Homespun Honolulu

Just in case you missed it, Hawaii’s Safeway Stores have a new program running — for the time being it is just for Hawai’i residents.  That little red Safeway Club card has just gotten a little bit better!

I’m serious, your Safeway Club card is going to keep track of the products you buy and keep you in the loop when your favorites go on sale or have special promotional pricing.

You don’t have to clip and carry coupons anymore and it’s all personalized and it’s all done with YOU in mind!  Here’s how Safeway explains it:

personalized deals

• You can get some of the best prices in town with these exclusive deals.
• Amazing savings on items you buy at Safeway and items you may be picking up at other stores — but now you won’t have to.
• Unlike coupons, you can use these deals to save again and again.

Once you register with your Club card or phone number, you can go see these exclusive offers online and make a grocery list of your favorites in the comfort of your own home, print it out, put it in your purse or pocket, and off you go!  It’s “your online way to save more in-store.”

It’s just for Hawai’i at the present time but I’m thinking that we are the guinea pigs for this project.  I’ll take it! I’m happy to take part in it and I’m also happy to share this with everyone!  It is going to be interesting to see just how big this gets and just how fast it spreads across the country!

Leave a comment on this post and be entered to win a $50 Safeway gift card!  

If you leave a comment below, I’ll put your name in our little random drawing to win a $50 gift card, just like the one they’re sending to me!  For this drawing, you DON’T have to be from Hawai’i.  Free groceries!  You can kick start that gift giving early — sign up online and you’ll get a d0zen eggs, for free.

Some of you may have noticed that your shopping receipts at Safeway have been accompanied by coupons for the things you purchase often.  Has this been in the works for a while?  Perhaps.  Are we glad?  Oh yeah!  I am so excited about this — regular readers know how I love food!

Check out Safeway.com, sign up today, and then go check in with your local Safeway ohana and pick up the FREE dozen eggs you can add to your shopping list right after you sign up.

I can already see the evidence of what I regularly buy.  My Tostitos are among the offers.  Pepsi is there — based on the volumes I used to buy for Mom.  I see bananas.

This is fun!  I wonder if they’ll add asparagus to my list.  I just cooked up my first batch of fresh asparagus last night.  I can guarantee that I will be buying it often — it was so ‘ono!

“Safeway — Ingredients for Life!”  I just had to say that!  Come on!  Talk to us and share your thoughts, so I can put your name in the drawing!!!

During the weekend of the Honolulu Marathon we needed to get something for coffee hour at Church.  I came up with the brilliant idea of feeding people salad!  Salad Creations caters!  I didn’t want them to cater the salad, I just wanted someone to make me a really BIG salad.  They did!

I had to go Saturday evening in order to avoid all of the road closures on Sunday morning.

The parts were divided and there was more than enough breadsticks and utensils included.  They even gave me three choices of salad dressing!   The best part was those wonderful plastic containers you see with the bulk of the salad in them.  It was amazing that something so simple could keep the salad fresh for so long!

I took some of the left over salad home and ate it for several days thereafter.  Four days later it was still fresh!  The croutons were a bit soft in spots but still very tasty and the leaves were still nice and fresh.

I highly recommend getting salad from Salad Creations.  You can buy a lunch at the one downtown on Bishop Street but if you want it catered, or created in bulk for a party, check out the Koko Marina location!

Salad Creations
Koko Marina Center
7192 Kalanianaole Hwy., E-123
Honolulu, HI  96825
Phone: (808) 396-2380

To be specific, let’s talk about soup!

Our food-blogging friend, Valerie, does Four Foods On Friday as a blog meme over at Fun Crafts and Recipes.  Val usually throws four questions out there for us to think about and answer.  More recently, Val has done it a little backwards — she put one question out there, looking for four answers.

Last Friday, Val asked, “What are your four favorite soups?“  I thought about avoiding this one because I’m not much of a soup eater, or a soup maker.  After thinking about it for a while, I realized that there are some that I like.

I came up with these:

1. Cream of just about anything soup (zucchini and celery are good)
2. My own Corn Chowder (Val’s post reminded me about this one.)
3. Zippy’s Portuguese Bean soup (This one is very popular in our State.)
4. Pea soup was my favorite as a child (I think it was Campbell’s.  I don’t remember any ham but I could be wrong.)

