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Sunday, September 16, 2007
Yesterday was a long day, and a preview of today’s reunion.
We started with the relaxed morning of papaya and conversation with Laura, but eventually moved on to the day’s work: shopping at Costco and then the Star Market for the ingredients to make our “kakimochi” chips for the party. The chips are a favorite of our friends in Colorado – they’re Mexican corn tortillas coated with a JA combination of sugar, butter and soy sauce – and although we figured Hawaiians surely must have this kind of cross-cultural snack all the time, it’s relatively easy to make and tasty and we decided to offer to make it for the party anyway.
Costco was a revelation. I’d been there, several years ago when I attended the JACL National Convention in Honolulu. But it seemed like they’d expanded their aisle of local goods, and throughout the store was an amazing array of Asian foods and products, from imported Japanese canned tea to spices. The local aisle had a dizzying selection of all things macadamia, as well as shelf after shelf of snack items like picked plums, li hing-flavored mangoes, dried shredded ika (cuttlefish) and dried octopus and squid, both in large jars or individually wrapped. Yummy… these are Asian equivalents of beer nuts at the bar. We wished we could get some of these more “exotic” items in Colorado Costcos, and also marveled that the Hawaiian population, which isn’t all Asian by any means (although certainly “haoles,” or Caucasians, are in the minority between all the Asian as well as Polynesian ethnicities), all buys this variety of products. Multiculturalism is simply in the air in Hawaii, like the humidity… and the wind. Continue reading
