Returning to My Roots: A Visit to a Living History Kona Coffee Farm

By Sandy Hu

Last week, I stepped back in time and into my childhood at The Kona Coffee Living History Farm in Captain Cook, Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii. This living museum chronicles the life of immigrant Japanese coffee farmers from 1926 to 1945 through the original farmhouse and seven-acre coffee farm of the Uchida family. Their life mirrored that of my grandparents, Iwaki and Kitsu Honda, and their nine children.

While the farm is historically accurate to 1945, so much of that lifestyle continued well past it, to my own childhood, when, living in Hilo on the other side of the island, we would visit my grandparents, aunts and uncles, all coffee farmers at the time. As kids, we picked our share of coffee, too, during peak coffee season.

Click to read more ...

Playing With Preserved Lemons

By Katie Barreira

Say preserving in August and the culinary mind jumps to mason jars and piles of late-summer produce. But canning isn’t the only way to preserve, and summer isn’t the only time to do it. This past winter, when citrus was about it for fresh fruit, I decided to preserve some lemons. A staple in Moroccan cooking, preserved lemons are salt cured with spices like black pepper and cinnamon. The result is a soft, entirely edible (though, like a fresh lemon, you wouldn’t want to eat it on it’s own) lemon that adds a rich, pickled lemon flavor to drinks, dinner and even dessert.

Preserved lemons can be found in gourmet food shops; seek them out and add a whole new dimension to your cooking; I did!

Click to read more ...

Sweet Summer Corn

By Andrew Hunter

Growing up in Michigan, sweet corn was as much a part of summer as swimming and humidity. I remember going to our local farm market called Leverett’s for corn so sweet that it satisfied my candy cravings.

Mrs. Leverett, who was also our source for pumpkins, Christmas trees and all things seasonal, taught me the quicker you go from stalk to pot, the sweeter the corn will be. I learned as a chef that the natural sugars change to starch after corn is picked, so while she probably didn’t understand the science, Mrs. Leverett knew enough to put a burner and pot of water in the field she was picking to capture that sugar before it escaped.

Click to read more ...

Avocado Soup – to Celebrate the Simple

By Lori Powell

It has been hot and super-hot in most of the country, not to mention what it going on with our economy, the world and the markets...not so hot!

Try to keep in mind that the simple things in life are not to be overlooked. We still have lots to be thankful for and if you have your health…well put simply, it does not get much better than that.

So much these days is out of our control but being thankful for what we still have and rewarding ourselves with good food is a good thing.

Make yourself something delicious, invite some friends and celebrate the simple! Here’s a refreshing soup for four to start you on your way.

Click to read more ...

A Visit to an Endive Farm

By Sandy Hu

I love endive – braised, grilled, in salads or as an edible scoop for dips. I’ll eat this crunchy, nutty, slightly bitter vegetable any way it’s served.

So you can imagine my delight when I was invited last Wednesday to Rio Vista, California, for an endive farm tour at California Vegetable Specialties (CVS), the largest producer of endive in the U.S.

Click to read more ...