Saturday, March 15, 2008
Posted at 8:44:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Dean says I have to post (for the benefit of the future self) that we went to Peaberry & Galette for coffee, and it was a positive experience. The Kona coffee's still not my favorite--it's distinctly thin tasting--but it's not too bad, and their chairs are great for hanging around reading the Hawaii Island Journal! I think I'll try a cappuccino next time.
We went snorkeling at Fishaholic this afternoon, and it was boring!! We only stayed in for about 45 minutes total. There were practically no fish--just nothing but unis. And this is the Fishaholic we're talking about, so usually there's an insane amount of fish. The only place where there were lots of fish was the super-shallow super-cloudy super-crowded area where all the waders are. Weird. We did see a cool green juvenile dragon wrasse flitting around, looking exactly like a leaf, but that was about it. I was also HOT in my 5mm wetsuit (!!) and felt all claustrophobic and confined in the shallow water (it's about two or three feet deep!). Bleah! What the heck, do I hate snorkeling now and love scuba?? Or was it just an atypical bad snorkel? We got a shave ice afterwards, from the shave ice truck, and that was superb. Half li hing mui, half passion-orange!
I should've bought more lulos! Here's my new invention, Loli's Luloade.
Posted at 8:06:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
You will need:
- The juice of 1 large juicy lime (Tahitian, if available). You probably need 2 limes if it's not large & juicy enough. I used a manual citrus-juicer to get out all the juice.
- The scooped-out insides of 2 ripe lulos (wait 'til they're squishy on the outside and green inside).
- Water (I think about 1/2 a cup... or maybe a little more... I just added it directly to the blender and didn't actually measure).
- 1/2 container of Meadow Gold vanilla yogurt.
- Sugar to taste.
In a blender, whir together the lime juice, lulo innards, and water, then strain off the lulo seeds using a strainer. Pour the liquid back into the blender and add the yogurt and some sugar. Blend. Taste and add more sugar, if desired. When taste is premium, pour into a tall glass and enjoy a refreshing Loli's Luloade!
Farmers' Market Saturday! This week when we approached the Lulo Guy's stand, he exclaimed, "There's my favorite customers!" Dean thinks the Lulo Guy's name is Bruce. He made me tell the L.G. about how I made papaya-lime smoothies with one lulo and the lulo was the most predominant flavor. Lulo Guy was very interested, because he's been trying to invent some mixed drinks using lulo, but said vodka was the only thing that didn't overpower it. Weird! When we left, he called out, "See you next week!!"
Posted at 11:06:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
The lemon tart stand didn't have lemon tarts this week--they had taro tarts and pumpkin tarts instead (??!), so I passed. Maybe I would've tried a pumpkin tart in November, but it seems weird this time of year! We got a fish taco (very premium) and a brunch burrito again at the food-made-on-the-spot stand, though, and they were extremely tasty. Oh, and I got a pink lemon (flav tart I ate last week) at a different stand! It's yellow with green stripes, and it's supposed to be pink inside ("for making pink lemonade").
Dean drank an orange w/stuff juice (one of the things was ginger, but I don't remember the others) (it didn't taste like normal orange juice, though) and a liloko`i juice. I really liked the liloko`i juice! (We both did.)
To bring back to our place, we got:
- A semi-conservative number of papayas (six or seven)
- A free lime that one of the papaya guys gave us because you need limes to go with your papaya (so, so true)
- The pink lemon
- A red grapefruit
- 3 lulos (I still had some left from last week)
- 6 Tahitian limes (I realised those good limes are Tahitian limes!)
- A Blue Field Banana (it looks similar to a Williams banana, the normal kind that grocery stores everywhere sell, not little like an apple-banana) (I'm hoping it will be blue inside, though! Okay, I doubt it, but I can still hope. A blue banana would be pretty cool!)
We ate one of my red grapefruit when we got back, and it was good! Very, very juicy.
I made great progress on my Lava 105's Most Overplayed Songs list last night! It was fun. We also went to Pahu I`a for dinner, which was very, very nice. As a little bonus at the end, they gave us tiny mini-malasadas.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Posted at 1:32:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
A few links I've been meaning to post:
- I found out Keauhou Farmers' Market has a website! That picture is exactly what it looks like (but you can't see the band at the far end).
- Whilst trying to figure out that weird basket star-ish thing we saw, I came across a photo that resembled it in a book at the used bookstore. The photo was of something like this. I don't know if that's what it was or not, but, regardless, this gallery of Hawaii's sea worms, which I discovered while researching, is really cool. It's especially amazing to see what the bodies of worms like the spaghetti worm look like, because normally you only get to see the long strand-y tentacles sticking out, while the rest is all buried.
