Hawaiian Workcation

Home in Haiku
Or as I like to tell people we are on a working vacation -- Tom is working and I am on vacation; pretty much the perfect antidote for Seattle's typical disappointing Spring weather. This year merited more disdain then others. Here are tidbits of my two months and Tom's three months on Maui in Haiku where when Tom isn't working we venture.

Our house in Haiku

The porch where we spend most of the time when at home.

From this deck we have the most wonderful views. Every day we watch the sunrise to the East with our morning tea. Every evening we watch spectacular sunsets with our gin and tonics. These are well-worn chairs.

Sunset

Sunset

Our view from the deck to the bonsai nursery.

Looking West over our neighbors yard.

But another fabulous sunset.

Sunrise

Maui's West Side and Lahaina

One day we decide to circumvent Maui's west island. Heading toward Lahaina, we stop at Honolua Bay, a beautiful beach for swimming. Later during our stay we'll take a day to swim and snorkel all the way down the west side visiting some of the most beautiful beaches including this one and the ones below and not returning until dusk.

Lunch on Lahaina's historic waterfront. Both Tom and I had been to this restaurant on previous trips -- mine when I flew over for the end of the Vic-Maui race and Tom, on his way back from his sailboat race to Tahiti. Best advice -- great view, great burgers, but don't buy the large beer unless you want to pay $12 for the glass and are willing to cart it back to the mainland. On the up side, if you do buy the glass, you get half price on future beers there.

The old banyan tree in the public square in historic Lahaina. This is one tree with many shoots.

Lahaina waterfront

 On another night we stopped in at this popular, low-key spot featuring Hawaiian dishes. Next door was the Lahaina nightly luau with hundreds of people attending. When I saw the roasted pig being carried on a sling from the luau next door it was a no brainer what I was ordering. It didn't disappoint.

Honokohua Bay is a preserve with no beach and large rounded rocks but the snorkeling is fantastic and it's here that Tom heads far out and swims with dolphins, surely one of his most memorable moments. The bay is beautiful, the fish plentiful, and turtles are too. We head to the beach on a trail that leads through the dense tropical jungle: cute the giant vines, loud bird calls, and mangoes dropping from giant mango trees.

We round the island and come across the tiny windward Kahakuloa, with its wooden church and Julia’s famous banana bread. Of course we buy some. I will only say that my banana bread is a knock-out in comparison. We hear later that millions of loaves of Julia's banana bread are exported around the world, all of it made in this sleepy Hawaiian town.

My daily walk in Pe'ahi Farms

At least a few days a week, sometimes more, I walk from our Ohana down to Hana Highway, then virtually tiptoe across to avoid attracting the attention of the gang of angry dogs and especially the little black bugger who at sighting me, climbs a tree, jumps over the fence and lunges at me baring his teeth and barking furiously. But the rewards at Pe’ahi Farms are worth it. Pe’ahi is the perfect retreat. Walking through with the big expanse of land with wide, unimpeded views of ocean before me is all the mediation I need. And every time I see something surprising -- once a whale breach, another a praying mantis, a mongoose crossing, a giant snail (which I mentioned to the French campione -- I don't see another snail again on my walks which makes me think he might have harvested them for escargot), egrets and a centipede. It's a 4.5 mile loop and when I return home I make a smoothie with Greek yogurt, guava juice (that I make myself from guava harvested on trees in the neighborhood), agave syrup, a frozen ice cream banana and a lot of ice. I sit on the porch and slowly sip my refreshing drink which cools me down after the long walk. This is heaven.

Pe'ahi will be developed some day in the not too distant future and it will be a sad day when this land is closed off to Hawaiians.


The East side is the rainy side but Haiku is no Hana

Waves of rain, sheets of water, blow through the property, past our porch, leaving layers of wet. Occasionally we hear thunder and see lightening and feel the strength of the winds wrapping around the property heading north fast. The rain here doesn’t assault you but instead feels like a fine mist, much like the mist sprayed on sidewalks and outside restaurants in Las Vegas. It’s cooling but not chilling. But if you think it’s a predictor of weather to come you’d be wrong – warm sun can and usually does follow quickly drying out the moisture left by the rain.

