...Hawaii

I can't believe I was forced to come back from Hawaii!  I had this pesky plane ticket that said I had to fly away from these magical islands last Thursday...such a travesty.  I could have lived there forever!  But alas I'm back, and lucky you, I've got a bunch of crappy iPhone photos of some of the delicious foods I ate, that don't do them any justice at all!  But please humor me and try to use your imagination...

Above is one of the most delicious pizzas I've ever had, from American Flatbread Company in Pa'ia, on Maui.  Yeah yeah, I've been to the one in VT too...all I can say is that we were starving after our crazy sunset adventure on Haleakala (where 10,000 feet above sea level, in the lava desert, it was 47˚) and wanted something simple and filling.  The above was the Mopsy Pizza - Hawaiian BBQ sauce, pineapple, goat cheese, mozz, red onion, and kalua pig, which is a scrumptious Hawaiian version of pulled pork, cooked underground in banana leaves.  So freaking good...

This is one of the best fish dishes I've ever had, from Mama's Fish House on the north shore of Maui.  The fish here, which I believe is buried under the veggies, is wahoo, or Ono as they call it all over Hawaii.  It is a firm but flakey white fish that I could pretty much eat every day.  The prep here was very traditional according to our waitress - caramelized onions and avocado in a soy glaze, with sticky jasmine rice on the side.  Other amazing fish we had during the trip were ahi, mahi mahi, monchong, uku, opakapaka...heaven.

It probably would have been nice to get a better picture of this delight, but they were honestly gone too fast and no one was thinking much about photography at the time.  A great coffee/chocolate shop called Surfin' Ass served up these amazing chocolate/macadamia nut treats called Donkey Balls...in Hawaii they really don't mess around as far as candy is concerned...what with all the mac nuts, kona coffee, coconut and tropical fruits at their disposal?  Yeah.  

Oh yeah about that fruit.  It was bountiful and growing pretty much everywhere.  We picked limes and pineapples in the yards where we were staying, and could have pick avocados, bananas, mangos, coconuts or papayas if they had been ripe...such a treat, especially coming from our climate where you're super lucky if you can manage to pick a few raspberries in your yard, or veggies from your meticulously maintained garden.  On Hawaii's Big Island, plants and fruits just seem to literally grow out of the rocks.  The smoothies above are 100% fruit - no ice, no dairy, just straight up fruit starting with frozen bananas.  On the left is guava strawberry banana, on the right is papaya strawberry banana, from What's Shakin'? near Hilo on the east side of the island...the perfect treat after a day of hiking in the rain forest.

And when we weren't drinking tropical fruit, you better believe we were drinking beer - particularly beer from Kona Brewing Company.  We visited the brewery one night and did a beer sampling.  I've not been known to be a participant in fruity beer drinking, but their Wailua Wheat, a wheat beer infused with passionfruit, is to die for (so technically I guess we were still drinking fruit...)  If you're lucky you can find it on the mainland, but so far I've only seen it one place, that happens to have island mentality...Nahant, MA.

By the time we managed to get ourselves all nice and relaxed (as shown here, at the Fairmont Orchid on the Big Island) we found ourselves headed home.  One nice thing about that is that I missed cooking terribly after two weeks (really!) and I've been doing a lot of it since then.  So!  More tasty things to come, hopefully later this week.  It's nice to be back in the saddle at Effing Delicious.