- I am fascinated by tartar sauce! (I keep staring at all the bottles whenever we go to the grocery store.) I had no idea there were so many different kinds! I only knew about the lumpy sort, which I am not a fan of. (Apparently, it = mayonnaise + relish... I never realised what tartar sauce actually is). Clearly Dano's mysterious special sauce is just a fantastic and non-lumpy variety of tartar sauce.
Speaking of Dano, when we went to the International Marketplace on Tuesday, Dano saw us walking in the parking lot (near the cool back door to Dano's, which has a picture of a shave ice on it), and he smiled and waved like mad!! I couldn't believe he recognised me! Then we went to Dano's, and I ordered a fresh catch sandwich (of course) and even though I never talked to him, since the cashier girl was there this time, he made me curly fries without even asking. I didn't write about it, but last time I went to Dano's, the cashier girl was away so Dano himself came out of the back room and took my order, and when he asked if I wanted regular fries or curly fries, I said, "Oh, curly fries." I guess he thought that was cute/silly and remembered. :-) Captain Dano reminds me a little bit of Jim, the dive boat Captain guy from Big. Captain Dano's fresh fish sandwiches are the best. He even specially whacks each piece of lettuce to flatten it and make it fit on the sandwich better--I saw him through the tiny window/slot that the back room person passes the food to the cashier through.
We didn't go diving until almost five o'clock on Tuesday (I'm catching up on Tuesday now, obviously... Monday is next). At first, even our standby Old Airport seemed too rough! We decided it wasn't that bad and went in anyway. There was lots of current and waves coming back in (a hard swim) but it was an enjoyable late dive anyway and we saw quite a few eels and a nice big Varicose Phyllidia nudibranch. I took off my glove and touched it, and it felt so weird! It was rough and dry feeling, not slimy like I expected. We didn't get out until six-ish! It gets dark at six when we're usually here, but it stays light for an hour or so more this time of year, so that's pretty nice. (There's not very much variation in sunset/sunrise times in Hawaii, unlike at home.)
Dean keeps buying still more papayas. He got an untold number at South Kona Fruit Stand on Monday ("But they're solos... we like this kind!"), and then couldn't resist four more at the grocery store because they were from the other side of the island (Kapoho, near Pahoa). We have so many papayas, I can't even keep up!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Kona Mountain Coffee is so smooth and rich. It's amazing. The best. I tried to ask the KMC guy how to brew it the same way at home (coffee-to-water proportions, etc.), but I was confused after about two sentences. Dean says his bottom line was, "Whatever you like, yeah?"
Posted at 9:54:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Lava 105 was playing "One Toke Over the Line" on the way to The Herb. Highly appropriate. I am working on a list of Lava 105's Most Overplayed Songs, though ("One Toke Over the Line" is not one of them), because they repeat the same songs over and over and over. Constant quote from me: "What the heck??! They just played this song!!" Sometimes they repeat a song, or even a group of songs, on the same day, mere hours later. I am beginning to doubt that Lava 105 is even a real radio station.
Our spot at The Herb was premium, as usual. And this time we even had our lava chairs and snuggly towels, so it was extra premium. My friend the wind finally drove me away, though. My shoulders were starting to scream too much from being in cringe mode. But I got a bunch read in my Crown-of-Thorns book, and even finally wrote some postcards!
Oh yeah, and we had Dean's special monster papaya for breakfast this morning. Or, at least, we had some of it. It was too overwhelmingly meaty and not finishable. At the same time, we ate this tiny runty papaya (the hollow inside was about the size of a small spoon) that I couldn't resist getting at the South Kona Fruit Stand, mainly just to tease Dean's obsession with his ridiculously giant one. Guess which one tasted better? If you guessed my runt, you're right.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Posted at 9:18:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I'm such a slacker. I'm a billion days behind again. But I'm tired at night after diving, and don't feel like blogging! We didn't go diving today, so I'm going to try to catch up. Instead, we toured the Ocean Rider seahorse farm near the Natural Energy Labs (super-close to Loli Longs' home!).
It was pretty interesting--they gave a guided tour of the whole operation, which has sort of a combo mission to preserve seahorses (which are an endangered species) and raise captive bred seahorses to sell as pets. It's the only place in the world that does it (all other seahorses are caught in the ocean and usually don't live very long), and they are working on adding a whole bunch of different rare breeds to their operation. The tour guide marine biologist lady was all excited about some new leafy sea dragons they'd recently obtained, but we didn't get to see those because they were too special and vulnerable.
