Alvin was saying.

Kimo lit the ‘ohi‘a logs with a propane torch and in five minutes they were ready to go. We took everybody on a farm tour, and when we got back to the smokehouse the meat was already ready to taste.

Smoking meat is really second nature to Kimo and Tracy. They do it so often. I was happy to see that everybody got to see it through the whole process. It was real fun because it was something different.

Riding Along

Richard Ha writes:

On January 7th, I started on a program to lose a half-pound per week.

Weight on Jan. 7, 2007: 204.5 lbs.
Weight on Sunday, Mar. 18th: 198.5 lbs.
Target weight yesterday was 199.5 lbs.

I am 1.0 lbs ahead of schedule.
I gained .5 lbs. this week.

My resting heart rate was 57 beats per minute. As long as it’s in the 50s, I consider that good.

I trained twice this week instead of the five or six days I normally do. After spending the last two weeks on special, one-time work projects, I spent a lot of this week catching up and I lost focus. If I had planned properly, I could have fit in the exercise. I must remember to put my exercise time as the highest priority.

Two days this week I rode my bike for 90 minutes. A circuit that normally takes me an hour only took me 50 minutes. That was surprising. But then I was very well-rested.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I cannot lose weight by exercise alone. I think I need to really concentrate on how many calories I’m taking in. I’ve tried to work around that. But I don’t think that there is any alternative for me. In contrast, my friend Mike Tanabe tells me he can eat anything he wants. He’s in his late 50s and is an elite mountain bike rider. I’m far from that caliber of bike rider.

I now have four weeks left to prepare for the Poker Run. I plan to train this week at a medium high rate, next week at a high rate and at a moderate rate during the third week. I’ll take the fourth week off except for easy riding, and that should be good enough preparation for the Poker Run.

Five-a-Day

Purple caulifower? Orange cauliflower? Who knew!

“It just feels like trickery,” laughs Charlotte Romo, the farm’s hydroponic crop specialist. She says her work in the farm’s “Variety Garden,” where she is experimenting with growing interesting varieties of vegetables, feels like playing.

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Charlotte with some of her vegetables

“I was telling one of my old professors from the University of Arizona about my job and she said, ‘You just lucked out.’ You know, I can even see the ocean from the greenhouses.”

“Richard and I kept getting these ideas,” she says. “Can we grow this? Let’s try.”

They are interesting varieties that she is growing—not much in the Variety Garden is run-of-the-mill. There are things like tiny carrots that are purple outside and orange inside; beet sprouts, which taste like beets and are a fuscia color; beets with a pink and white spiral inside; sweet golden beets, which are, you know, golden; pea sprouts; and lots of different squashes.

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Purple carrots

There’s also eggplant, and a bi-colored sweet corn, and peppers—hot peppers, bell pepper, all kind of in-between, white bell peppers. And there are tomatillos, and also more varieties of heirloom tomatoes, some of which are just starting to ripen and soon be ready to taste for the first time. “It’s so exciting,” she says. “I really like it.”

“With heirlooms,” she explains, “they are the true, naked, ancient seed, so they don’t have anything built into them as far as resistance. Some turn out to be just too much trouble. It’s all about trying them out.”

She explains that her job is to figure out which of these experimental crops grows well, how to water it, what each one’s obstacles are and how to overcome them. She grows a crop for at least one cycle, makes adjustments to her methods as needed, and then grows it out again.

Vegetables“It’s so fun to grow something for the first time,” she says. “It’s all this different, funny-looking stuff, like stripey vegetables. A lot of these carrots we’re growing are higher in Beta-carotene and Vitamin A than the usual. In the stores, a lot of farms tend to do just one variety based on performance and disease-resistance, rather than color. We will be accomplishing the goal of getting more nutrients out to people by growing these varieties.”

She’s even got really sweet poha berries (“husked tomatoes”) growing in the Variety Garden. “They’re one of those things that has kind of disappeared as people have built where all the wild bushes used to be,” she says.

Charlotte explains that the goal to try different crops and be able to provide more diversity locally, as well as supplying produce to chefs. The plan also includes selling some of these seasonal products in our open-to-the-public farm stand, which is coming soon. More details about that here soon – stay tuned! – posted by Leslie Lang

Contest Winners!

Monday morning was our big day: the judging for our tomato recipe contest.

We had culled 90+ tomato recipes—all entries to our “You Say Tomato” recipe contest—down to the top five in each of three categories: Salad, Entrée, and Preserves & Condiments.

We met at the Hawai‘i Community College’s cafeteria, where, led by Allan Okuda, director of the Hawai‘i Community College Food Service Program, and HCC’s Chef Sandy Barr, 30 culinary students had been working hard all morning preparing those top 15 recipes.

Our line-up of judges sat at a long table in front of the room, and sampled the delicious dishes as they came out. They had scoring sheets in front of them and rated each one.

