Yesterday I visited the Honolulu Aquarium, which, though small, has an amazing collection of corals and tropical reef fish. I’ll put photos from that visit separately, as their inclusion would make this post too long. Instead I’ll write briefly about everyone’s favorite topic: food.
On Saturday we were invited to the homes of locals who read this website: two scentists whose names give them the acronym of HoHum. We had a great time, and the dinner they served us was perhaps the best meal we’ve had on this island, restaurant or not.
Here are HoHum in a postprandial photo. On the table is the Shaker lemon pie I’ll show below. They live in the hills above Honolulu with their two cats, and a passel of bicycles and surfboards.
This is the cat named Eddy, so called because of their oceanographic interests (see below):
The patterns on Eddy (a beautiful blotched tabby) resemble ocean currents, as you see. Eddy’s favorite thing is to be whacked firmly with an open palm (not petted) on his back. This penchant is, as far as I know, unique to this cat.
Here is the picture I was given to explain Eddy’s name:
The other cat is named Ludwig, after Beethoven. He’s a white cat with blue eyes, and that indicates that he’s likely to be deaf, which he is (Darwin mentioned this phenomenon in his book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication). The link just mentioned says that between 56% and 90% of blue-eyed white cats are deaf, probably due to the absence of hair cells in the cochlea of the inner ear—the cells that translate vibrations into electrical impulses that go to the brain.
I asked how Ludwig knows when it’s dinnertime since he can’t hear, and apparently he can detect vibrations like foot-stomping, and also has a good sense of timing for meals!
The view of Waikiki and Diamond Head from up on the hill near the HoHum abode.
A view of Diamond Head, without obstructing wires, from further down the hill.
As I said, dinner at Chez HoHum was fantastic. We started with an amuse-bouche that they acquired from working on the island of São Tomé, where I also used to work. One puts a fresh peppercorn, a bit of minced ginger, and some local chocolate in one’s mouth all at once, getting an explosion of flavors: spicy, sweet, and gingery. A good start!
The main course was an African-influenced dish: chicken, eggs, shrimp, okra and many other things in a peanut sauce. The recipe, I was told, came from the cookbook Ginger East to West.
The dish was accompanied by these garnishes, shown in the photo below:
papaya and jalapeño
avocado and grated fresh ginger
tomato, onion, cilantro and chili powder
pineapple chunks (a special pricey pineapple, almost white, with no acidity)
plain fried cubed plantains
fried cubed plantains with powdered ginger and chili
fried peanuts
There was also homemade bread:
You take a plate of the main dish (I had two helpings) and surround it with the garnishes, mixing them in at will and then mopping up the sauce with the bread. Yum!
Dessert: Homemade Shaker lemon pie (I believe the only ingredients of the filling were lemons from the HoHums’ tree, sugar, and butter), served with vanilla ice cream and fresh mango. A fantastic dessert.
The next meal was at the Side Street Inn on Kapahulu Avenue in Honolulu (there are two), famous as a local spot that serves up huge portions. In fact, the portions were so large that two of us ordered only one main dish (their famous boneless garlic chicken) and a “farmer’s salad” with dried taro, shrimp, and avocado. Even so, we didn’t finish the chicken, which was brought home for the evening repast:
There was a party in the back room of the Side Street. I’m not sure what was being celebrated, but it was nice to see the locals decked out in their Hawaiian shirts and leis.
This woman may have been the object of the party. She’s festooned with so many leis that they rose over her chin!
Lunch yesterday was at the Shirokiya Village Walk: a Japanese food court in the ritzy Ala Moana shopping mall. There are dozens of food booths from which to select a meal. We had a bento box and a serving of udon noodles with tofu and a side of tempura vegetables. I recommend this place if you want a quick meal of good Japanese food in Honolulu, and parking at the mall is free. (Parking is a general problem all over Oahu.)
End of meals section; now onto animals.
My cat BFF Pi was getting shaggy after his recent “lion cut” shave, and it was hot and muggy, so yesterday morning we shaved him again. He rebelled a little, struggling and meowing softly, but took the cut pretty well. Here he is post-shave:
This wasn’t a professional groomer’s cut, like the last one, but it did the job. Pi seems much happier.
His clipped fur was added to the growing pile of Pi fur, which will be used to make a replica of Pi for this year’s Christmas tree. A hand shows the scale:
Finally, here’s a mallard hen I adopted. She lives in a nearby marina, and her name is Squeaky because she quacks almost constantly. And, like Katie the Pomeranian duck in the same marina, she has a dented head. I suspect these dents (or de-feathering) come from male ducks trying to rape the females, as drakes tend to bite the heads of females while trying to copulate with them.