We did get to see a whole bunch of other sea horses swimming around in giant blue bucket/barrel-like tanks (it reminded me a lot of the sea turtle farm in Grand Cayman, except no one's going to eat the seahorses), twisting their tails around each other and doing mating dances.
We also got to watch them race over and slurp down tiny brine shrimp, and I got to be the person to dump in the shrimp, because it had to be someone on the opposite site of the tank from where all the 'horses were gathered (so they'd race across), and Dean was standing on that side, so he got handed the container of little mini shrimp guys. He wrinkled up his nose, so I grabbed them and said, "I'll do it!"
Then when it was time to touch the seahorses (in lower tanks than the feasting tanks) and the guide lady asked who wanted to go first and everyone was all hesitant, I was like, "Oh, I will!" and she had me do it. Ha. Shy little Laura. You put your hands (up to the elbows) in the water with the fingers touching, and the lady guides a seahorse over to wrap around your finger with its tail. It was neat.
Afterwards Dean and I checked out the lava/ocean near the seahorse ranch, and there was this tall wooden thing (about five feet high) at the end of a concrete pier, so I climbed up on top, and could see a giant pipe sticking out the end (to pump deep sea water for the NELHA projects, I think). The waves were SUPER crashy and waterfally and suck-y and washy-uppy there, kind of like at Wawaloli but much more extreme and deep and huge and dramatic. It was exciting! I told Dean how cool it was, so he climbed up too and took a video. He was all teased because the water beyond all the turbulence is a great place to dive but you'd get your brains dashed to smithereens if you tried to enter there.
We stopped at the Kona Coffee & Tea Co. for coffee and chai on the way to NELHA and Dean said they are "purveyors of premium chai." The Kona coffee really is excellent too, and it's such a friendly and welcoming place. I like KC&TC. Speaking of friendly and welcoming, we returned our gear at Big (had to keep reassuring everyone that we aren't leaving yet, just taking a few days off from diving) and Luke told us about how pals of his are getting lots of glowsticks (environmentally friendly ones) and throwing them into the flowing lava at Kilauea and it makes spectacular fireworks-y effects. I asked him and Ralph if anyone at Big had gone there to dive (because right now the lava is flowing into the ocean, and if you're really crazy it's possible to dive near it and see it hardening underwater and stuff... I know this because some of the Jack's employees did it and they had a video of it there when we were buying Dean's new hooded thing), but apparently no one at Big is that hardcore. Everytime we see Ralph, he complains about how bad the vog is right now and says it's the worst it has ever been, because of what the volcano's currently up to. The skies are very hazy-looking, although I can never tell if it's the vog or if it's just overcast. The temperature is still perfect, regardless.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Posted at 11:29:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Only this one entry 'til I'm all caught up! Saturday = Keauhou Farmers' Market, natch. Fruit galore! I brought back the empty rose petal jam jar (empty because we threw the contents down the sink) and gave it back to the meyer lemon tart lady, since she uses the same kind of jars. She seemed really pleased to have it! I also reused the cool biodegradable plastic bags from the lulo guy, and brought one of my KTA reusable shopping bags to carry everything in. I should have brought two KTA bags, because Dean bought TEN THOUSAND papayas!
Dean, after we'd visited every booth at the market: "Is there anything we wanted to return to?"
L: "...?"
D: "What about puhs? Did we get enough puhs?"
We already had 16 papayas, and he'd bought 12 new ones, one of which is so fat it's the size of 3, and another (long & skinny) is the size of two!! So we now have the equivalent of 31 papayas! (Or, we did after we got back from the Farmers' Market. We've eaten some at this point.) Aaaaaaaaah!! He claims he forgot we already had some.
Dean: "That means we have to eat six puhs a day (assuming they stay good for five days)."
Laura: "Six puhs a day?! Aaah! I am not eating six puhs a day!!"
Dean: "You don't have to! You only have to eat three puhs a day!"
Laura: "Aaaaaaah!"
The giant one, which Dean is in love with and just had to have, weighs four pounds. He can't wait 'til it's ready to eat.
Other stuff we brought home:
6 lulo
1 starfruit (I love starfruit, but they didn't look very good)
1 grapefruit
8 pitaya
Consumed on the spot:
Dean - fitatta (from tart lady), brunch burrito (food-made-on-the-spot stand), mango juice, lilo-orange juice
Laura - 2 pink lemon tarts (made from a special kind of actual pink lemon), a fresh catch fish taco (f.m.o.t.s. stand)
And they were all good. The lulo guy and the tart lady remembered us, and so did several of the others. The lulo guy seemed really pleased that we like lulos and that I made lulo juice on my own!
