salty licorice fix
^ This stuff is mildly addictive for some of us
Carousel Candyland in Kahala Mall is the only place in Hawaii with a reliable source of black licorice and most importantly, the salty salmiak kind. Above are the four strong ones they had earlier this week.
The kitty kat one is very mild and sweet with a hard, gummi texture but sort of a waxy, shell coating. The diamond and the coin are Dutch, very salty. Both are usually chewy, but unfortunately this double salt coin is hard and stale. The lil gumdrop is somewhere in the middle flavor-wise, sweet but with a definite tang.
Course there is a blog devoted to salt licorice now. LOL. I’m adding this important resource to the blogroll.
Also happy to report I’ve got a lead on a place in SF that supposedly has “17 different kinds of salt licorice”?!? This I must see.
Filed under Hawaii, finnish ish, food | Comment (1)Poi Dog Pondering - Perfect Music (Hyde Park “Ecstasy” mix)
Funny the small coincidences in life. Like an old friend in Chicago directing music videos for a band formerly of Honolulu. What are the chances?
Marco Giovanni Ferrari
poidogpondering.com
I want to ride my bicycle
Yesterday there were two serious accidents involving bicyclists on Oʻahu, both before dawn, one a fatal hit and run. With bikes sales increasing as people try to work around the laughable rise in gas prices, this is definitely a cause for concern and perhaps the start of a disturbing new trend.
Last year, I gave up my parking pass and have been biking to and from work. I live about 10 minutes away from my job so it’s not like a Herculean feat, tho I do sometimes do it in a skirt and heels. And then it starts to rain! But for the most part, I think it’s actually easier than driving. Plus it’s fun, good exercise and there is no sticker shock at the pump, cuz air is still free. But commuting by bike has given me a perspective on how bike-unfriendly the city can be.
For example, the ridiculous bike lanes that put cyclists in glass-strewn gutters alongside cars rushing on and off the freeway, like on University Ave. going up to UH. I don’t go that route. It sucks. The lower part of University is better, but even still, a line on the ground demarcating a narrow path between a row of parked cars on one side and careless drivers on the other is kinda sketchy. Luckily I don’t have to go that way too often; day to day I ride side streets instead.
The problem there is that some drivers don’t seem to think that the rules of the road apply between them and bicyclists. They often don’t bother to signal, and if it is a narrow street where two cars would have to squeeze to get by, they just stay right in the middle if I’m coming towards them on a bike. Not cool!
There are definitely more people of all ages biking around town these days. Yes, some of them are inconsiderate and stupid. But in the end, more bikes = less cars on the road. We all agree that’s a good thing, right?
Queen - Bicycle Race
The Cool Kids - Black Mags
Filed under Hawaii, environment | Comment (0)Sergio Goes 1964-2008
Photographer, filmmaker, friend. News of Sergio Goes’ accidental death last weekend is still raw. The comfort in knowing he was doing something he loved at the time is not enough, but it will have to do.
Having Sergio assigned as the photog on a handful of my Hana Hou stories was always a thrill for me. Even tho the jobs were small and merely a footnote in his award-winning career, they were a highpoint of mine.
His death has shaken up a lot of people, some of whom have blogged about him with more eloquence than I can muster. Details for Saturday’s memorial can also be found at these links.
Also, tomorrow (Fri 7/18) members of Sergio’s free-diving ‘ohana are offering a free dive safety presentation. You’re never too experienced to remember safety in the ocean. But there are no guarantees. The ocean is our mother. She brought us in and she’ll take us out!
Aloha, Sergio. Godspeed.
Filed under stuffs | Comments (4)caffeine withdrawal is real
It seemed like a practical move when I quit drinking coffee; it wasn’t for health reasons that I did it. I had no idea I was so strung out. If I had known from the beginning how caffeine withdrawal feels, I probably wouldn’t have made the switch. Come to find out Caffeine Withdrawal Is Real.
My cracked French press carafe had finally broken, buying coffee every day was costing over $40/month and I had like 3 lbs of this yerba mate stuff that someone had given me, just sitting in the cupboard. I figured it’d be like drinking coffee, which it wasnt.
