Things I will miss sorely about my island–wait, better yet, let me give you visuals:

My island

Tidepools at Makapu'u--best tidepools on Oahu

when you live here, this CAN be an everyday sighting

beautiful sunrises

Fragrant ginger flowers

the gorgeous sunsets

roads you'd want to run on

endless hiking trails

Waimanalo

Our famed Diamond Head

And of course, the rainbows

I love this land.

morning view of south oahu atop Tantalus

I’ve been busy. Playing. Chasing rainbows. With less than two weeks before my five-year chapter of Hawaii living has to end, I’ve been doing not much but play, eat, play.

Playing includes running, of course. This past weekend, Ivy suggested that we run the 10-mile Tantalus–Round Top path as my farewell scenic run. It was a daunting five miles of relentless uphill running on Tantalus Drive followed by five miles of knee-crushing downhill on Round Top Drive. I admit I was a little apprehensive about the idea at first. Ascent of 1,415 ft over five miles is nothing to sneer at. We run some hills every week, but never in consecutive miles.

So we started at exactly 5:40 a.m. after stretching on the street lamp-lit road, a 60+ year old lady who was already finishing her morning walk said to us, “are you girls going to run the whole mountain? If you’re good runners, you’ll finish in about two hours.” Hence we good runners went on our ascending ways.

A clear view of Diamond Head midway up Tantalus

It was my first time running this route, Ivy’s first time in four or so years, so we took it slow and consistent at about an 11 minute mile pace. Even at times steep, the path was surprisingly not harsh on the legs. The air was cool, crisp, and moist, awakening every last bit of me that wanted to keep sleeping. And although it was raining, the vegetation along the route was so dense that we felt only the shadow of the rain.

....

Lined with ginger flowers, bamboos, and eucalyptus plants, Tantalus Drive gently exchange hands with Round Top Drive as we came to a plateau of about 500 meters. The descent came upon us before I knew we were running the next five miles. Running uphill can be difficult, but downhill running for a person with a bad knee like me is even more challenging. It’s like driving with one foot hovering the brakes at all times. It took a good mile before I found my rhythm, a pace and form that didn’t aggravate the still delicate knee. The descent was not nearly as pretty, and we started to have to yield to cars on windy turns. By then the sun had warmed up the air, evaporating the moistened clouds.

A look at my watch, we were already at 9 miles. Every good run has to come to an end. At 9.81 miles, we were back at our starting point clocking in right at 2 hours and 33 seconds. I guess we were, at least per our soothsayer’s words, good runners.

Chicken marsala over pasta = happy people.

chicken marsala

Chicken Marsala

Ingredients:

• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast
• 1 large head of shallot, thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 carton white mushroom, sliced
• 3 1/2 tbsp butter
• 3/4 cup marsala wine
• 1 cup low sodium chicken stock
• 5 slices thinly sliced prosciutto
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• salt & freshly ground pepper
• 2 tbsp flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Direction:

Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Heat on high olive oil and 1 1/2 tbs of butter in a large pan. Wait until the bubbles subside, pan fry seasoned chicken breasts in batches until both sides are golden brown, flipping once. Set aside.

With the oil in pan, reduce heat to medium high, put in prosciutto, letting it fry up. Add in mushrooms, shallots and cook until brown and mushrooms start to give off juice, about 7-10 minutes. Salt and pepper mixture. Turn heat back to high, add in marsala wine. After a few seconds of letting the alcohol evaporate, add in chicken broth, letting mixture simmer for 5 minutes. Slide chicken breasts back in to reheat. Using slotted spoon, take out all ingredients onto serving platter, leaving sauce in pan. Let sauce simmer and reduce for another 10 minutes. Add in 2 tbsp butter right before turning heat off. Spoon sauce over chicken and mushrooms. Garnish flat leaf parsley over top. Serve over rice or flat pasta such as fettuccine or pappardelle.

**What I would do next time is to use boneless, skinless chicken thigh instead of breast. I would also thicken the sauce just a little bit with a roux. It’s probably not authentic, but I think I’ll like it better.

My shoulders are achy. I am exhausted.

