San Juan Islands Sailing

First of all, I have to tell you guys this has been the most epic summer of my entire life. Better than slip 'n slides and blackberry picking at eight, better than Latin American living at 16, better than hostel jumping at 20, and (maybe) even better than New York City last year. If you've been following this summer, you know that I spent most of my time leading a youth conservation corp team here in Hawaii and camping in some of the most remote places on the Big Island. To top it all off, I spent the last week of summer break sailing in the San Juan Islands in Washington state.

Some of you may know that we plan to drop everything in the very near future in favor of living on a sail boat. We will probably begin our adventures in the Pacific Northwest so we found a charter boat company that offered a "learn and cruise" trip to get some hands-on sailing experience. Through San Juan Sailing we sailed and lived aboard for a week with another couple and a captain who taught us to sail along the way. I am proud to say I am now a legit sailor. LEGIT. And I didn't even get sick once. For the girl who gets nauseous on a playground swing this is big news.

The sailing course included three written exams and a series of practical "tests" that we practiced at sea. Once you pass all three courses you can charter a boat from San Juan Sailing all on your own.

Most nights we anchored in a sheltered bay of one of the small islands where we could row on shore for a little hiking and beach combing. The water was stand-still calm. The other couple cruising with us got their crabbing license so we were lucky enough to have fresh crab on board a couple times. Meals were cooked and eaten family style and luckily all of us got along very well.

We also spent a night at the marina in Friday Harbor, an adorable little port town with scads of art galleries and teeny cafes. We pounded some oysters and sipped on local beer and just about died when the moon rose out of the purple sunset glow. The water is so clear around there, you can see starfish and all sorts of creatures everywhere.

Every morning we would get geared up and sail to a new anchorage. Being out on the water sailing was two parts challenging and two parts fun. I liked learning about navigation and charting and feeling pretty confident that with some practice I'll get the whole sail trimming thing down, too.

Mainly, I'm looking forward to eating fresh crab, fish, clams and mussels often and with gusto.

I spent a lot of time before this trip worrying about being a total sailor failure and letting my husband down. If it weren't for the confidence boost from leading a group of teenagers through a summer of the hardest physical labor ever, well let's just say that boost was needed.

This vacation will sustain me for a good long while.

I can still taste the oysters.

Vintage Honolulu

We snuck in a couple vaca days in Honolulu before I had to report to work at my summer job this week. I'll be leading a team of 17 and 18 year olds on camping adventures on the Kona side of the Big Island, where I live. Along the way, we will be doing conservation work like building trails, planting native trees, and removing invasive species. I am more than stoked.

We stayed in Waikiki and just chilled since Dustin had hurt his back. This was totally fine with me having just finished a nightmare 2012-2013 school year, I needed some downtime.

Everywhere we went in Honolulu clues from the past kept popping up. I couldn't help but wonder what Waikiki would have been like in the '60s.

We also took some time to look at a few sailboats, we'd like to buy one next summer and plan so do a little world cruising. For real.

Aloha vintage Honolulu!

My friend Danielle introduced me to the La Mariana Sailing Club tiki bar. It is fully decked out in tiki regalia, complete with dive bar status. If you have never been, it is a must.

Of course we had SPAM musubis for breakfast, this one has bacon and egg. Nom.

For Memorial Day, Magic Island hosts an annual lantern lighting ceremony in which a message is placed in a lantern for a lost loved one, lit and set free in the ocean. (Don't worry, the lanterns are collected so they won't harm the environment). It is a beautiful way to remember and honor those that have gone before us.

We enjoyed some classy drinks poolside at The Modern Honolulu including a fab deconstructed mai tai garnished with a shiso leaf.

Even the carpet patterns are vintage.

Love the turquoise.

A rare snapshot of me. Hi!

Clam Digging in Oregon

The Edwards' home in Silverton, Oregon

It's Christmas eve. An impenetrable mantle of hot electric blanket has forced me out of the bed I'm sharing with Dustin at his parent's newly built house in Silverton, Oregon. We've gone to bed leaving twinkling lights downstairs and plans to host his mother's family tomorrow. The beast is waiting quietly in the fridge for his turn to be roasted and the house murmurs with Dustin's steady sleeping breath and the hum of the heater.

Earlier today as we walked the property in the brisk afternoon I couldn't help but imagine myself holed up in their tiny, red guesthouse working hard on my first novel, a pot of tea steaming on the stove  as my fingers tap, tap, tapped the keyboard. The clouds piled high above our heads as we rode the tractor back to the house.

