Another Reason to Vacation in Hawaii: The Food!

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

Years ago in Hawaii, when I was the food editor of the Honolulu Advertiser, “fine dining” meant an elaborate leatherette menu of classic French dishes prepared by European chefs, often made with imported European ingredients. My visiting New York friends used to wonder why food in Hawaii was always a disappointment, given the wealth of fresh produce growing abundantly everywhere (and obviously being ignored).

Today, of course, Hawaii continues its culinary renaissance, which started in the early 1990s with a dozen chefs vowing to use their talents to showcase the best of local ingredients in uniquely local interpretations. Once exclusive to high-end dining, the attitude has infected the next generation of young chefs across a wide spectrum of eateries, spurring them to push the boundaries as they draw on their cultural roots, fostering local pride.

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Mom’s Super-Easy Avocado Sherbet

By Sandy Hu

When we were growing up in Hawaii, avocados were virtually free. If you didn’t grow them, a neighbor did.

To “put up” extras when we had more than we could eat, my mom created this simple, refreshing avocado sherbet. It takes just four ingredients and a few minutes, and it’s really quite wonderful.

Avocados are high in fat, making sherbet of a creamy-rich consistency. The fat is primarily the “good” fats: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. And you can feel virtuous about eating avocados; they are a nutritional powerhouse.

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Simply Delicious Macadamia Nut Cookies

By Sandy Hu

Growing up in Hawaii, we had a macadamia nut tree in our front yard. We’d wait for the nuts to fall, then remove the outer husk and get a hammer to crack the rock-hard inner shell. It took a lot of patience to line up one nut at a time, and to keep the nut in place long enough to connect with the brunt of the hammer. A traditional nutcracker was useless against the mighty macadamia.

My ever-resourceful mother figured out a more efficient method. She would corral the nuts in one layer in the base of a shallow candy box, put a piece of cardboard on top to hold the nuts in place, then whack away with a hammer indiscriminately. Eventually, all the nuts would yield their buttery meat.

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Going Bananas

By Sandy Hu

Growing up in Hawaii, I know a thing or two about bananas. We ate enough of them as kids. Apple Bananas, Bluefields, Cavendish…so many varieties thrive in tropical climates. And mostly we got them for free, a gift from somebody’s backyard.

We ate bananas in many ways – fried in butter with brown sugar for dessert, suspended in glistening Jell-O for a snack or scattered over cornflakes for breakfast.

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Why not Kalua Pig for Labor Day?

By Sandy Hu

As we were walking on the grounds of the Royal Kona hotel in Kailua-Kona on vacation last week, we came across two workers preparing kalua pig for the evening’s luau. It brought back memories for Steve, whose grandfather used to host luaus for family and friends in his backyard in Aina Haina (on the Island of Oahu). These were grand affairs with a party tent, professional musicians and many guests.

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