[Sca-cooks] Hawai'i (was Farmer's Market)

[Jennifer Thompson]

> The best place to get the fresh
> squeezed juices is from the plantations. There is nothing
> like fresh- out-of- a- pineapple,- right out -of- the- field, glass of
juice.

There's also stuff available there that isn't available elsewhere. Dole
Whip, for example, used to be sold elsewhere on the islands, but now I've
only found it at the Dole Plantation which is worth the drive out. They've
the experimental garden and other educational stuff and a nifty hedge maze
there as well. But Mom and I go for the Dole Whip - looks like soft ice
cream, tastes like sherbet, but richer and like, well, pineapple. Real
pineapple. You know the difference between the hard tomatoes in the grocery
in February and a real tomato warm from the sun eaten in the garden washed
with the hose? Like that.

> Next time you are there, try the local, roadside markets.
> They were better than the stores and specialty markets.

Absolutely, plus you get to meet people. The little family-run coffee farms
on the Big Island are great fun to tour, as well. Papaya, various melons,
lots of stuff, though not as cosmetically pretty is tastier. But then, when
have such as we gone for surface beauty over substance? 8-)

> fresh poi,

*not* the stuff in cans. Fresh poi is starchy, yes. Canned poi is library
paste. bleah

> go see Waimaia Valley Falls on Oahu.

Absolutely (Hop hop hop) oh yes. Also, Waimea Falls Park is a botanical
preserve; they have a garden devoted to ginger (did you know that most of
the Zingiber family isn't edible?) and gardens to protect south American
endangered species and such. In fact, the worst damage caused by Iniki
wasn't in buildable stuff, though Kauai's tourism industry got nailed hard;
it was in the loss of endangered species. Kauai's caldera and Waimea Falls
were the last known habitats of not only flowers but birds and bugs. Waimea
flooded, hard, and the caldera got, well, in the words of a friend of mine,
got scrubbed. He pulled the list of lost species out of his breifcase
(professional biologist) and just wept.

Lann (I took a job contract there from Sep to Dec '92. Watched Iniki from
inside Tripler AFB hospital. Nice thick (though pink) walls.)