This place has a mix of both homey familiarity and a sense of belonging I can feel nowhere else but in Oregon, where the trees and the mud and the icy mountain streams make up the very blood in my veins. This sensation grows as we trudge through the fields in high rubber boots down to a nearby creek, stopping to admire rose hips and forgotten blackberries still red and unripened on the vine. Moss grows thickly on the little wooden bridge crossing the creek and the coffee colored water rushes under us, drowning out the sound of my thumping, longing pulse.

Netarts, Oregon

Days later, after the last guest has gone, full and happy, and toting a number of tasty leftovers including smoked turkey, Yorkshire pudding, and champagne cake, I select my breakfast from the once inviting, now daunting pile of endless Christmas cookies. Blackberry brandy and eggnog have slowed me this morning but I've managed to pull on some boots and a sweater. The beach awaits.

Netarts, Oregon

We arrive in Netarts on an utterly perfect day. The sun is (almost) out and the wind has taken a break. Waves crash far offshore and the salty air creeps slowly down into my lungs. The combination of cliffs and breakers and moss and trees trees trees on the Oregon coast is like nowhere else. Lucky for us the tide is low and I came prepared with a shellfish permit.

Digging for clams in Netarts, Oregon

Rake, shovel, and bucket in hand we set off skeptically down to the sand. My dad had told me about this method of simply raking the sand and scoring clams. I doubted this claim as my memories of clam  digging as a kid were just that, digging to frigging China in the freezing sand as fast as possible before the clam out-dug you.

Oregon cockles

When you dig for clams you look for little holes in the sand, step near them, and hope the clam shoots some water up at you through the hole. That's how you know where to dig. Well, as we sloshed along the sandy bay, we saw no such holes. At all. I was beginning to look the fibber. My mother in law suggested we just start raking.

So we raked a little in the sandy tide pools and pop! up came a clam. We laughed at our luck but then pop! pop! pop! we scored more and more. Within 15 minutes we'd drawn a small crowd and the legal per day catch limit. This was definitely the easiest clam digging I'd ever done.

As you can see from the photo, these clams are quite large. They have a hard, textured shell and are technically called cockles. Before you steam, broil, slurp, or chowderize your cockles, be sure to soak them in an open container of fresh water for at least a couple hours or up to 12. Do not cover with a lid as the cockles need to be able to breath. Soaking them allows the excess sand to seep out before cooking. We skipped this step because we were so excited to eat them, but trust me, it's vital, we were eating some crunchy clams.

The recipe below is the simple way to enjoy clams. Serve with crusty bread, pasta, or hot cooked rice.

Fresh, steamed Oregon cockles

Steamed Oregon Cockles

20 cockles (or your favorite clam)
1 cup white wine (salted water or broth is fine, too)
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 TBL butter
salt & pepper to taste

After the cockles have soaked in an uncovered container of fresh water for at least 2 and up to 12 hours, rinse and set aside.

In a large pot, add wine and and garlic over medium high heat. As soon as wine begins to boil, add cockles to the pot and cover. Be sure not to crowd the cockles. It helps to have a glass lid so you know when the shells have opened.

Steam for 3-5 minutes or until shells have opened wide. Discard any that do not open. Serve with the wine/butter mixture and add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Eatin' Right in Minneapolis

Flowers at Mill City Farmers Market

You guys I've been busy. So so so busy.

With work. With school. With putting my house back together. With organizing book clubs and having birthdays and getting the garden straightened. With life.

And I don't like to be busy. When I'm busy I get stressed. And when I get stressed my face breaks out and I eat too much and exercise feels like a far off dream. And when those things happen I feel bad about how I'm living and I end up working out too hard or drinking too much and waste my only day off recovering.

Last week I made a mad dash trip to Minneapolis for the wedding of a dear friend. It's a 14 hour situation to get to Minneapolis that involved too much candy and not enough sleep. I was a little stressed about leaving all the busyness back home to pile up. But some things are once in a lifetime. Busyness is not once in a lifetime, busyness is all the time and it can wait. Seeing my friend all woman-like in her white dress and gorgeous smile walk down the aisle was more important than catching up on all the to-dos in all the world.

Congrats BooBoo!