After we came back laden with fruit, we had a papaya and a pitaya, and I cut open my star-apples. They were both definitely the same kind of fruit--just two different colored varieties. They were pretty cool looking inside, especially the purple one (kind of echiodermy/mangosteeny, but not five-pointed) but rather slimy/lumpy/gelatinous. The taste was okay but the texture was a little off-putting so I didn't finish them. Both colors (green and purple) tasted pretty similar.
Dreadlocks Guy, at Big, double-checking the air pressure on our tanks: "We like you, so we've gotta make sure you've got air." Seeing that Dean's had 3300 psi (they are supposed to have at least 3000): "Oh yeah, you've got air!"
We dove at 4 Mile (tried the new parking spot/way of getting down from the road that Dean figured out, and it was lots easier, although it just doesn't seem right to me) and it wasn't that great. The viz wasn't very good, the shallower sections were currenty, and it was COLD. I was freezing in my 5mm wetsuit, feeling a pool of cold water constantly sloshing over the small of my back when I kicked my fins. We did see a cool spotted linckia that was pale yellow with spots only on the tips of its arms (instead of having lots of red spots all over), and when we checked out Sharkey's cave it was really calm and dark in there. Usually it's suctiony feeling and I'm not fond of going in, but it was nice on Saturday. Dean loved it in there. Also, surface-swimming out, we saw a school of puffer-fish going by, below!! (!!!) I chased over and counted them, and there were 35 puffers! Unbelievable, and insanely cute.
Speaking of Sharkey, really bad news. As we were about to enter the water, another diver who had just finished his dive talked to us and told us he'd seen two sharks, one of which was all tangled up in fishing line, dead. He said it was very recently dead and that rigor mortis hadn't even yet set in. I asked him how big the dead one was, and he said it was about my size. So it was the little one, and must've been Sharkey! :-( Poor Sharkey!! We looked for the sharks on our dive, but didn't see either one, alive or dead. It must've been really creepy to unexpectedly come across a dead shark like that, and kind of scary to see its live mother afterward. I wonder if she was mad? It's awful about Sharkey.
After our dive we tried to go to Killer Taco, but it closes slackishly early on Saturday, so Dean was thwarted. I wrote down their hours for future reference: Mon-Fri 10-8; Sat 10-4. (Closed Sunday.) I got another Captain Dano's fresh catch sandwich at the International Marketplace, and it was SO PREMIUM!! Dano's special sauce (on the bottom) is key. It's white, smooth, and tastes like a pickle. What is it??
Oh yeah, important revelation!! I talked to the Gs this morning and the G told me that they played setback with Diane and Tim (the M researched the rules online because they hadn't played in a zillion years and Diane and Tim had never played), and that one of the things that happens in the game is called a "smudge" and they realized that that was the source of Uncle John saying "all you gotta say is sug!" They were playing with him once and he thought "smudge" = "sug" (or just called it that to be wacky). WOW. I am so glad they told me about this!
Posted at 9:29:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
So, catching up. Friday. In the morning I went on a solo Jeep mission to good old Highway 11 and visited the skull & bones thrift shop. I don't think that's the real name, but it has a skull & bones on the sign for some reason, so I call it that. Even though the skull & bones sign makes it look like it would be cool, it was actually quite boring, like a normal mainland thrift store. On the way back down the mountain I stopped at Chris' Bakery and got two hot malasadas to bring back and share with Dean. We've driven past it a million times and I always comment about the "hot malasadas" sign. They were pretty good but not as good as Daylight Donuts'. :-( There were three other people there and they all bought malasadas too. The single man did just because I recommended them, and he seemed interested in talking, so after I brought my malasadas to the Jeep, I got back out and chatted with him a little in front of the bakery. He'd been on the island since January, so I asked him about the water temperature, and he said it was a lot colder earlier in the winter and had just warmed up recently. He seemed really impressed that I was a diver. He also commented that he'd seen me at the thrift store and wanted to talk to me but was afraid to because he thought I was a local, but when he saw my Jeep he figured I must be a visitor too. I wonder why Jeep = visitor? Maybe it looks too nice. That's funny that someone would be scared to talk to me!
I also drove to Big (with Dean) to practice driving to Kona. We went on Ali'i drive and I used my Guy, and it wasn't too scary. When Sara saw us buying stuff, she ran out of the back room just to tell the cashier on duty (Dreadlock Guy) to give us a 10% discount!!