There are others I like such as French Onion (if it has a lot of cheese) and Miso soup (when it’s cold outside).

I’m actually talking about this because the lenten season is upon us and I want to see what kind of soup you guys like! So, join in the meme in Val’s Kitchen!  Maybe even provide a soup recipe or two — for those of us with soup-deficient menus.

Bloggers love to meet up with other bloggers.  It’s always fun to finally get to sit down and talk story in person.  The first time I saw Sheila and Andy, it was at the airport as they were moving between islands.  The last time, we made an effort to spend at least a little more time and have a conversation that lasted more than just a couple of minutes. 

Good luck trying to meet for breakfast at Aloha Tower!  But, all is not lost, Don Ho’s Island Grill opens at 10:00 a.m. so we managed it that way.

Andy and Sheila are the most charming couple!  They are wonderful people to begin with and they see Hawaii the way most of us feel about it — beautiful and perfect.  There is one minor, focal difference – they see the positives we often overlook and close their eyes to the things we ohumu (complain) about all the time.  This is not to say that they see things through rose-colored glasses; they just have slightly shaded lenses. :)  They are rapidly working their visits to Hawai’i down to a science and I, for one, appreciate their diligence.

Today they’re on their way home again and I just wanted to take a moment to send them off with cyber hugs, well wishes, and a lot of aloha as they make their way home to plan their next trip.  Have a safe trip home you two, hurry back — GoVisitHawaii already!  :)   The coco puffs are on me!  If you’re between islands again you have to tell me — they are available “to go!”

On Wednesday, January 28th, I was surprised to see these balloons sitting in the middle of the Jamba store in downtown Honolulu.  A place that coworkers and I visit frequently, this location is very convenient for us and quite popular.  I remember when they opened; I just didn’t realize that it was so long ago.  Nine years sounds like such a long time but it has certainly gone by quickly!

And, yes, that is a Jamba surf board hanging on the wall next to those balloons! 

PB n’ Jamba is my favorite.  If you’re avoiding dairy products, you can ask them to skip the yogurt and add more of one of the other ingredients if you like.

Jamba’s website describes this particular drink like this:

“The Chunky PB ‘n Jamba is blended with soymilk, vanilla yogurt, peanut butter, strawberries, blueberries and organic granola into a thick smoothie and then topped with whole blueberries.”

I never knew blueberries tasted so good until I got to taste them fresh like this.

Jamba Juice
Financial Plaza
130 Merchant Street #110
Honolulu, Hawai’i  96813
Phone: 808-585-8359

Every Friday Fun, Crafts and Recipes has its Four Foods on Friday thing, and invites readers to play along.  It’s fun to participate in this weekly food fun and you even get to learn some interesting things about cooking.  I wanted to play this week, so this post is my contribution.

1. Share a recipe for something Italian.

This was my mother’s recipe many years ago.  I have never used it because the recipe I use has gone over the top with spices and probably costs more than it should to make.  Maybe I should try this one based on its simplicity!  I’ll let you guys know how it goes!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs hamburger
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 c Progresso Unseasoned bread crumbs
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Pepper
1/4 can Marinara sauce (don’t know the brand)

Mix together all ingredients well, except Topping (preparation of Topping below).  Pack into meat loaf pan.  Pour Topping over loaf.  Bake at 350 for 1 and 1/2 hours.  Pour off grease before serving.

Topping:

Remaining 3/4 can Marinara sauce
1 C  Water
2 T  ea. of brown sugar, vinegar, and spicy mustard

Mix Topping ingredients well. Pour over loaf before putting in oven.

Good luck with it!  I’ll let you know how mine comes out! 

2. Jam, jelly, preserves, marmalade, fruit butter or butter. What’s on your toast or bread?

Smart Balance Omega 3  It’s really tasty and makes a great spread for toast — because it has olive oil in it!
3.  What’s your favorite Kellogg’s product?

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Pop Tarts.  It’s not a cereal but it’s a breakfast food and I like them with milk!

4. Do you like liver? What about liverwurst?

No!  Yuck, yuck and double yuck!

I was just talking this morning about how important food is to me!  :)   I’m looking forward to trying out this noodle lasagna!

