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.

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Knife Sharpening - Advanced Knife Maintenance

Knife maintenance is very important in the kitchen. There are two parts to knife maintenance: honing and sharpening. Honing is a simple task that anyone can do and should be undertaken frequently. Sharpening takes a little more skill and is usually best left to the professionals. But if you’ve ever wanted to take a stab at it, Craig demonstrates in today’s video. If you plan to take the plunge and try it yourself, Craig advises working with an old knife before moving up to your nicer knives.

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Family Paella

By Andrew Hunter

Paella is truly a family meal and usually includes friends because it’s impossible to make less than enough for the neighborhood. At our house, we have an outdoor propane burner that I bought at a Chinese hardware store. We use it for party-sized stir-fries and paella. There are enough BTUs to singe the leaves in the trees 20 feet high.

Paella is Spain’s national dish made in a shallow pan with a flat bottom and handles on each side. The great thing is you can customize it to your tastes and budget … if you’re feeling flush, add shrimp and mussels, if you’re cooking for finicky kids, chicken and sausage.

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Thinking Pumpkins; Anticipating Fall

By Lori Powell

I have never had a pumpkin patch...until now. When I moved into my rental house, there was a raised bed with rotting pumpkins.

Agreed, it was not so pretty, but thought, wow! How cool would it be to have pumpkins? Well, those pumpkins became compost over the winter and their seeds produced offspring.

First there was a small green one, which is becoming rather large. And then a small orange one popped up, and now a white mini pumpkin. They are literally taking over the garden so I had to take out a couple of plants and steer the vines to the outside of the box to protect the rest of the herbs and tomato plants that were about to be overcome by the big beauties!

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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!

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