Renae and I made our favorite dish for the third time, for the last time for a while–Mac n Cheese. We are possibly the most compatible mac-n-cheese-buddies, if there is such a connection. Our previous makings of the comfort dish included, in various combinations, truffles brought back from Italy, truffle oil bought from the store around the corner, goat cheese, aged cheddar, gruyere, mozzarella, whole milk, half n half, butter, pretend butter. This time, after surveying numerous recipes, we believe we have found the BEST version of the classic comfort food. And the ingredient list once again confirms that less is more.

We sat in the furniture-less living room savoring our best work, reminiscing past mac ‘n’ cheeses, envisioning future ones. Empty apartment makes for a suitable space for the happy food dance (perhaps in another post). Ahh, this last supper together will be one highlighted in my memory book. And the recipe will surely be starred in my recipe book.

Undeniably BEST Mac 'n' Cheese

Adapted (and slightly lightened) from

Emeril’s BEST Mac ‘n’ Cheese Ever Challenge Winner–Laura Macek (Click here for original recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1 head of garlic, roasted
• 1 tbs plus 1 tsp olive oil (see directions)
• 1 pound elbow macaroni pasta
• 5 thinly sliced prosciutto
• 1 ½ cups panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
• 2 ounces each grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and Pecorino Romano
• 6 tablespoons butter
• ¼ cup minced shallots
• 8 small caps of white mushroom or cremini, finely chopped
• ½ cup flour
• 1 quart whole milk
• 6 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated
• 8 ounces extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. To roast garlic: Slice ½ inch off the top of the entire head of garlic. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap garlic head tightly in a square of heavy foil and roast until tender — about 45 minutes. Remove garlic pulp by squeezing garlic head. Smash cloves with a fork to form a paste.

3. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

4. In a nonstick pan on medium heat, drizzle 1 tsp olive oil and fry prosciutto until brown but not burnt. It will not be crispy until taken out of pan. Drain on paper towels. Reserve oil in pan. Crumble prosciutto when cool.

5. To make topping: Combine panko, crumbled prosciutto, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, Pecorino cheese, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Set aside.

6. Preheat oven to 375°.

7. Sauté shallots and mushrooms over low heat in reserved prosciutto fat/oil for one minute. Add remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and continue to sauté shallots and mushrooms until brown. Set aside.

8. In a heavy pot, make roux by first melting 2 tbsp butter into 2 tbsp olive oil over medium low heat. Add flour and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes. Increase heat to medium. Stirring constantly with a whisk, add milk and roasted garlic paste.

9. Cook until lumps from roux are dissolved and sauce is thickened (coats the back of a spoon). Remove sauce from heat then add salt, pepper, nutmeg, mushroom mixture, Gruyere and Cheddar cheeses. Taste and adjust salt and pepper if necessary. Keep mixture slightly under salted as topping is salty.

10. Stir in cooked pasta. Pour into baking dish. Sprinkle topping to cover entire top. Cover with foil and bake 15 minutes until sauce is bubbly. Remove foil and broil until topping is browned, watching it carefully. Enjoy!

crispy top, creamy all over

In this day and age, when most daily messages are transferred via some kind of type written means–email, text message, facebook status, tweets–and you cannot hear the cadences of the invisible punctuations, it is important to punctuate your messages even in the most casual forms of communication.

Text messages, in particular, are supposed to be informal, succinct, and composed in a relatively quick manner. It is not expected that we spell out everything, capitalize proper nouns, or punctuate. Or so I thought…

Tonight I invited my friend who is new in town, and therefore new to the local culture, out to eat Japanese ramen. Here in Hawaii, everything is casual, but of course he doesn’t know that yet.

So through phone text messaging he asks (read bottom message first):

And in my usual text messaging habit of not punctuating, I answer (read top message):

A lesson in text messaging etiquette

Guess what he showed up wearing??

pretty fresh radish

RADISH DIP!

Sounds kind of weird, even gross, doesn’t it? I thought so. But it’s amazingly, refreshingly clean tasting. Spicy, light, flavorful.

I browsed through a few recipes to decide on the other ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg (8oz) cream cheese
• 5 medium radish, chopped
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 bunch of fresh dill
• 1 clove garlic
• fresh ground pepper
• pinch of kosher salt

Throw everything into blender and blend until creamy. As for me, I have a handheld immersion blender addiction, remember? So that’s my weapon of choice, of course. Serve chilled with chips, lavosh, bread, or carrot sticks!