Things in the kitchen don’t always work in my favor, but it’s nice when it does. Some recipes work out nicely and I’m very happy to have a success story from the kitchen. I’ll be sure to share success stories here when they happen! Everybody knows that if you live in Hawaii, food is very important. We love to eat! Even CNN a few years back told the rest of the World all about why we’re overweight. They blamed it on Loco Moco, but the message still rings clear for several of our favorites — we like food way too much! It’s not always what we eat, but the quantity. My problem is both quantity and mayonnaise. Yeah, well, rice doesn’t help much either.

Hubby won’t touch most of what I cook because he doesn’t like beef, unless it’s hamburger, or chicken, unless it’s from Zippy’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken. As much as I love Spam, it gets old after a while. I miss the old recipes that Mom used to make and that we used to enjoy growing up. I’m going through some of those oldies to see which ones still work for me after all these years. Hopefully some of those recipes will be greeted more enthusiastically by someone else at home besides me. Mom can’t cook them anymore so I’m on my own.

If you’re going to purchase cuts of beef, I have had wonderful cuts from Safeway and some to-die-for steaks from Times Supermarket. Since these two merchants have become the only places I shop, they will be the ones that receive my attention. That being said, I’ll send out a huge “Mahalo!” to Lawrence of Pali Safeway’s Meat Department for a very beautiful five pounds of decadent, fat-laden, USDA Choice beef ribs!

An old recipe that Mom kept worked out nicely for those ribs. Trust me, you will not find this recipe anywhere else — it was the brainstorm of one of my sister’s old boyfriends. The recipe card reads “Gill’s Ribs” and that is what we have always called them. Gill had a gift for cooking and he had quite a green thumb too! We lost him to an unfortunate accident on the Big Island some years back but his memory lives on.

Gills Ribs

From: Gill Reeves, Serves: 4

Ingredients:

4/5 to 5 lbs of ribs

Sauce:

2 onions, chopped
1 tsp ea: paprika, chili powder
1/2 tsp ea: ground red pepper; pepper
1 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp ea: Worcestershire sauce; red wine vinegar
3/4 C. catsup
3/4 C. water

1. Prepare sauce my mixing all ingredients (except ribs) together and mis thoroughly.
2. Place in casserole: 1/3 of ribs, sauce, 1/3 ribs, sauce, 1/3 ribs, sauce
3. Cover. Cook at 350° for 2 hours and 40 minutes.
4. Remove cover and cook another 10 minutes.

My only error was not taking a photo of the finished product. But, it was as good as I remember and worth a try if you like beef ribs!

Last Sunday we were having a terrible time, both with the heat and with my own unfamiliarity with Kailua. We wanted to find a place to sit down and eat. We went around and around and finally stopped at Longs to get some cash. I was fortunate enough to find a couple at the ATM that recommended Formaggio Grill. Seeing my frustration and sweaty brow, the wife just laughed at me and suggested we just kind of move across the street and around the corner a little. So, we did!

We stepped in the door of this relatively new addition to the Windward side of the island and were met with the coolest air conditioning you can imagine and greeted by a very nice host and friendly atmosphere. Of course we were dying in the heat so anything cooler than outside would have been welcome! The nice young host was concerned about how crowded the restaurant was and that we might have to wait. As it worked out, we didn’t have to wait long at all and we were seated and given cold water, other beverages and menus.

While looking at the menu and trying to figure out just what we had walked into, I noticed that the decor was interesting. There were paintings or sketches hung on warm, mustard-colored walls. The art work was interesting to look at and to try to figure them out. The most interesting one, I found, was the picture all the way on the right in the picture above. You can’t really tell but it’s of the Mona Lisa but it looks like a paint-by-number that was never completed. Was the artist still looking for Ms. Right? Maybe. He was obviously still trying to figure out how to color his ideal woman.

It was pretty quiet as people started to leave after finishing their lunch. It was already close to 3:00 in the afternoon.

I’m pretty sure that what we see in the background of the picture above is the kitchen, or certainly a portion of it. Our waiter, Jason, was a great help to us as we asked about things on the menu. What a wonderful menu or yummy choices! Jason’s suggestions were good ones. The food actually worked out nicely — the available selections would make any palate happy.

