“In Japanese cuisine, they use the shoyu instead of salt. In Thai, it’s fish sauce. In Hawaii, chefs often use a combination, depending on what kind of dish they’re going to create.” And so chef Chai Chaowasaree begins his explanation of how the flavor of Hawaii’s culinary scene can be boiled down to one simple, […]
When Dr. Craig China purchased a vacant lot in Nuuanu Valley in 1999, he was surprised to find he’d also bought a little-known, little-seen remnant of Oahu history, too. The deed to China’s 12,000-square-foot property indicated that he was now responsible for the upkeep of its portion of the Nuuanu auwai, early Hawaiian irrigation canals
Ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro has seemingly done it all. He’s toured the world, been the subject of an award-winning documentary, performed on national television and shared stage and studio time with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, Bette Midler and Jack Johnson. His most recent album, 2012’s Grand Ukulele, was a collaborative project with veteran British producer/engineer
To inhale a butter-and-garlic sautéed shrimp plate lunch or sip a Tropi-Kale smoothie? That is the question. Kahuku Farms’ roadside farm café—home of the aforementioned smoothie, made with kale, apple banana and vanilla grown on adjacent acreage—sits just outside its namesake town on Oahu’s Windward Coast. It looks friendly enough, its bright yellow façade presenting
It’s just after 8:30 a.m. and Ross Shigeoka is well into finishing the first of four batches of saimin noodles he plans to make today. He’s already mixed the noodle dough recipe—a straightforward combination of eggs, water, all-purpose flour and salt—in a big plastic bowl with a shamoji (Japanese rice paddle) until fluffy and dry,
I can’t remember a time when I’ve visited Kauai and someone—a coworker, a neighbor, my mom—didn’t ask me to bring back a brick of kulolo. You can find kulolo—a Hawaiian dessert staple made from mashed kalo (taro), coconut milk, sugar and little else—for sale on just about every Hawaiian Island. Most local grocery stores sell variants of
My first real view of Waihee Valley comes from behind a windshield. Janai Kealoha is at the wheel of a huge, mud-flecked passenger van, the kind that more often hauls large equipment than a group of Maui visitors. As we head into the valley on a rutted, dirt road, she speaks proudly of the steep,
If you didn’t know who she was, you would think Carissa Moore was just another surfer girl—white bikini top under a black tank, rocking a trucker hat, greeting regulars at her favorite Oahu south shore surf break, Kewalo’s. But Moore is not just another surfer. The smiley Honolulu resident is the reigning two-time Association of
Rob Pacheco traces the origins of his lifelong passion for trekking the great outdoors to a stocky bird that kept showing up in a rice field near his childhood home in California’s Sacramento Valley. Driven to identify it, he located a copy of Audubon’s Birds of America and discovered the bird was a reed dweller
The smell of freshly baked cinnamon scones wafts from the kitchen and down the front stairway of the unassuming two-story house I wait outside at Kukaiau Ranch, a 10,200-acre working cattle operation in the tiny village of Umikoa on the northeast slopes of Mauna Kea volcano. “Hey there!” calls a voice from the top of
“If you drive too fast, you’ll miss it.” That was the sage, if succinct, advice I received from a friend several years ago when I mentioned I was headed to the small farming town of Hanapepe on Kauai’s south shore. She was describing a worn-down, faded green cottage on the biggest bend of the town’s
