Reflecting on Memorial Day

My Uncle Hiroshi Matsukawa died fighting in Italy during World War II. He was part of the decorated Japanese-American 100th Infantry Battalion.

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And while that was a long time ago and he died before I was born, for me, Memorial Day will forever be linked to childhood memories of somber ceremonies at the Veteran’s Cemetery in Hilo that my family attended each year in his honor. The snap of rifles in salute, their explosive discharge, the bugler playing mournful Taps, flowers and leis lovingly placed at every headstone, the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the wind – all are part of my Memorial Day remembrance.

In 1970, Steve’s younger brother Patrick Hu died in Vietnam and is buried at Punchbowl, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. And young men and women continue to fight and die for our country today.

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And Now Starring…Sandy Hu!

By Sandy Hu

This is so embarrassing to share, but when I was a little girl, I used to pretend to be doing a food demonstration as I washed the dishes, stirring up suds and transferring it from bowl to bowl as I whipped up my pretend food for an imaginary audience. I wasn’t interested in the cooking; I just wanted to be the star!

Growing up in Hilo before the days of the Food Network, a simple aspiration was to be on the stage of the electric company auditorium where free cooking demonstrations were held. It was one of the places where I saw real people performing in front of an audience and I was hooked!

The utility company home economists, along with the University of Hawaii Cooperative Extension Service clubs for homemakers, played a huge role in disseminating recipes from Hawaii’s rich ethnic culinary cultures. It’s one of the places where my mom learned about recipes from other ethnic groups and replicated them for our family.

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What to Serve a New Twitter Friend

By Sandy Hu

What can you learn about a person in 140-character comments over a single day? I learned enough about @Melissa808 to know I wanted to invite her for dinner.

Melissa Chang is a freelance writer and a social media consultant in Honolulu who tweets as @Melissa808. I, as @specialforksndy, met her over tweets just last Thursday, trying to help a friend of a friend with restaurant suggestions for her trip to Hawaii.

Although I was the food editor of the Honolulu Advertiser years ago, I wasn’t very current on the restaurant scene so I tweeted @Kamaka_Hawaii, the only foodie from Hawaii I followed on Twitter, for some advice. She, in turn, involved two people with the pulse on restaurant dining in Hawaii, tweeting back “both @Melissa808 and @thedailydish (Catherin Toth) are big time Foodies, Bloggers, Journalists from Oahu.”

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Living the Life of Pie

By Sandy Hu

I just took my apple pie out of the oven, juices bubbling and sputtering from between the lattice crust. And now my whole house smells of butter, sugar and apples – a mouthwateringly delicious combination.

I’ve been working most weekends and baking a pie isn’t what I would do normally to relax. But I am inspired to make pie after a hands-on class I took recently with a remarkable teacher, Kate McDermott, who had flown in to San Francisco from Seattle to teach a series of hands-on pie baking classes. I came home that night with a scrumptious, freshly baked rhubarb pie with the most delectable crust.

And while I loved the pie lesson and couldn’t wait to try the techniques I had learned, Kate also taught life lessons – about how we can approach food and cooking, and the value of staying in the moment as we prepare our food.

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What to do with Easter Leftovers

By Sandy Hu

It was fun to color all those eggs. But now, the naked whites are a sorry sight, tinged with bits of dye, destined for a mosaic egg salad.

If you’d like to do something a bit more interesting with those Easter eggs, try the ideas below. And for good measure, I’ve added ways to use that leftover Easter ham. Some of the recipes come from previous posts by our Special Fork bloggers.

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