Adventures with local produce

Lately I've been trying to hit the local farmer's market every week, or at least every other week. I've now found a vendor that consistently brings locally grown romaine lettuce and broccoli in addition to all the other great fruits and veggies, so I find myself there more regularly and even earlier in the morning to ensure I get those before they're gone. (Here "locally grown" means statewide...markets allow produce from farms and growers on the other islands, just not the Mainland.) The same vendor also puts out Okinawan sweet potatoes. They're purple and naturally super-sweet. So far I just make roasted sweet potato fries whenever I pick them up. I thought hard about making a purple sweet potato mash for Thanksgiving last year instead of the traditional type, but opted for tradition for reasons I don't remember now. :) Maybe this year.
I'm on the fence whether or not to eat the skins. Food nutrition lore says skins are good, but when they puff up and separate slightly from the "meat" during roasting, it makes it easy to eat around them. Last night I roasted the potatoes shown here (the potato cut open is about the size of an extra large lemon) and overcooked them about 5-10 minutes. A little tougher than they should have been but still yummy!

Prince Kuhio Day beach run

Hawai'i observed Prince Kuhio on Friday. I had some time off, too, so I hit the beach. Sort of. Packed a camera (yep, a real one!) and went to the White Plains area. Walked up and down a bit, found a monk seal resting in a remote/uncrowded area and took a few pictures. I wouldn't know it until late last night when I was uploading the pictures, but the camera ISO was set to 1600 - left over from a previous indoor shoot at the Waikiki Aquarium. Oops. Oh well, that's why I'm not a pro. No monk seal shots to post today, but I vow to try again!
I was also messing around with the Pano iPhone app and took the beach shot here. You can't tell from the image, but less than a quarter of a mile from this spot, hundreds of people were at White Plains Beach at this exact time. This open stretch of beach was definitely more my style.

What to do...where?

I was tipped-off to the following story from a few Facebook posts: Union City (my California hometown) was featured in Sunset magazine. Really? Was it the April 1 edition?
No, it turns out. No joke! The fine - and normally a bit high-brow - editors at the lifestyle magazine determined our humble city wedged in the southern half of Alameda County was worthy of a high-praising shout-out! Unfortunately for Union City (or is that unfortunately for Fremont??), it turns out they lost their bearings and were actually in Fremont most of the time. OK, yes, we have a BART station, yes, we have good ethnic food, and yes, parts of the Alameda Creek Trail do run through Union City. Just not the parts they write mostly about, nor the picture they included with the story. If you were to follow their directions to the trail from the BART station, you would actually pass a sign on the bridge that says, "Welcome to Fremont." And don't get me started about how they throw Garin Park (Hayward) into the mix of a leisurely day on a bike. I'm confused.
But don't let my pet peeves with Sunset's fact checkers keep you from seeking out the trail and Coyote Hills Park. Just last December, Robbie and I walked along it one afternoon during our Christmas holiday (memento above, Fremont hills in the background). We didn't have to go very far, one of the trail heads is at the end of the block. I spent many a Saturday morning with my bike on that trail after college, sometimes biking with my Dad. Before the days of Facebook, ran into a high school friend and reconnected. And when Noel was in Iraq and I was pregnant with Robbie, I walked the dogs there nearly every morning. So, by all means, if you're in the area this Spring, hit the trail and make your own memories! You won't be disappointed - and you won't care that you might not be in Union City.

More fun with the camera roll

So Robbie is not the only budding photographer in the family! Back on Kauai, Cousin Johnny at some point took this one on his Mom's iPhone...she found it later and sent it to me. I tweaked the original in Mill Colour (Noir again), then created the old school labels with a fun and cheap app, Pocket Labeler. This is totally an app for the 30- and 40- something and above crowd. Will anyone younger remember those retro labels? A great flashback. And all for $.99 cents.

What a week!