In between all the wedding festivities I managed a stop at the Mill City Farmers Market and a lively meal at Travail. After reading about the Minneapolis food scene in Food & Wine Magazine, I was eager to explore the local flavors.

Wild rice at Mill City Farmers market

The farmers market was lively, bright, and full of great finds including wild rice, chocolates, flowers, cheeses, sausages, and the usual, but equally exciting, fruits, vegetables, eggs, and baked goods. My score of the morning was a prune and chocolate roll that was rather like a cross between a bagel and a donut.

Chefs/servers at Travail

Travail was a flurry of extravagant small plates with a focus on fine ingredients. My favorite was a corn chowder topped with popcorn. Plus, the atmosphere is "what must be the country’s most entertaining avant-garde food" as Food & Wine describes it. The servers are the chefs here, a unique but very welcome twist. Just like at home, the passion for the food goes right on the plate, instead of being lost in translation somewhere between the kitchen and your table, as it does in a typical restaurant.

Beef tartare at Travail

I'm happy to report that Minneapolis does it right, not only with the widespread use of locally grown and made ingredients, but in creating a cuisine of comfort food all their own.

Back to the grind.

Sustainable Sunday: Hawaiian Vanilla

Did you know there is only one vanilla farm in the entire United States? Lucky for me Hawaiian Vanilla Company is only an hour from my hometown of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

In addition to growing high-quality vanilla beans, the family-run farm offers tours, vanilla-themed luncheons and high tea. It turns out that vanilla can be used for much more than ice cream.

The owner's son, an expert vanilla chef, surrounded by extract. (Don't worry, he wasn't mixing us drinks)

One of the chefs demonstrated how to make a shrimp dish flavored with homemade vanilla extract. As you can see from the photo above he is a young chef, but certainly knew his vanilla facts. We then enjoyed an exceptional lunch; a chicken sandwich with two different kinds of vanilla infused sauces, salad with vanilla crusted pecans and vanilla-raspberry dressing, vanilla and spice rubbed potatoes, and washed it down with vanilla lemonade or iced tea. It was a challenge stuffing in the vanilla ice cream at the end.

Vanilla lemonade, salad with vanilla vinaigrette, and vanilla rubbed potatoes

Vanilla Arnold Palmers

Thankfully we got up on our feet for a tour of the farm, our bellies needing a walk at that point. The vanilla plant is an orchid whose blooms must be hand pollinated in order to produce vanilla beans. Harvesting just one bean is a very labor intensive process that takes many months, and if you've ever grown orchids, you know how challenging it can be to keep these plants happy. In the open-air "greenhouse" the farmers were experimenting with a new growing technique, hoping the vines would grow up moss covered poles.

Vanilla farmer experimenting with moss for climbing vines

A vanilla plant needs at least four years before it can begin producing beans. Which brings us to why there may be only one vanilla farm in the U.S. It's expensive. The costs and labor involved in mass production are great, which is why what we pay a lot per bean. But here's the deal, most beans that us common folks find at the grocery store are hard, shriveled things from Madagascar or Mexico and are basically not worth the cost. You will save yourself a lot of money by using extract.

Vanilla vines are orchids

To get the highest quality vanilla flavor Hawaiian Vanilla Company strongly recommends you make your own vanilla extract. This is mainly because extract sold in the U.S. is made mostly with water due to a strange law passed during the prohibition era. They suggest you use vodka (although rum and bourbon are ok if you like those flavors). Get your hands on 3 fresh and pliable Hawaiian vanilla beans (about $30, you'll need to special order them or stop by the farm), split them down the middle to expose the thousands of tiny seeds, plop them in a 12 oz. jar, fill with vodka, store in a cool, dark place and in 6 months you'll have the absolute best vanilla flavor money can buy. Not only that, but these beans will continue to make extract for up to 3 years, as long as you continue to refill it with vodka as you go along (make sure you maintain about an 8oz. "base").

Another owner's son, our tour guide, teaching us about hand-pollination

If you live on or are planning to visit the Big Island of Hawaii, this is a treat not to be missed. Learn more about their tour offerings here: Hawaiian Vanilla Company

Purchase Hawaiian vanilla beans and products here: Hawaiian Vanilla Company


*I was not paid or compensated in any way to write this post. I just really want you to have amazing vanilla in your lives!