Tomato Contest

Randy Nunokawa, Audrey Wilson, Rockne Freitas, Marlene Hapai, Joan Namkoong, Sonia Martinez

I have to say that the students did an incredible job. Their job was to prepare a recipe they’d never used before, following its instructions exactly—no improvising—so the judges could sample the dishes and judge the recipe. They really did a wonderful and very professional job. The dishes came out looking, smelling and tasting terrific.

I know this because after the judging was over, they brought out more of everything and made a buffet line, and all us hangers-on got a plate and feasted. It was delicious. Richard, June and I marveled that we get to do things like this for our job!

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Chef Allan said the students enjoyed the opportunity, and worked really hard at it. He and Richard have already agreed to do a second annual “Hamakua Springs Tomato Challenge” next year.

Randy Nunokawa, HCC’s Non-Credit Culinary Program coordinator, agreed that it’s great for the students to be exposed to this sort of project, where it all matters—presentation, texture, taste. He added his appreciation that Hamakua Springs brought its Tomato Recipe Contest to the college. “The community coming to the college,” he said; “that’s what Community College is for. That’s what we all strive for.”

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Randy Nunokawa, Joan Namkoong, Audrey Wilson, June Ha, Sonia Martinez, Richard Ha, Marlene Hapai

Richard said he was happy to work with the culinary students, whom he hosted on a tour of the farm last week. “This was a great event,” he said. “I had great faith in the students and staff of HCC. But the results even exceeded expectations. June and I are extremely happy with how it went.

“I was so proud of the students,” he said. “I think that they presented the recipes that were submitted at a very professional, high level. And the dishes were not only wonderful to look at, they were also delicious.”

In addition to Nunokawa, judges were Rockne Freitas, Chancellor of Hawai‘i Community College; Marlene Hapai of the University of Hawai‘i Board of Regents; food writer and cookbook author Sonia Martinez, who helped coordinate the event; food writer and author Joan Namkoong and Hawai‘i Tribune-Herald food columnist Audrey Wilson.

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Roland Torres, producer of the television program Kama‘aina Backroads, videotaped the contest judging for a segment that will appear on a future Kama‘aina Backroads episode. We’ll post about it here when that’s coming up.

Here are the winners:

Candace Ames of Hilo won Grand Prize in the Entrée category with her “Hamakua Style Tomato Pie,” which was also the overall Grand Prize winner. Each grand prize winner receives a $350 Foodland/Sack and Save gift certificate and a personal tour of the farm.

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The winning Entree: Hamakua Style Tomato Pie

Ames’s “Hamakua Style Tomato Pie” was a crowd-pleaser, creating a lot of buzz and ending up with a large point spread between it and the next highest-rated recipe. Judges, students and visitors alike raved about the quiche-like dish.

“Candace Ames told me she was blown away, happy and surprised,” Richard said. “She said she tries to eat healthy and she experiments and modifies recipes a lot. She said she loves Hamakua Springs tomatoes in the pie because they are firm.”

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The top three entrees

Second place in the Entrée category went to Carolyn Uejo Kuntemeyer of Hilo for her “Ripe Tomatoes Stuffed with Lentils and Rice.” Third place went to “Tomato and Flank Steak in Awesome Sauce,” submitted by Aiea resident Barbara Lee.

All second place winners receive $300 in Foodland gift certificates, and each third place winner $250 in certificates.

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The three winning salads

The Grand Prize Salad was Leonora Tsukayama of Hilo’s “Crunchy Lomi Salad.” Second place went to Eileen T. Tredway of Hilo, for “Tomato is a Fruit” Salad, and third place to Alyssa Moreau of Honolulu for her “Fresh Tomato & Corn Salad.”

In the category of Preserves & Condiments, Grand Prize went to Suzie Littlejohn of Kea‘au for her “Tomato Chutney,” which was also a crowd favorite. Second place, the colorful, tasty and interesting “Tomato Sass,” went to the Kea‘au High School Food Service Class. Third place was “Simple Salad Dressing,” submitted by Jessie Hillinger of Hilo.

Our first recipe contest was a wonderful experience all the way around. Our thanks to every single person involved, and we’ll see you next year! — posted by Leslie Lang

No Gain

On January 7th, I started on a program to lose a half-pound per week.

Weight on Jan. 7, 2007: 204.5 lbs. 
Weight on Sunday, Mar.11th: 198.0 lbs.
Target weight yesterday was 200.0 lbs.

I am 2.0 lbs ahead of schedule.

I lost just .1 lbs. this week. At least I did not gain anything. My resting heart rate was 56 beats per minute. As long as it’s in the 50’s, I consider that good.

This week there was an unusual amount of eating out. And to make matters worse, I didn’t train at all for the whole week. But it was not because I was totally lazy. It was because I felt that the rest would do me good.