First I subbed yerba mate in for coffee on the weekends, when walking to the corner cafe for a drink to enjoy at home began to seem ridiculous. After a couple weeks I took some into work and started drinking it there during the week, fully switched off coffee.
The tiredness I felt at first was expected, but I didn’t get any headaches or think that I would. Around day 3 I started developing flu-like symptoms. It could have been a very mild flu, but the sore throat and mucus never got overwhelming and I was working, working out, eating healthy, all better than normal.
At the start of week two, I experienced body aches so severe that they woke me out of my sleep. Pain bowled up and down my body between my knee and my waist, mostly on the left side and in my hips. I’d experienced something similar while fasting, which not incidentally, was the last time I’d ever abstained from coffee for more than a day or two. That passed in about 3 days.
Now I’m on week three with no coffee and am feeling much better, more alert, no aches & pains, other symptoms fully gone. I still take caffeine; some of the yerba mate I have is a blend that includes green tea, and I’ve had other teas and soda. It’s not like I’ll never have a good cup of coffee again, but now that I know how fully addicted I was, I’ll try to take it easy.
And even tho I make yerba mate wrong (through a tea strainer into a coffee cup), I look forward to learning more about it and tea in general. (I’ll just go ahead and ignore this story from Finland about coffee lowering the risk of liver cancer.)
Filed under food, stuffs | Comments (2)late spring articles
Eating cheesecake and sampling cocktails, yeah, I know, I make it look easy. But the painstaking hours of research paid off because both these articles look good enough to eat. And drink.
A Sergio Goes photo takes full page in the Hana Hou piece and the four (count em, 4!) pages in HI Luxury include a shot of my girl Chia making a sour face while muddling limes. haha.
April/May 2008
Hana Hou
- “Otto von Cheesecake.” Photo by Sergio Goes.
HI Luxury
- “Mixing it up! Get a lesson behind the bar at E&O Trading Company.” Photos by Ryan Ohara.
music and life
An Alan Watts animation produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
[mahaloz@Brave New Traveler]
Filed under stuffs | Comment (0)dreamland Bhutan
The Honolulu Academy of Arts was buzzing on Sunday afternoon, when I finally made it to see The Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan, which had been there since February but held over til this weekend.
I was lucky enough to catch part of a guided tour of the exhibit, which allowed me more insight than I would have on my own. A lot of the pieces were intricately embroidered and appliqued thangka with symbol-ladden scenes from the life of important Buddhist teachers and deities.
There were also centuries old metal-cast sculptures and some ancient Buddhist ritual items including a phurba and a vajra, pictured, which I recognized because M left them here, his spiritual practice no longer a priority. This NY Times article explains how this one-of-a-kind collection was put together, the slideshow is good, too.
The exhibition was presided over by a small group of Bhutanese monks, who also lead prayers in another area of the museum called the Altar Room. The smell of incense and drone of chanting was enveloping even outside the doors, where shoes were piled. Beatific people were seated on cushions around the room in various meditation positions, throwing rice and plumeria blossoms up and into the center of the room either at certain times in the chant, or maybe just following along when the monks did it, which is what I was doing. Aping such earnest ritual made me uncomfortable.
Filed under art, media consumption | Comment (0)Manoa vog
The afternoon sun was an unnatural-looking orange smudge in the sky when I got off work yesterday. The city was covered in a blanket of gray. I honestly thought there was huge fire somewhere. Nope, just the vog back again.
These were taken the today, looking into Manoa valley.
9 a.m.
6:30 p.m.
Mel breaks down the vog phenomenon, for those unfamiliar.
Weather people say it should clear by the end of the weekend when the winds change. One TV newscast reports that the most noxious of the sulfurous fumes dont travel too far from the eruption. *cross fingers* Tho the Big Island gets the worst of it, vog is causing health problems across the islands and apparently economic ones, too.
My contacts feel like plastic wrap on my eyeballs; sinuses and throat are itchy. I think I’m building up an immunity tho, last month I was sneezing and sniffling like crazy. Meh.