A Dominican Sweet 16

16 year old me in the Dominican Republic in 1996 with neighbor kids

The best summer of my youth was in 1996. At 16 I had it all; a car, a cute boyfriend, a varsity softball letterman jacket, long, wavy hair with blond highlights. The picture of the American Teenager. And then I was canon-fired across the country to a remote village in the Dominican Republic for 6 weeks.

Although I'd been planning the trip for nearly a year, nothing could have prepared me for adapting to a new culture, speaking a different language, being away from home for the first time and the drastic changes in myself that were to come of it.

Without much thought the previous year, I signed up for a program called Amigos de las Americas, an organization that sends youth into Latin American countries to complete community service projects during the summer months. All I really thought about at that point was that it would be rad to travel to another country and that it would look great on my college applications.

Ranch de la Guardia, Dominican Republic. My summer home in '96.

I was placed with two other girls my age in a town called Rancho de la Guardia, inland from the coast, about 4 miles from the Haitian border. We lived in a little shack next to our host family and quite happily settled in washing our clothes in a bucket, bathing in a waterfall, making midnight trips together to the latrine. Our host mother fed us bread and hot chocolate for dinner almost every night. We thought this was a pretty sweet deal, planting trees and speaking Spanish, no big deal.

But like all things, it got real. Here are a few excerpts from my journal:
"I'm not sure that I'm all for organizations like Amigos. Do these people really need our help? What are we doing here?"
"I'm totally going through culture shock...Sometimes it gets so frustrating to be around a lot of noise that you can't understand."
"We all cried a lot today and pretty much isolated ourselves in our room."
"I can't believe we have two days left. It's totally crazy. I think I might just die, or it will seem like all these people have. I can't bear the thought of leaving, but I can't bear the thought of staying either."

The house we stayed in that summer.

It got real not because we had no running water or TV, but because for the first time in my life, I realized there was more. That there was more than having great hair and perfect shoes, there was a whole world of people out there that had absolutely nothing to do with me. I came out of my teenaged shell and got a glimpse of the bigger picture. After coming home I threw out all my make-up, kept my hair short, and basically hated on all things "material." It took me a long time to reconcile what I'd experienced that summer with my life back home in Oregon. It took me an even longer while to figure out that it was me who'd benefitted from the experience, not necessarily the people I'd gone to "help."

Me (in gray) with my partners Amanda and Nicole and a friend

Nostalgia for this particular summer crept over me recently. I felt the best way to commemorate these feelings was to slow-cook a pot of beans and curl up on the couch with my journal and photo album. I laughed and laughed, flipping through the pages, remembering our neighbor boys whispering "I love you," and "do you like to kiss?" through slats in our door as we fell asleep on our mosquito net covered cots. Our favorite meal was "arroz con habichuelas" or rice and beans. I hope I'm doing the recipe, and this story, justice.

Dominican Rice and Beans
Also featured on Foodie Friends Friday
serves at least 8

1 pound kidney or red beans
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
1 yellow onion
4 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno
1 TBL cumin
1 tsp chili powder (whatever you like)
salt & pepper
water, as needed
white rice

*I remember this dish being "soupy," as the beans were served separate from the rice. There was a lot of extra liquid in the bean pot, so that's the way I wrote this recipe, just FYI.

In your slow cooker, cover your pound of beans with water and soak over night. Drain and rinse, take the time to sort through them a bit, it's likely you'll find some dirt or rocks.

Add the drained beans back to the slow cooker along with the stock. If the stock doesn't cover the beans, add more water. Remember, we are going for soupy.

Chop your onion, garlic, and jalapeno and add to the pot. Toss in the spices and give it a stir. Watch the salt though as some stocks are saltier than others. It will be pretty spicy, so omit spicy ingredients if necessary. Turn it to low and let it cook overnight, or 8-10 hours.

To serve, spoon beans over hot cooked rice. Enjoy!

Make Your Own Limoncello

Limoncello has buried itself in the memory part of my brain, right next to dusty days under the hot Greek sun, walking endless straight lines through silvery olive groves, eyes to the ground in search of ancient pieces of pottery. Limoncello also butts right up against memories of Dustin and I, confused lovers on a quest for meaning in a tiny stone apartment, again in Greece.

