Pu'uwa'awa'a Camping and Conservation

Sunset from the Lake House at Pu'uwa'awa'a

Last week I spend five days camping with four teenagers with Kupu, a youth conservation organization at Pu'uwa'awa'a, a few miles north of Kona on the upper road to Waimea.

View from the top of the puu

We spent most of our time planting native trees, removing invasive species, and collecting seeds.

Sunrise from the Lake House at Pu'uwa'awa'a, nene geese in the water

I've learned so much already, it feels so good to get this chance to give back to the 'aina.

Mountain views for days

Not to mention all the amazing places we've been privy to, and all the rare species of plants and animals we've seen.

Sunrise again and more nene

Of course, my first priority when it comes to camping is food. Because we are a conservation group, I feel it's important to try to eat as sustainably as possible. The menu below shows a break down of what we prepared each day, the meals that are starred were made with locally grown or produced products. I was able to purchase locally grown/made meat, fruits, vegetables, tortillas, eggs, shoyu, and tofu. Most of the meals went over pretty well with the team, except the tofu curry, they were not so hot on meatless meals.

Day	Meal	KP
Monday	*Dinner: Fish Tacos*	Cook: N, A
		Clean: J, J
Tuesday	*Breakfast: burritos*	Cook: Gwen
		Clean: N, A
	Lunch: sandwiches, chips, fruit	Gwen
	*Dinner: Teri beef stir-fry w/ rice*	Cook: J, J Clean: Gwen
Wednesday	Breakfast: bagels/yogurt/fruit	A, N
	Lunch: sandwiches, chips, fruit	Gwen
	*Dinner: Kalua pork sandwiches w/ slaw & sweet potatoes*	Cook: A, N Clean: J, J
Thursday	Breakfast: bagels/yogurt/fruit	J, J
	Lunch: leftovers, chips, fruit	Gwen
	*Dinner: tofu curry with rice*	Cook: Gwen Clean: N, A
Friday	Breakfast: bagels/yogurt/fruit	J, J
	Lunch: sandwiches, chips, fruit	Gwen

Easiest Peanut Butter Candy Ever

My friend Rachel put in a request for a peanut butter cookie recipe just as I was making these candies. Even though it's not a cookie, I'd call that perfect timing.

Time does have a knack for being perfect, doesn't it? That can be annoying, all that perfect timing business. Sometimes we just want to know ahead of time what the heck is going to happen.

I'm happy to share that next school year I'll be going back to teaching middle school. Tweens are the best. She might hate me for sharing this here but my sister is getting married! I'm heading off to New York in less than two weeks AND my dog and cat tag team just brought a live bird in the house. Timing is awesome! Let's eat some candy.

Easy Peanut Butter Candies
This recipe featured on Foodie Friends Friday
makes about 12

1 cup peanut butter
2 cups shredded coconut
1 cup chocolate chips, almond bark, or other meltable chocolate

In a small bowl combine peanut butter and coconut so that the coconut is completely coated. You can add more coconut or peanut butter at this point, depending on how sticky you want it. Using a spoon and your hands, form mixture into balls and place in mini cupcake papers or line them up on a waxed paper lined baking sheet. Mine were TBL size, but you can make them as big or small as you like.

In a microwave safe bowl, heat and melt chocolate according to package directions. Usually this entails heating for 1 minute, stirring, then heating again in 15 second intervals until melted. Spoon a little melted chocolate on top of each peanut butter ball.

Place in fridge for 30 minutes or so to allow the melted chocolate to harden up. Enjoy!

Ideal Job of the Week: Assistant to a Literary Agent

"Do what you love. Love what you do." I, for one, and am so-uh-oh tired of this cliché. Maybe I'm bitter, but if I was doing what I loved it would involve daily screenings of Oprah, spontaneous trips to Europe, stocking my (non-existent) wine cellar with fabulous selections, a personal trainer named Gustav, and definitely no working of any kind. But in the real world we gotta work so if I have to choose then let us indulge the fantasy of an ideal job, thus my pick of the week: Assistant to a Literary Agent.

"Assistant?" you say. But of course. The real appeal in this job is the reading of the manuscripts and finding the hidden gem, the next J.K. or Salinger without dealing with the writers themselves. It's a beautiful idea really, and came about after reading an article in O Magazine (two Oprah references in one post, let's call it an O-fer) that instructed job seekers to follow their "hot tracks" or their particular interests, something like tracking a bear in the words. Being a self-help junkie, my own list of hot tracks was generated. And yes, drinking wine and traveling Europe were on it, along with reading novels. So I said to myself, "self, could reading novels for a living be a hot track?" Indeed!
After doing a little research on what it takes to be a literary agent as well as an editor it was quickly decided that legal stuff and negotiating contracts was not a hot track, which is a large part of what those folks do. To really get to the meat of it you gotta be the assistant (or intern but I won't go that far) who the agent bosses around and orders to read nine hundred manuscripts by Monday. To complete the fantasy picture me, lounging in my hammock reading a stack of promising tales and passing judgment on each, "rubbish," "bad," "preposterous," "insane," until finally jumping up and exclaiming "diamond in the rough!" while hitting my agent's speed dial.

I'm sure you can think of a thousand reasons why this would not be an ideal job. But don't ruin it for me, I'm still following the hot tracks.