More info:
- Vog Safety Tips [Honolulu Advertiser]
- Volcanic Emissions Cover State [KITV]
- Vog in Hawaii: Information and Resources [Virtual Scratchpad]
photographs from Japan
Hawaii photographer Rowen Tabusa took these photographs on a recent trip to Japan. I know very little about photography, but I like the textures here a lot, and also the colors, or lack thereof.
Filed under stuffs | Comment (0)this is real and not for play, twitter, vote Obamaway
Ti$a - Vote Obama
[via The Rap Up]
Why didn’t Obama Twitter the news of this video?? LoL. He’s got his account set to follow everyone that follows him. Brilliant! and how flattering: Barack Obama is following me! hahaha! No doubt it’s an aide that reads & sends the messages, but still, interesting use of technology. And fun video :~j
Filed under e-life, media consumption, music | Comment (0)my toxic omelet — best ever
According to this urban legend/recipe, if you can boil water, you can make an omelet. All you need is a couple eggs, the chopped-up ingredients you want in your omelet, and a quart size Ziploc baggie (same size they want to see your toiletries in when you fly).
The recipe has apparently been circulating on the interweb for some time:
Crack 2 eggs (large or extra-large) into the quart size Ziploc bag (not more than 2) and shake to combine them. Put in a variety of ingredients such as: cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, etc.
Make sure to get the air out of the bag and zip it up. Place the bag(s) into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13 minutes. You can usually cook 6-8 omelets in a large pot.
Open the bags and the omelet will roll out easily.
Because I’ve never successfully made an omelet–it turns into scrambled eggs every.single.time–I knew I had to try this. “But is it safe?” was my nagging, second thought. After googling around, I’m pretty sure the short answer is no, not really. That’s why you don’t do it every day. Just like you don’t microwave your leftovers in Tupperware and don’t drink from plastic water bottles every day…. right?
So anyway, I didn’t take pictures of the process, but I tried this with olives, tomatoes and mushrooms inside and came out with the fluffiest, most cohesive omelet I have ever made! tah-dah!
Only one minor mishap: the bottom of the baggie split open at the end of the cooking time, and the eggs got a little soggy. Maybe cuz I used generic Ziplocs? Some sites recommend the freezer baggies, but I don’t buy those in that size so, whatever. My toxic omelet had a deformed lump on the side because I cooked it with part of the baggie under the lid of the pot in an effort to keep it from touching the bottom. Next time I guess I’ll just put a metal strainer down.
Oh and that purple poo on the side? Potatoes. When I bought em I thought they just had purple skin but they were purple all the way through. Not sweet tho. Fried em up with some onions and rosemary, yes yes.
Filed under food | Comments (3)pressurizing the local
The band was in-between songs and there were still tables open when I walked in to the Dragon Upstairs last Saturday, just behind a group of retiree-aged hipsters. “C’mon in,” boomed a voice from a dimly-lit corner; the band gestured for us to do the same. I gamely follow a white-haired man in a pin-stripped fedora into the intimate, match-box sized club.
Ideas from the class reading bopped around inside my head:*
Stressing and pressurizing the local as a site of “critical resistance” posits a more dynamic way of imagining the relationship of a region, nation, and globe in which difference is not subsumed nor reified but circulated and affirmed” (Wilson 14).
I side-stepped the bell of a trumpet held close and low, nodding to the band while snaking past the potentially expectoration-flecked front line, to the raised seating area where Rowen, Miki and Hank sat holding court at the best table in the house.
It was only the second time I’d met Hank, the owner of both the Dragon Upstairs and Hank’s Cafe, another live music venue downstairs in the same Nuuanu Street building. Last year was the first time we’d met, I’d interviewed him for an article for Hawaii Luxury magazine. He’d impressed me with his charisma and passion for music. I’d sat at the bar drinking chardonnay, asking questions and scribbling notes for my story. Eventually he leaned in and spelled it out: “I want Hawaiian jazz.”
Filed under Hawaii, music | Comments (8)