Mom saw onion soup on the menu and decided that was for her! It smelled wonderful and looked even better! As she spooned through it like we all do with soup, the amount 0f cheese was amazing. That’s one soup that would give French onion soup a run for its money! You should have seen the amount of cheese. Woo hoo! I guess that was French onion soup with an Italian twist.

I was drooling over the steak choices on the menu but they were more for dinner and a little too pricey for lunch. The original location of Formaggio is actually on the other side of the hill from this one. It’s on the Honolulu side of the Koolaus, in the Market City shopping center on Kapiolani Blvd. That one is more focused on liquor. We were lucky enough to be in the location where the food was the focus.

Anyway, I opted for their signature burger, the Kobe Burger Panini, with a side of salad sprinkled with a to-die-for dressing. This burger actually made it on to the cover of Honolulu Magazine. I’m not much of a salad person, except for the occasional craving, but this one was one to talk about. I had to ask twice about the dressing because it sounded too simple to be so good. Thedressing was a combination of 18-year-old balsamic delizio, grey poupon, olive oil, salt and pepper — that’s it. So good!

Mom got a piece of chocolate bread pudding with vanilla ice cream and chocolate and vanilla drizzles.

I just thought the blueberry cheesecake sounded good. It was.

This is a great restaurant with great atmosphere, great service, and great food. The only drawback is that the prices can add up very quickly. So, I think this is a great place for special-occasion eating. If you’re after just a casual meal, this might not be the best expenditure of your money. If you want really good food and you have something to celebrate, I give this place very high marks!

Formaggio Grill
305 Hahani Street
Kailua, Hawaii 96734
(808) 263-2633

Most people think of this kind of thing as the Taste of Honolulu — an event that provides support for Easter Seals. This year, we have one with a bit of a new twist. There’s a new charity and a few newer restaurants.

Flavors of Honolulu was presented this year on the grounds of the Frank Fasi Civic Center, which is not unusual, but this time, the beneficiary of the event was Abilities Unlimited, an organization that is actually a dba of Winners at Work and is designated for “helping people with disabilities lead productive lives.” I like the idea of supporting an organization like that! I wish I has known more about them before attending the event… I might have bought more scrip!

I don’t think they missed my extra $20 too much. Attendance was certainly not a problem! I passed by on the Saturday afternoon of that weekend and the place was packed. These photos were all taken on Sunday afternoon, the third and final day, and there were still people everywhere! I wonder how their bottom line came out. I guess I’ll have to investigate that!

This photo gives a better feel for just how many people were spread across the grounds of this City & County municipal park. The organization and set-up of the event was really quite good. The colors were complimentary and I enjoyed the visual aspect of it all. The park was clean and the weather, albeit very warm, was great for an outdoor happening like this.

These pictures don’t really convey the degree of heat that attendees had to endure. The sun was blazing and even the tradewinds were very warm.

While there was entertainment, of course, but my focus was on the food. That’s always my focus! Taste of Honolulu, Flavors of Honolulu, call it what you will — it’s all about the food! I can’t count the number of times I’ve used that phrase over recent years.

There was a great mix of ethnic cuisines! There were Mexican dishes like these little chicken tacos from Senor Frog’s seen here on the left. Senor Frog’s is located on the third floor of the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. Good food! I like our local Mexican food restaurants. With so many Taco Bell locations vanishing on us, we really need to keep track of our Mexican food places.

There were thirteen or so tents of various types of cuisine, with little plates of this and little plates of that. The emphasis is on the word little.

This brings up the one thing that stuck out and that was probably the only real negative that could be listed for this event — the servings were pathetically small. I realize the purpose of this event is to have a “taste” or to sample the “flavors” of the foods. But, for what worked out to be the equivalent of approximately $5 a plate, from the viewpoint of someone with a “local” appetite, that was unacceptable.

Again, the emphasis was on the “taste” or “flavors” of Honolulu, not “join us for a meal.” I was just too hungry, what can I say? I’m always hungry. I just like food — too much! Just so you guys don’t think I’m a horrible person, there was even one location that offered one meatball on a plate. That was it — one meatball. That was with the same cost — approximately $5. We walked away from that vendor just because it was too ridiculous to even talk about.

Now, I will go back to my previous statement that the supported organization was, in itself, well worth supporting. If I had known more about that organization at the time, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Okay, I may have thought twice about it but I would have gotten that meatball anyway! If you think about it, it wasn’t cheap to make one — it had three different meats and mozarella cheese.