If it weren’t for purchasing the box of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) veggies, I would never thought to make some of these vegetables as they are out of my normal cooking repertoire.

Tonight the star dish was roasted root vegetables. And in the supporting role was flounder fillet with lemon and dill. I never knew how easy it was. It was simply chopping up the vegetables, toss it with a marinade of sort, and let the oven do all the work! Can’t be simpler than that.

Roasted Root Vegetables

Ingredients:

• 1 medium size turnip, chopped into chunks
• 3 medium size fresh beets, chopped into chunks
• 2 jumbo carrots, chopped
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 1/2 large red onion (or 1 medium), chopped into large wedges
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled but leave whole
• 1 medium okinawan sweet potato (or purple sweet potato), peeled and chopped
• 3 small red potato, scrubbed clean and chopped
• 2 medium sprigs of rosemary, washed and coarsely chopped

After cutting everything, put into a large bowl for mixing with the following:

• 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp honey or maple syrup
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt (more if needed)
• freshly ground pepper

Coat vegetables with marinade and spoon veggies onto foiled baking pans. Preheat oven to 400ºF, place baking pans into oven for 45 min to 1 hr. Turn vegetables after first 30 minutes. Bake until veggies are brown and caramelized, but not burnt. Transfer to serving dish and ENJOY!

flounder fillet with lemon and dill

The dish was amazingly satisfying. The beets retained its crunchiness, a nice contrast to the softened sweet potato, which is sweet like candy with a starchy texture, which is a nice contrast to the juicy turnips. You get the idea. It’s good and good for you.

While I’m still identifying the mystery veggies and searching for recipes, I know my cruciferous greens, and kale is one of my favorites. I’ve only learned to use kale in my recipes in the past few years, but mostly in soups. There’s a notable surge in popularity for these curly heads as they are now ubiquitous at salad bars or healthy markets. You see them raw, you see them cooked. Kale is not a wimpy green; it’s got a crispness when eaten raw, and it doesn’t just wilt into the texture of a wet plastic bag when cooked. And of course, there are all the health benefits of these dark, leafy greens.

I decided to try it raw today and made a nice salad with it. With summer fruits in hand (in fridge, rather), I put sweet nectarines, grape tomatoes, toasted walnuts, and shaved pecorino cheese for some salty balance. I also made my own salad dressing that has a hint of ginger to give me tastebuds some excitement.

Ingredients:

• kale, stemmed, washed, dried, chopped
• 1 ripe nectarine, cored and chopped into bite sizes (green apple or peach would go very well in this too)
• handful of grape tomatoes
• handful of walnuts, toasted, coarsely chopped
• pecorino cheese shavings

Throw everything together into a large bowl.

Salad dressing Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
• 2 tbsp sherry or red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic minced
• minced ginger (amount determined by your liking)
• 1 small shallot minced
• salt & pepper to taste
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Mix everything together, let it sit for at least 10 minutes to let the flavors meld together. Drizzle and toss salad with it.

As a result (of my laziness), I have learned to love veggies. I like it so much that I don’t use dressing in my salads because it masks the sweetness of the lettuce and other vegetables. And as a result of this love for veggies, I am constantly seeking out places to buy fresh vegetables, which turns out to be local farmers markets. I have, then, indirectly learned to understand eating local, reducing carbon footprint, and community supported agriculture to be not just trendy-sounding buzz words but my responsibility to my community. Even though it’s more of an investment, the produce is much fresher compared to the airflown ones in regular supermarkets.

So this week, when people at my school co-ordered fresh picked vegetables from Otsuji Farm, a local farm in Hawaii Kai, and although it is not organic, I was excited to try out a case for $15. We were told that the variety of veggies in the case will depend on what’s ready for picking that day. The element of surprise makes the whole experience even more fun. The possibilities!

Today the first thing on my to-do list was to pick up veggies. Once in my hands, I opened the box like it was Christmas morning. The sight of the vegetables made me realize I’m not such a veggie expert after all as I had the slightest idea of what some of them are, let alone how to tastefully eat them. How many can you identify??

I feverishly looked up recipes for each of the vegetables, and I’m excited to try out everything. Stay tune to see what I end up putting on the table in the next couple of days!