Big Beach, the day I visit to check it out, looks reassuringly calm. But the day Tom and I arrive it is windy and unexpectedly fierce. On my first attempt to test the water, a seemingly small wave knocks me down and other waves coming in quick succession keep me there. Tom finally lends a hand so I can get myself upright and out of the surging waves. When a change of wind brings calmer waters, we head out. Snorkeling way out we see a Hawaiian boy running with, we guess, a 30 pound rock on the sandy bottom making huge strides at a pace faster than we can swim. I exit the surf  but take Tom's advice to "never turn your back on the sea". When I turn around to back out I see a big wave about to crash onto the shore and dive into it. The wave lifts me and slams me so hard on my back that I'm temporarily stunned. I ask the crowd around me what happened and they said, "a big wave, that's what happened." I limp to the car and spend the rest of the night icing my back and my pride.

Pa’ia town is funky, friendly, and full of surfers. I love it here. My favorite haunts, the Banana Café, Ono Gelato, Mana Foods, Cafe Les Amis, Flatbread Pizza and the pharmacy. The pharmacy because the friendly pharmacist suggests that I use olive oil to treat Tom’s surfer ear rather than the expensive medicines they have for sale. I ask her if she is Italian because that is the exact remedy my mother used and that I subsequently used with my children. She answered yes, from New York. Mana Foods because of its diverse clientele, its uber casualness, its quality foods, and it center of the community. Les Amis because of its European vibe and outdoor communal seating which offers cool, breezy dining under shady trees. Ono Gelato for its distinctive ice cream flavors – Sea Breeze, Illikoi, Macadamia Nut Peanut Butter, Passion Fruit. The Banana Café because it does neighborhood coffee shop better than any Starbucks. Pa’ia is surfer central with all manner of people and nationalities coming in from Baldwin Beach and Ho’okipa, most in their swim suits with a thin wrap around them for cover. I’ve heard more different languages here than in downtown Seattle.

One promising day we head out to Hana and to round the east island despite the forecast of rain in Hana. Indeed, very few forecasts for Hana ever show sun. Hana is wet and its blowing but Tom has it in his head to boogie board in the high surf at Koki Beach. Nailed to a tree trunk is a hand-written warning about high surf, undertows and danger, danger, danger. I take the sign literally but Tom takes it as an invitation and promptly drags his board and new shortened boogie fins to the beach. I watch him get hammered but can tell he’s loving it. A young Hawaiian man comes up next to me as a watch and says gently, “he’ll be alright, it’s shallow, don’t worry.” I was thankful as it allowed me to relax back into the book I was reading instead of glued on my husband’s bobbing head. Funny thing, when we parked I was worried about this very same man and his friends mulling around the parking lot, playing loud music, drinking beer as our guidebook says be careful about your car in Hana as break-ins are common and indeed, along the way, every lookout seemed to have shattered window glass laying on the ground. Just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its cover. That day we made our way around the island to the remote south slope narrow road with its uneven pavement, the blue, blue ocean pounding on the shore all along the way. There’s one lone store on this lonely road in the improbable “town” with one store and little else. Unused to people perhaps, or maybe weary at the way people stop by, linger for a moment, and then leave, the proprietor barely lifts her eyes to us even when we decide to buy $4 popsicles. She mumbles to us not looking up and we leave. I started to pick a fruit up off the ground that is an intriguing color and shape-- light green fruit with bumps all over its oval-shape-- and instantly I get a whiff of its foul smell. The fruit is Noni, known for its healthy elixir. But even though I washed my hands thoroughly a faint smell of Noni persisted. No matter how healthy its juice, I won't ever touch it. 

I’ve never had a green thumb. Indeed, I’ve managed to kill most house plants and quite a few outside plants over the years. But I have taken to Bonsai like I never thought I would, particularly has it takes the concentration of Ikebana, the life-giving knowledge of trimming roots and shoots, and the patience of coaching limbs into shapes. But every Monday at 9:00 a.m. I show up at the nursery to do just that. Once I begin, I don’t want to stop and usually peel out of there around 3 or 4 p.m. not having stopped once to eat, pee or sit down. I love the breeze that whips around me, the Hawaiian music on the radio, the lively banter with Randy and April when they are around and the quiet concentration when they aren’t, their chicken flying through and around, and the rabbit curiously popping about the potting table. Randy and April's dogs scutter around my feet and I totally get into the moment. I instinctively know that this is one thing I'm surely going to miss.