But Katie is a lovely hen. Note the dented head:
She’s a sweetie, but very vociferous!
The African-influenced stew looks amazingly tasty!
Is there a chance you could score the lemon shaker pie recipe? The crust looks unusual, and my daughters love lemon desserts.
I’ll inform the HoHums of your request; they may post it here. But there are plenty of recipes for Lemon Shaker Pie online, too.
Lots of great food all around. Bento is always a good way to go.
parking is very difficult you think. Moving at all is sometimes difficult on Oahu.
Jerry’s visit was an excellent excuse to make the stew.
The pie was adapted from Skagit Valley Fare by Lavone Newell.
The crust was from Smitten Kitchen
https://smittenkitchen.com/2019/03/extra-flaky-pie-crust/
but I’m not much good at making pretty crusts.
I don’t remember the baking conditions exactly, but here’s the approximate recipe:
Slice 2 whole lemons very thin, discarding seeds. I used Meyer lemons from my tree. Macerate overnight with 2 cups of white sugar. Mix in 4 beaten eggs, pour into uncooked pie crust. Place top crust on, pinch edges, and slit the top. Bake in preheated oven at 450 F for 20 minutes, then drop temperature to 375 F until done, about 15 minutes. I defined done as the filling temperature attaining 180 F.
The grad students here are particularly fond of the lemon bars I occasionally bring in. A bit of fresh rosemary adds a nice touch.
Thanks!
The pie crust looked different, and I am excited to try a new recipe. Mine works well and everyone loves it, but I have never tried all butter, because it is harder to work with. Now seems like a good excuse to try it out!
Thank you for taking the time to share this recipe! I’ll definitely be trying it.
The addition of fresh rosemary, or any number of fresh herbs, sounds very nice.
Excellent name, Eddy, for linguistic, practical (“here, Eddy Eddy Eddy!”) and environmental reasons.
When I was on sabbatical in Honolulu with Hampton Carson 40 years ago (yikes, it really was 1978) we loved to get a bowl of udon topped with some tempura at a food court in Ala Moana. I wonder if it’s the same place.
Those are some good eats. I love main dishes with multiple sides that augment the dish. Fried plantains are addictive. While living in California, our neighborhood had a few lemon trees; I don’t know why, but lemons right off the tree taste better than grocery store lemons. They seem less sour and more “lemony” if that makes sense.
Looking forward to the aquarium photos.
Thanks for the wonderful update about your travels.
I’ve never seen a cat lie down on the ground like that picture of Eddy. It looks more like how dogs pose. Very cute cat.
Sub
That boneless garlic chicken looks amazing. My mouth is actually salivating right now.
I think you should take a poll to find out how many of your readers own cats and then compare it to the general population. I have a feeling the number for the former group may be significantly higher…
Looking forward to the aquarium photos. I loved that aquarium when I went and saw a nautilus. I also lost my camera lens shade….that was back in the days of film so it was a while ago that I went to that aquarium.
Got the ginger book from my library!
Is the ginger book worthwhile?
I too wouldn’t mind a book review. I read a lot, but very few cookbooks. I did enjoy a history of curry once, and I do like ginger, so …
Beats hell outta other celebrity couple sobriquets like Brangelina, Bennifer, or Javanka, you ask me.
The Lopez gig was a cover-up. Bennifer was actually the original name of the aborted Afleck/Garner experiment. Scientists thought they could take over the world with the power of their combined jawlines.
It took me a few seconds to work out who was meant, but … are they actually celebrities?
Once the US media bestow a portmanteau name upon them, couples here perforce obtain celebrity status.
Anyway, they both hold official positions in the Trump administration, have offices in the West Wing of the White House, and wield considerable power over policy, foreign and domestic. Plus, they flounce around like royalty and made sure to be included in the state visit with your Queen. So, like it or not, they seem to check the necessary boxes to have graduated from their previous status of “celebutantes.”
Was “Eddy” part of a litter with Vortex, Gyre, and Whirlpool?
So the same way his deaf namesake kept time during the playing of the Ninth? 🙂
Hot damn, Sam, that Hawaiian food, especially at the HoHum’s, looks better’n sex.
The obvious experiments should be probably not be tried.
The less obvious experiments involving fairground rides … remain dubious.
Eddy resembles Leon.
Well, it’s one form of eating restriction, I suppose.