See what my attitude got me? Nothing. That’s what I get! Sorry, Mangea!, it really did look good!  My bad.  Another restaurant to patronize gang! It smelled wonderful and looked great.   Mangea! is located at 300 Wai Nani Way, Phone: 808-923-1628.

For the most part, the food was definitely worth it. There were even a couple of vendors with steak! One of them was Koi, a restaurant located at 2028 Dillingham Blvd. The line was way too long for us to stand there and endure the heat but there were many others who had no problem waiting for what they must have known a lot about. Of course it said, “grilled steak with ginger sesame sauce” — so I guess I have to find out more about that place, huh? I’ll keep you guys posted!

In order to avoid the heat, we opted instead to try the steak from the Hilton Hawaiian Village’s Village Steak & Seafood restaurant and we were not disappointed.

To adjust my mood and to battle the heat I stopped at one of the wine vendors and sampled, at their recommendation, a very nice white wine that the vendor promised to be refreshing. She was right. I felt much better after drinking the 3/4 of a Dixie cup. Yeah, I had to throw that size part in.

All was not lost. Laverne’s was the one tent, serving Hawaiian cuisine, that had a grasp on knowing where they were. They knew how to please the local (okay, my) appetite. Laverne’s Catering & Restaurant is located at 99-866 Moloalo Street in Waipahu and can be reached at 808-678-1678. In the photo above you can see their sampling of rice, kalua pig, lomi salmon, chicken long rice, and haupia. Word has it that it was all good!  It looked great, smelled wonderful and was definitely much more reasonable from a serving size point of view.

In spite of it all, I wasn’t going to turn down a little sampling of li hing pineapple! I did get some of that from Laverne’s.

Pineapple is good with a little bit of li hing powder! This one was made from canned pineapple but I still liked it. It was, consequently, a little sweeter than normal.

All in all, I think it was a great event. I will go again, I will be better prepared, I will know what to expect and I will try as many of the food samplings as I can! If you plan to attend the next one, you might want to be sure you have a good breakfast that day!  I just wanted more.  Piggy.  After all, it’s all about the food!

I knew it. You knew it. It’s been in the news. We’ve known about it for quite some time (since 2004 or so). But, to see it dissolve right before your eyes is not the easiest thing to witness. As an ardent fan of the dairy industry, that orange circle with the “f” in it didn’t simply mean “Foremost” to me, it meant milk!

I still remember, when I was little, how excited I was to see the cow on the lawn at Foremost. The cow was fake but I kept looking for real ones. It’s a dairy! I used to think, “They must be milking the cows somewhere!” They’ve removed the cow from the lawn. It’s gone. They were milking the cows… in Waianae and elsewhere. From what I understand, a lot of our dairy farmers are gone too. Things were no longer profitable.

I don’t know if it’s the statue being gone from the lawn or the site of the building deserted that has the most impact on me but I just needed to talk about it. I guess that maybe it’s an end of an era — a reminder of how old I am?

The removal of the equipment is pretty troubling. I can’t help it. I’m a dairy freak and milk is important to me! Yes, this is an old story but in no time at all, when someone says Foremost, the kids are going to say, “Who?”

Don’t worry, all is not lost — it’s Lani Moo to the rescue! Their logo also means more to me than just “Meadow Gold,” it means milk! Meadow Gold continues to come to the rescue for us cheese-loving, milk-drinking fanatics.

These trucks, much like the Matson, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi trucks, are ones I try not to get run over by while cutting through the grocery store parking lot. I will admit that I am hoping those trucks are carrying my pineapple cottage cheese! Did I mention that I’m a dairy freak?

I have to add here that Meadow Gold has always had a significantly larger name-recognition thing going during my lifetime. Their community involvement is tremendous and they have been known to work with other companies to support community events. I’ve seen it. That could be a huge part of it! I’ll talk about them later, I promise. For now, suffice it to say that I’m just glad they’re here!

I didn’t make this cow story up. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin covered the story back in 2004 when it first happened and one of their photographers got a great picture of the cow of my childhood, before it was removed. I wonder where that cow is now. Hmmm…

by CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL
Honolulu Star-Bulletin photo

Technorati Tags: Island Business, Meadow Gold, Dairy Industry, Foremost