Here are the steps in replanting and training bonsai trees.

Dirt	½ full
Potting soil	To rim
Plant	Position so plant stem is going away from you
Wire	Hold down plant, twist wires on both sides of plant until plant does not move at all
Potting soil	Add to top where necessary
Nutrient pellets	Spread teaspoonful on top of dirt
Volcanic rock	Spread on top
Soak	Submerse plant in vitamin B1 plant growth water

Farmers markets abound in Maui. My favorites are the many from small pull-outs along Hana Hwy to the large markets inside Queen Kamaiamaia Shopping Centerwhere I still marvel at buying a huge daikon radish for 75 cents and a big piece of ginger for 25 cents. Prices at these markets are very good so we eat a good deal of vegetables and fruit. Favorites include large avocados, tomatoes, daikon, radish sprouts, lettuce from Kula, snap peas, purple sweet potato, ginger, green beans, papaya, mango, mountain apple (tastes like a combination of pear and apple), pineapple, and every type of banana, with my personal favorite ice cream bananas which I freeze and then make the most delicious smoothies. We also love the island, grass-feed beef. It really does taste different and of course the cattle have it good here with high-priced ocean views and deliciously-moist green grass. We always marvel at how good they have it and how contented their life must be – until of course their fateful day after which they bring pleasure to our table. We also love the Poki Poki, raw chunks of ahi tuna marinated.


On the property we pick the biggest, juiciest oranges, limes, lychee (which we peel and freeze and eat like little bites of sherbert). There are coconut trees and papaya trees. On Hana Hwy and down the road toward the ocean across from Ulumalu Rd. there are lots of guava trees and ripe fruit easy for the picking. I make juice and jelly which needs no pectin just sugar and lemon juice. For the record, mangoes grow on large trees much like avocados, papayas on the trunks of of palms much like coconuts and bananas, guava on mid-size trees like apples, and pineapple from the center of cactus-like shrubs. 

In fact, mangoes drop out of the sky like little missiles  and you are best to avoid them. Same with coconuts which startle me when I pass by one and am narrowly missed by a large falling bowling ball size nut. As Peter said to me as I talked to him in the shade of a coconut tree (while I indulged in a leisure conversation on my cell phone as it had 4 bars a rarity of connectivity around Haiku) -- kicking a coconut Peter said, “you better watch out it may kick you back.” I immediately looked up and move away from underneath the tree.

One of my favorite way to use all of the fresh vegetables is to julienne them, cook in a microwave one minute, take brown rice and mound in the middle of the plate surrounded by the slightly-cooked vegetables in neat stacks, then douse with a mixture of rice vinegar, a little olive oil, ginger and garlic. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, and or mint, and or chopped roasted peanuts. It makes a hearty meal. I use the left-over brown rice in sushi rolls using large sheets of nori I layer the rice sprinkled with rice vinegar and add julienne daikon, cucumber, cooked carrot, mustard sprouts and then roll. Dip in a mixture of soy sauce and rice vinegar.

I bought green papaya from one of the farm women and she suggested garlic, ginger, chicken and green papaya stir fried, which I make adding wine to the cooking mix, then splashing a bit of soy and rice vinegar before serving over Kelp noodles from Mana Foods (Mana means life-giving, BTW). Tom loved it and it had great flavor. Green papayas are simply papayas picked before ripening, not a separate variety.

Up Country

There's a winery up country with surprisingly refreshing pineapple wine (best in a spritzer), its 150-year-old fig tree, and it’s beautiful setting high on the slope of Haleakala past Keokea. Nearby is a paniolo (cowboy) store where we buy elk steaks. We like the leaner than lean steaks which reminds me of Alaskan moose. Not too gamey but definitely not beef. And no story about food would be complete without mentioning Grandma’s, the famous café in Keokea which has some excellent desserts – pumpkin pie, carrot cake, lillikoi coconut cake – and where we munched a fresh coffee berry from the bushes around the café’s outdoor tables on the advice of a local. It was surprisingly berry-like (you don’t eat the seed if you are wondering). I have an open invitation to join the the men who eat lunch here every Friday. A short way from here is Thompson Road where the men head to the OW Ranch. The road past Mama’s leads to the winery, the paniolo store as the highway loops back around north to Hana and eventually to Haiku, Pa'ia and beyond.

