New Year’s Day was another day with the ohana (“family”)…..and with a lot of great food! Instead of the fireworks that are only allowed one New Year’s Eve and into the early hours of New Year’s Day, the children played with sparklers, which are allowed all year round. Meet the future President of the US among the group of little ones that are currently attending Punahou School. Punahou is held in high esteem among the islanders, not only because President Barack Obama graduated from there, but because it is known for its quality education.
The President was in town during our visit to Oahu, but we didn’t try to get a glimpse of him this year. Last year, we actually drove to Kailua to see if we could meet him. We didn’t know where to go, so we stopped at a local shop, Muu Muu Heaven, where they were making a few dresses for the President’s daughters from the muumuus of the President’s grandmother (“Tutu”). We found that to be quite interesting and we thought that the first daughters would be wearing these dresses at the inauguration. That, unfortunately, was not the case. However, if that were to have happened, it would have added a special touch to an already historic event. From there, we made a few inquiries as to the whereabouts of the then President Elect. After many wrong turns and misguided information, we finally found where the President Elect was staying. When we approached the neighborhood, we were told by the secret service that “this is where he’s staying and this is as far as you can go”. Oh well…it was an adventure nonetheless.
As we often do, we decided to take a walk along Kahala Beach. It’s a stretch of land that few people know of and because of that, we love it. This year, we were very surprised to see a topless woman tanning in the sand. A nude beach in Hawaii?? Really?? Obviously, she didn’t care if it all hung out, but a few of the sunbathers felt a bit uncomfortable. While it’s ok in the Mediterranean, it just doesn’t seem right in Hawaii. The strange thing is that she was a kamaaina (“local”), who should know better. That aside, it was a beautiful day and we got a lot of beautiful pictures. The Kahala Hotel, which is on the beach, is beautiful — and you can watch the dolphins swimming in the pool all day long. Why pay to see them? It’s free at the Kahala Hotel.
That evening, we played a game of Mah Jong. Apparently, everyone plays by a different set of rules and oddly, there are different tiles as well. There’s a Japanese version (or so we think it’s a Japanese version), with a picture of a red dragon on one of the tiles. There’s also a Chinese version, with the Chinese character, which means center, on what is supposed to be the same tile. At first, my husband wanted to know what the red dragon was. He’d never seen it before. We, on the otherhand, were a bit surprised that he didn’t know what it was. Finally, after looking carefully at the tile, and with a few of us having played with the Chinese version in the past, we understood. There’s no red dragon in the Chinese version. We laughed, especially since we coaxed him into throwing it away….and it was immediately snapped up by my cousin.
We ate a lot this holiday season. Thought we’d share a few recipes with you….
Prime Rib
Take the prime rib out of the refrigerator at least 2 hours before you expect to bake it. Coat the prime rib on all exposed sides with yellow mustard. Preheat the oven. Bake the roast at 500 degrees for the first 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 325 for the remaining time (For a rare to medium rare rib – the entire baking time should be 13-15 minutes per pound). It’s perfect!! And you don’t taste the mustard — it merely acts as a crust to keep the moisture in.
Custard Pie
Crust: 1 1/4 C Flour; 2T Sugar; 1t vinegar; 3-4T Cold Water; 1C Crisco (mix the flour and sugar together; cut the crisco into the flour until it forms little beads; combine the vinegar and cold water; add the water mixture to the flour mixture – make sure that the dough sticks together, but not so damp that it can’t be rolled into a pastry form).
Filling: 3 large eggs; 3/4 C white sugar; 1t salt; 1t vanilla; 2 1/2 C milk. Combine eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla in a mixer. Scald the milk and add it to the egg mixture. Pour the mixture into the pie shell.
Preheat the oven and bake the custard pie for 1 hour at 400 degrees.
Apple Pie:
You’ll need a pie crust for the top and bottom of the pie. Double the pie crust recipe above.
Filling: 5 Large Apples (cut into 12 pieces each); 1C white sugar; 2T flour; 1T cinnamon. Mix the sugar flour and cinnamon together. Coat the apples in the mixture. Make sure you use the entire mixture.
Preheat the oven and bake the pie at 400 degrees for 50 minutes. The pie is perfect!
We left the islands very content. We had a great time with family and friends….
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