Around this time last Friday we were getting out the door and leaving for the airport, and it seems as if we've been on that pace since we returned Monday. My rockstar, super software-selling sister earned a well-deserved trip to Kauai for a corporate event. Family from California were all heading out (plus good friends who just happened to be vacationing there at the same time), so I jumped in and took the boys over. Celebrated a bunch of birthdays, and overall had fun in a condo near Poipu Beach. Funny thing about having fun and being blessed with such great friends and family - the good times make the days pass too quickly. Monday afternoon found the three of us back at home. I did feel pretty bad that family had one more long leg to get back to California. I figured I had unpacked and finished my laundry just as they were deplaning in the Bay Area.
On Sunday morning we treated the boys to the Kauai Plantation Railway train ride. It was our second time on the train; the pics here are from last November. It's a nice ride through a former plantation turned orchard and luau grounds. They make a scheduled stop outside a fenced area where pigs and a few other animals roam. Yes, it's a bit weird. I remember someone asking during our first go-around about the pigs becoming a luau centerpiece. They quietly admitted that they do allow hunters to come in when the population is a wee bit overcrowded. But to tell you the truth, I can't remember if they're actually served at the luau or not.
The rest of the week had me studying (catching up on assignments and homework for my programming class) along with sitting at the satellite City Hall one morning, again cramming for another test. I'm now officially a licensed Hawai'i state driver! Add a birthday to that mix and you can understand why I'm looking forward to slowing way down this weekend.

Self-portrait in Noir

I had to passcode-protect my iPhone from the boys after Robbie deleted all of my Notes. (I will spare you the story of when I found that out!) So this might be the last self-portrait from our budding artist on my phone for a while. I found the original pic a few weeks ago and thought that maybe someday I could do something with it, so it was spared from the trash can. I picked up another free iPhone app for photo processing (Mill Colour) and tweaked the portrait with the "Noir" pre-sets. I'm really glad I saved the image now. :)

"Pineapple Fields" birthday photo

"Koi Pond at Dole" birthday photo

Birthday photos

Last Friday we celebrated Robbie's 5th birthday. We tried to make it a two-train day with the Pineapple Express at the Dole Plantation followed by the monorail at the mall before dinner, but the monorail was down for repairs. Good thing we hit the Dole Plantation first! Robbie was quite upset he couldn't ride the monorail. Or maybe we should have done Dole last? Oh well.

While at Dole, we let Robbie loose with one of our digital cameras. Here are a few of my favorites from his "camera roll." All shots here were taken by him and grabbed right off the card with no post-processing or cropping. His first lesson basically covered the shutter button (camera set on program), using the zoom lens, and a little about checking the image on the LCD screen. It was a lot of fun for us; I hope he enjoyed his birthday as well!

Winter Olympics in review

The 2010 Winter Olympics are pau. It's been a week; has enough time passed that I can make fun of the hats worn by Canadian athletes on the medal podium without folks getting too upset? "Own the Podium" they did by winning the most gold. But really, were those tri-color conehead knits caps an after thought?
There is one thing I don't miss. How glad are you, like me, that we don't have to suffer through any more Marriage Ref commercials!! Here's one of my favorite athlete quotes, from a medalist in freestyle skiing. "I know that a lot of people go through a lot of things in their life, and I just want them to realize they can overcome anything," Peterson said. "There's light at the end of the tunnel and mine was silver and I love it."
And this was my favorite Olympic-related quote on Twitter, from comedian Mo Rocca: "I want Scott Hamilton to be my life coach. He's one of the great positive forces ... in the world."
And did I hear it right when they said the 4-man bobsled sleigh called the "Night Train" weighs 500 lbs? Now that has got to be one heck of an oversize baggage fee!
Sochi (Russia) in 2014. Who's in?

Don't fall for it!

Coconut M&Ms! I saw this new-to-me candy flavor in the market and sadly, I fell for the marketing and packaging. Very cool, very tropical, and like all things M&M, fun if you're in the right mood. I threw two small bags into my basket right before check-out and headed home. I opened a bag while watching the Vancouver Opening Ceremonies and immediately regretted it. I should have known better. They left me feeling lousy and then bummed that I had wasted a treat to myself! Before I ate them, I inspected the food label, and the word coconut isn't even listed. Closest thing? Yep, you guessed it. "Artificial flavor." I can't figure out why I went on to eat them anyway. I think what upset me the most was that after looking at that big coconut split in half and a ring of white coconut inside, I figured that the candy would have a white coconut ring, too, but with regular "plain" chocolate inside. Wrong! It's just a slightly larger than standard M&M with a chocolate center infused with artificial flavor. Fail! I'm only saving you a dollar in the grand scheme of things, but avoid them if you can.