Our favorite stop is Pozzi’s in Makawao where Tom often asked me to stop to have a margarita and nachos with the men after work. The sign out front says "Come in an eat or we'll both starve." That pretty much describes the atmosphere of the place where locals gather after work and surfing videos play non-stop along with telecast sports. We also often eat at Coleen’s  in Haiku which has the best Ono burgers anywhere we've eaten, Hana Hou with its nightly music and nice outdoor dining, and a special mention for the Northshore Café, a tiny jury-rigged place with a Tibetan sushi chef that makes really innovative and surprising sushi rolls all in Haiku. I’m remembering the night we went there and had our sushi rolls interspersed with politics and the TV showing a hula competition. The competition was intriguing because it showed traditional hula with women in large, billowy skirts, leafy leis and head dresses, and their bent-legged sturdy movement. They start with a sing-songy story in Hawaiian and a person in the entourage responds back and then they dance. Something about it reminds me of a Catholic mass -- you know, where the priest sings the liturgy in Latin and the congregation responds in kind.

On the urging of our neighbor, Randy, we head up to a very local event -- the Seabury School Annual Crafts Fair in upcountry Olinda. I buy a beautiful bracelet from two equally beautiful women from Frankfurt. We see Randy and April’s bonsai booth, eat some Pad Thai and Thai-style seafood soup, and top it off with some delicious, local, freshly-made candied Macadamia nuts. It's local events like this that make our stay.

South Maui -- a lesson in contrast: from overbuilt, dingy waterfront of Kihei to the overwatered, manicured Waimea to the uber-exclusive Makena.

Southern Maui is a different breed, with its many private golf courses, glitterati hotels, expensive homes on gated property and because of its location on a very thin strip of land where a narrow public road rambles along to southernmost public beaches, the home owners put up imposing barriers keeping everyone from their home, the beach and the views, creating both exclusivity and unfriendly vibe. With the views completely obliterated from the public its off-putting as opposed to Haiku and the north shore where views are expansive and the feeling open and free. In Hawaii, all beaches are open to the public, it's just that land owners don't make it easy. You have to search hard to find the narrow slips of land that allows the public access to the beach. In contrast to the north shore, the south shore is hot, parched and all the vegetation is watered to an inch of its life. Whereas, on the north shore frequent rains keep the vegetation lush, green and productive. Hawaiians say that Haiku is the "real" Hawaii. We've been content to stay on the north side beaches hanging out at Baldwin and Ho’okipa with the locals, catching the waves, and venturing out to swim with the largest turtles I’ve ever seen in the water.

 

Haiku town looks like a haggard, has-been run-down strip mall. But its surprisingly lively and we’ve come to love and rely on this little community which has some interesting enterprises in the old pineapple factory (Haiku used to be the center of the pineapple industry on Maui). We avail ourselves of its fine supermarket (with the best banana bread on Maui and we’ve tried a few), pharmacy, bike shop, surf board factory, handmade lotions and soaps, vintage postcard reproductions, Bob the bar-b-que guy (best chicken I’ve eaten and great ribs), and Hana Hou with its nightly music, Colleen’s (surprisingly cosmopolitan), post office, exercise place, yoga studio, decorator store – and that’s just some of the shops and restaurants here. At first you are struck by the worn out quality of the place – the patchwork pavement, aging surfer dudes and dudettes, out-of-work locals just hanging, but get beyond that and you have the heart of Haiku with its diverse population of locals. Tourists don’t venture here and that’s what I like. But you can’t judge a place by its town center as Haiku homes are on expansive lots, lush with tropical fruit and green grass, horses and cows grazing, and all with ocean views. No one hogs the view here and beach homes are non-existent as the north shore, with few exceptions, end in steep cliffs to the sea. It’s also the center of big surfing as Jaws is located just offshore here and the big stars of surfing live right across the Hana Hwy from Ulumalu and the rest live nearby. Ho’okipa is the beach they all surf off season, in season is December or January, when Aleutian storms drive swells that build until they hit the Pe’ahi reef off Haiku and turn into 50, 60, 70 foot waves that experienced surfers call fun. They need to be towed by jet ski to catch the wave as these waves travel fast. These Haiku surfers invented the sport about 10 years ago and it is now a popular way to catch increasingly bigger waves in hot-spots around the world. The Wave by Susan Casey tells their story.