I plan to resume my normal exercise routine tomorrow, and must make sure to ride my bike tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, that’s when we’re having the final judging of the Tomato Recipe Contest we are sponsoring. It will be held at the Hawai‘i Community College Gourmet Dining Room, where our judges will taste-test 15 tomato dishes in three different categories. Students from the Hawai’i Community College food service department will prepare each dish.

Each winner gets a $350 Foodland gift certificate and a personal farm tour of Hamakua Springs Country Farms, as well as their way paid here. We will tell you about the tasting and judging and announce the winners here on Wednesday.

This Old Car

Chef Peter Merriman came over to visit today, along with Chef Neil Murphy and Assistant Chef Dan Salvador, all of Merriman’s in Waimea.

Peter was the first person to value fresh, locally grown produce over imported produce. It was common knowledge then that he was paying a premium for products grown locally. That was at a time when local farmers were otherwise receiving the same as what it cost to buy imported produce, or less.

He’s a special friend. Fifteen years ago I was in a reflective mood on Christmas day and called him at home in Puako. I thanked him on behalf of local farmers everywhere.

He was one of the founders of the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement. And now he is one of the founding member chefs of the new Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture Seal of Quality program.

I surprised our guests today by taking them on a tour of the farm on our old sampan bus. We drove over to see the hydroponic lettuce and watercress operation, where they saw how we grow our lettuces without soil. I explained that we are food safety-certified, and they were pleasantly surprised by the good taste and tenderness of the watercress.

I asked if we could ship them samples to see how the watercress holds up. So we’ll be delivering to Merriman’s first thing next week.

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(l-r) Assistant Chef Dan Salvador, Chef Neil Murphy and Chef Peter Merriman

We bought this old sampan bus at auction a few years ago. There were seven or eight of them for sale that day, but June’s dad, who’s an old car hobbyist, told me that this one, which had previously been owned by the Lyman Museum, was the most authentic.

In the 1930s through ‘50s, sampans (or “jitneys”) were a common and inexpensive form of transportation in Hilo. They were open-sided, built from small bus bodies that were mounted onto the chassis of passenger cars.

I wanted a sampan really badly and at the auction I got caught up in the bidding process. I bid quickly and decisively.

When the bidding reached $8,000, I lost track of who had made the last bid and I raised it. The auctioneer said, “He must really want it; he just bid against himself.”

Everything got quiet, no one else bid and I got it for $8,000. As it turned out, that was the lowest bid for any of the sampans that day.

The other day I brought the bus up to the farm. I drove over to the tomato-packing house and waved for Ida, Flo and Susie come over.

I told them, “It’s okay, jump in, we go” and I took them for a ride. Flo reminisced about catching the sampan to go to school back in the day. I told them, “That will be a nickel.” We were all smiling.

Training

On January 7th, I started on a program to lose a half pound per week.

Weight on Jan. 7, 2007: 204.5 lbs.
Weight on Sunday, Mar. 4th: 198.4 lbs.

Target weight yesterday was 200.5 lbs.
I am 2.1 lbs ahead of schedule.

I’m getting in shape for a mountain bike “Poker Run” on April 15:

Monday – Forty minutes on the elliptical training, plus some weight lifting (three sets of 10 reps).

Tuesday – Cross-country hill climbs on the farm. There is a 35-minute course with three steep hills. Next week, I’ll do one of those hills twice.

Wednesday – Sixty easy minutes on the elliptical.

Thursday – Forty minutes on the elliptical, plus weight lifting (three sets of 10 reps). I’m working toward four sets and increased weight. Last week, I did four sets of 25 crunches. This week, two of those sets were done with five-pound weights behind my head.

Friday – I rode Banana Hill, which is 45 minutes straight up. I’m improving; it wasn’t so painful.

Saturday – Rest.

Sunday – I rode for three hours. I am a little ahead of schedule with my weight loss, so next week I’ll take it easy and do two and a half hours. Then the following week, three hours and the week after that three hours and 30 minutes.

I am increasing my training intensity and so far, so good. Every third week, I’ll decrease the intensity so that I don’t injure myself.

Training is something I like to do. It’s much easier for me than controlling calorie intake. It is what it is and I’m not agonizing about it.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Richard Ha writes:

A couple years ago June and I wanted to learn more about hydroponic vegetable production methods in a place similar to drizzly, rainy Hilo, so—logically, right?—we went to England.

We bought that French melon, which had been grown in Israel, when we saw it at a local market. Back home we were really determined to grow French melons.

And Stonehenge had really captured my imagination since the time I was a young boy, so I couldn’t have just an ordinary photo taken of us at Stonehenge.

I had to take that melon with us to Stonehenge and have this photo taken as proof that we were in England doing R&D because of its similarity to Hilo.

I just love having taken that melon with us to Stonehenge and getting that photo. It makes me chuckle every time I see it.

And now we are growing the French Charentais melon, which is considered the premium French melon. It’s so sweet it cannot travel far. It’s the only type of melon we grow, and we chose this particular variety because it’s the very best tasting.