Like many college grads, I headed off to Europe for a summer trek to celebrate my accomplishments. It would be the trip that sealed my love for solo travel. (Did you know my trip to NYC this summer was solo? A friend pointed out that I never mentioned this in any posts.) My sister happened to be on the island of Crete in Greece helping out on an archaeological project, so of course I headed her way. Their assignment was to survey miles and miles of farmland and open fields and record any pottery that happened to be lying on the ground. Imagine hours of hiking in the hot summer sun, scrutinizing every stone and dirt clod for possible signs of long gone life. It was grueling for them, week after week, sometimes finding nothing. It was joyous for me, handling a cup thousands of years old among the olive trees and screaming cicadas.

We'd head back to homebase, after these hours of surveying, exhausted and covered in reddish brown dust only to collapse around the shared courtyard in the setting sun. Somehow bowls of pasta materialized, along with liters of local wine, and after, rounds and rounds of creamy limoncello.

Limoncello glides right along, in between and in and out of my memories of Greece. After a few tormenting months in Denver, Dustin and I abruptly left the city and boarded a last minute flight to Europe. I couldn't wait to share with him the beauty I'd found the previous summer on Crete. Bouganvillea covered archways, candlelit shrines hidden deep inside caves, rocky hillsides, the wine-dark Mediterranean.

We spent our nights listening to music out of speakers fashioned from earbuds and paper cups, playing Egyptian Rat Screw on our pushed-together twin beds, trying to figure out whether forever was our future. I'd slice up a couple of impossibly red tomatoes, a cucumber, and the richest feta cheese to go with our homemade wine stored in recycled water bottles. And then in went the rounds and rounds of creamy limoncello. Sweet and tangy.

Sipping limoncello brings me right back, to somewhere in between starting a life and avoiding one.

Limoncello (not creamy, sorry!)
adapted from the recipe by Giada de Laurentiis

10 lemons (or 5-6 Hawaii sized lemons, like softballs)
750 ml vodka (1 bottle)
3 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 cups sugar

Peel lemons with a vegetable peeler, reserving rest of the lemon for another use. It helps to peel them in long strips. Using a very sharp paring knife, remove as much of the pith (white part of the peel) as you can. This takes time, but is the key to a good limoncello. Place peels in a container (like a juice pitcher) and allow to steep at room temperature for 4 days.

Heat water and sugar over medium heat in a sauce pan until sugar dissolves. Allow to cool and add sugar water to pitcher. Steep for another 24 hours.

Strain limoncello and discard peels. Bottle and store in the fridge for up to a month. Enjoy!

This recipe is featured on Foodie Friends Friday

How to Eat Good in Hawaii

Pineapple, SPAM, umbrella drinks. These may come to mind when you think of Hawaiian food. But friends, I am here to tell you Hawaii is so much more, it's a foodie paradise. And I'm not alone, when I asked some of my fellow Hawaii blogger friends to offer their tips on not-to-miss eats, they offered many enthusiastic responses.

1. Poke (pronounced poe-kay), raw fish salad
Geology blogger Anna listed poke as her top choice, "I didn't try it until I moved here and I was totally missing out!" Tania, our Maui fashionista, likes spicy ahi poke and lomi salmon. The great part about poke is the variety, there are so many kinds to try. If you don't care for raw seafood, give the cooked varieties a try. Poke can be found everywhere on the islands, just ask a local to point you in the right direction. 

2. Mochi, sweet Japanese rice cake
Gerrit, of Love Big Island, recommends strawberry mochi while photographer Dallas Nagata White kicks it up with mochi ice cream. Solid choices.

3. Tropical fruit
Seek out a farmer's market and you will be rewarded. Angie encourages you to go for the Maui gold pineapple, Dewi suggests poha berries (I've never had these!), Sonia stands by the breadfruit, and Doug, our resident farmer/blogger, urges you to try lilikoi (passion fruit), mango, white pineapple, and yellow dragon fruit.

4. Poi, mashed taro root
Even Andrew Zimmern dogged the sticky, purple staple of traditional Hawaiian food, often referred to as wallpaper paste-like. We know better. Ihilani suggests trying poi with other traditional luau foods like laulau, kalua pig, and squid luau. Even though he's still not a fan, Damon thinks everyone should at least try it. A way to sample many of these foods is at a luau, just be sure to choose carefully. If you are on Oahu, Jen recommends the luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

5. SPAM musubi, a "sushi" roll with SPAM and egg
My personal favorite. It's just not a combo you see everyday on the mainland, and it is such a great breakfast. Pick one up at any grocery store or gas station.

Mahalo to all the bloggers who helped out with these recommendations. Please leave a comment below if you have further suggestions.