One of my favorite things is getting up at 5 a.m. with Tom and watching the sunrise from the porch, tea in hand, and then heading out with him promptly at 6 to drop him off on Kokomo at the house where the rest of the crew lives. From there I go home and he continues up to Keokea about 30 minutes away. But the day is so beautiful at this time of the morning, the air fresh, the vistas rewarding, the birds chirping. Heading down Hana Hwy makes me feel good to be alive.

Kula looks and feels like northern California. In honor of OW, I give you the Moscow Mule (see recipe below). We didn’t actually get around to making it because we prefer gin and tonics and never have vodka around the house but I plan to, I do. Kula is also the access to the volcano crater of Haleakala.  Haleakala sits at 10,000 feet and has an other-worldly landscape, a fantastic view that extends to the volcanoes of the Big Island, a deep green jungle barely visible through gaps in the sides of the crater,surprising colors within – reds, yellows, oranges, purples – and long trails that lead off as far as the eye can see. Walking down the trail I want to keep going – indeed, should keep going. But I force myself to turn around after about a mile or so because of an injury requiring stitches on my foot. Though my foot did well, the altitude (10,000 feet), the softness of the ground up lava under foot, and the upward slope proved challenging. I was relieved I didn’t go further.

Hawaii has the most improbable looking Flora, every color, shape and size. But then, this is a tropical paradise and I haven't spent much time in the tropics. But I’ll let these photos speak for themselves.

In 1979, on our way to live in Japan, we stopped in Maui and found that a boat we saw being built in Kenmore -- a 50-foot trimaran -- had circled the South Pacific and ended up in Lahaina. The trimarin, Trilogy, belongs to the Coon family which settled in Maui, making a living sailing to Lanai and giving tours of the now extinct pineapple plantation. So when Randy told me that Trilogy was still in business and that son Jim Coon still runs the company, we signed up for a nostalgic tour of Lanai. It was a great day despite the darkest clouds and lightening chasing us back to Lahaina. Better still was the book "Trilogy" written by mother Coon of that original journey years before. I had the distinct pleasure of dining with Jim and his mother at the Lahaina Yacht Club at his invitation. Mother Coon who is now 94 years old, signed my copy of her book. Jim is gracious and warm and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with him and his mother.

Mongooses are plentiful on the island. But they are mean little things. We saw them fight fiercely over a scrap of food and they make the most scarey hissing sound. Though mongooses are regularly seen throughout the island, usually crossing rapidly across the road, we encountered this mongoose in Hana where someone was baiting a whole group of them out of hiding with food. And like Riki Tiki Tavi, mongooses have red eyes and they stare making them seem particularly menacing.

Why did the chicken cross the road? I’m not sure but on Maui there sure are many chickens crossing the roads and not just country roads. I once saw a chicken at a major highway intersection. And he saw me. He came up to my car while I was waiting for the light to change with such a wild look in his eyes I was afraid he had plans to hitch hike. So I closed my window and tried to ignore his pathetic pleas. I was glad when the light changed.

Rainbows here on the north shore are as common as auroras in Alaska in winter. We see them literally every day as misty rain sweeps the landscape followed by sun.

On our my last week in Maui, we try to make every moment count -- we eat dinner at Cafe Les Amis, pizza at Flatbread, Ho'okipa for one last foray with the turtles, spend a day snorkeling every beach in south east Maui, spend a day at the beach in Wailea-Makena, and take in the first night festivities and surfer movie outdoors in Wailea. I hate to leave. I'm sure I'll be back.

One footnote: While I was back in Seattle, Tom finally made it to a polo match in upcountry. We had long admired the beautiful horses pastured on ranches all over upcountry and had been aware that many of them were polo horses. He has the memories but I'm sharing the photos here.