Four Mile was too rough again, so we dove at Old Airport again. Old A still = yay! We had a long, not cold dive (I wore the spine suit I got to try at Big), and I was massively not slurpy with my air again! I tried six pounds in my BCD with the almost-two-pound big ankle weight on my tank and a pair of 1 pound ankle weights like Dean's new ones on my ankles. It was great! I loved being all balanced. I drew a picture sort of like this on my dive slate: <------>
(except the fins were a lot longer)
:)-----------<
The best thing was when I took off my glove to touch a cushion star. I rubbed the top with my open hand and it felt REALLY nice!! It was SO great! It was hard to stop touching it. (I wrote on my slate, "Would be good for exfoliation!") I am craving the feel again, just writing this! We saw another cushion that was perfectly positioned in the coral. It just looked so right--the bright yellow cushion and held by pale pink coral fingers backgrounded by foam green, rounded star pattern displayed on its back. Here's a large version of the photo, so you can see the details of the touchable echinodermy texture, and here's one of me rubbing the other cushion. I am really fond of cushions on this trip!
I also found a little spotted linckia, regenerating one arm, and then Dean found a second, larger one for me later on the dive. Two spotteds! At first I thought the tiny one was dead because it stayed all stiff even when I laid it out in a contoured spot and gave it a zillion-year chance to bend its arms down, and because I didn't see any tube feet inside it. But I kept looking at it really closely while holding it and swimming and finally I saw one incredibly tiny clear tube foot reaching out, so I put it down. Linckia are weird!
The other cool thing I found, after checking out this cool dark cave, was a whole bunch of fish feasting on a broken-open black wana urchin. A big raccoon butterflyfish, a longnosed butterflyfish, two yellow tangs, and a little spotted boxfish were all sharing the spoils. I wonder how the uni got opened up in the first place? Seeing the empty shell (spines still intact) of a broken uni isn't uncommon, but I never know how it happened.
I made a smoothie in the blender! It had: one strawberry papaya, about 3/4 of a lime, one little local orange, one lulo, and a little sugar. It was a good use of the orange (although we couldn't taste it that much) because they're really sweet and juicy but annoying to eat because of all the seeds. It could've used more lime, but we are short on limes just now. The most prominent taste was the lulo. Dean and I both liked it! I think it needed some li hing mui, though.
Posted at 7:44:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I was going to put in the guava, but when I cut it open and tried it, it was really boring tasting, even though it smelled so good. I guess guavas are better for smelling than eating.
Posted at 4:47:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We're slacking today since it's Sunday, and I'm getting all caught up on ALB. I feel shame for being four days behind! Well, not really, but Elroy-L would be pleased with me for saying I do. And since I'm not doing anything today, I won't have anything to write about! We did go on a mission to get coffee and a honu at the Kailua Candy Company, which was very satisfying. I also had a coffee from Kailua Candy Company yesterday (snuck in right before they closed, and had to be really nice to the store lady so she'd brew me a single cup... she did it, and I gave her a $1 tip for the $2 cup of coffee). Drank it in the warm heatered Jeep in the Starbucks parking lot while Dean went in to get a drink for himself, snuggled warm in my Oshima Beater, listening to "The Night Chicago Died" on Lava 105. It was heavenly. Warm, warm, warm. It was overcast and cool yesterday evening (cold dive!), and it still is today. It's nice though. I'm lounging on my chaise by the open sliding-glass door writing this, a soft breeze drifting through the screen, smelling guava and grapefruit, listening to birds singing their heads off. If I lean forward a bit I can see the ocean.
Here are a few larger photos from the past week: 1) me underwater with a crown-of-thorns at Ke'ei on Monday; 2) me all geared up at Puako in my new 5mm wetsuit (right before the bad-weighting dive); 3) the lulo juice I made in the blender!
I want to try calamansi on papaya. Apparently that's what they put on it in Philippines. I've never seen calamansi, but if I ever do, I'm writing this as a reminder to get it and try it on papaya!
I found out about calamansi because I was researching chesa. A stand at the Ali`i Gardens Market had a pile of them (where we were buying still more papayas), so I asked the girl about it and she cut off a piece so I could try some. It was very strange and un-fruitlike, sort of like a combo between a dry/chalky/pasty avocado (not creamy at all) and a sweet potato. It tasted most like a sweet potato. Who would buy that?? They were trying to get rid of their mangoes (apparently they had an overabundance of them), so she asked me if I wanted one for free, so of course I said sure. We ate it just now, and it was so good!!! It wasn't a champagne mango (I usually never buy non-champagne mangoes) but it was really sweet and smooth and not-fiberous. Wow! Even though the Ali'i Gardens Market equalled Zzzz'i Gardens Market, now we want to go back for more mangoes! (It was way better than the papayas in my opinion, but Dean won't agree.)
