A week in images
Tag Archives: Hawaii
Spring Chickens
What Wants to Grow
When planting a garden, it is always nice to consider what wants to live in your area, rather than simply what you want to grow. Consider being flexible in your chosen flavors, and expand to include unfamiliar tastes that happen to need very little care in Hawaii. Here in Hawaii with the multitude of micro climates, one often feels fortunate when they discover something that becomes almost “wild” in their garden. Other gardeners actually mope and complain, while ripping those plants out.
Such culinary wonders as mint and Florence (bulb) fennel spring to mind. I know many who can grow these plant, but they do not. They claim that they do not like the taste of them. The point that I often make is simple: learn to like what likes to grow where you are. It makes life oh so much easier, and it brings you into new culinary adventures as well. Letting some of your beans and greens go to seed, and reseed themselves is a great joy, if you let it be. Let your garden be a little less controlled, a little more lush, and give up on trying to dictate what grows where, and when. Be an observer, and celebrate how nature leads the way with gardening lessons just as important as those that we search out in workshops and books.
If you notice that your Giant Red Mustard seems to shine in your garden, leg it over to your nearest library and seek out recipes that call for mustard greens. Mint is expensive in the shops, but loves to tuck in under a drippy eve, or hose. Mint pestos, mint coolers, mint dappled in fresh salads, or asian style noodle soups. Research and celebrate, and I promise your gardening days will shine a little bit brighter..
Mint becomes a lovely ground cover underneath edible radish blooms. This no till garden has many layers of life, just like nature itself. Radish blooms will soon give way to radish seed pods that can also be harvested young and chopped into your dishes to make a meal sparkle.
A Week in Images
A week in images
The Wild Hawaiian Roosters and Hens
Get Growing Hawaii: lemongrass
I will openly admit it, I had no idea how to begin a lemongrass plant until I started composting the kitchen scraps from Redwater Cafe. There in the midst of the “chop and drop” veggie scraps from the labors of many busy chefs sat the small fragile roots of the end cuttings of lemongrass. I had never really thought about it prior, but when I saw the end pieces, I did what any thrifty farm girl would do, and planted them immediately in an area where my chili peppers grew. I nearly forgot about them until, as I was pulling weeds, there were the beautifully formed shoots of lemongrass, waiting for harvest. The luxury of garden plucked lemongrass was completely new to this midwesterner turned Hawaii farmer. There were coconut milk curries awaiting these flavorful stems…I had to get cooking, but first, my forward thinking self cut the roots off and separated them and replanted them all about the garden.
I highly recommend this lovely herb in your tropical garden, and even your higher elevation garden (I am at 2600ft in Hawaii.) It sits quietly and stately anywhere you plant it. Tall and grassy as the name illuminates, it becomes a year round herb that can be grown out of your kitchen trimmings. Trust me, when you are not paying big bucks in the shops, you will find lots of uses for it. The fragrance is divine, and treat it well with enriched compost and it will prosper. For some ideas to get your plantings inspired, see http://www.saveur.com/article/-/Recipes-with-Lemongrass and check out this lemongrass knot tying video too! http://www.saveur.com/article/Video/Video-How-to-Tie-Lemongrass
Growing notes: We do get a variety of rust on the lemongrass leaves here in Hawaii. I recommend harvesting leaves/stems frequently, and if hit with rust covered leaves, just leave it planted, but cut them down to the base, as they will regrow quickly. Make sure to quarantine leaves in a plastic bag so to not spread the rust plant disease. to other plants, farms or gardens.
A week in pictures
Kohala ‘Aina Festival This Saturday 1pm-on
I will be presenting a short workshop on Heirloom Seeds for Hawaii at 4pm. Please come to this fundraiser to help the young people of North Kohala. Wanna get your kids off their phones and onto the land? This is the place.
Ghost peppers: from seed to hot sauce
Ghost peppers don’t align themselves neatly with other vegetables. They are one of the few veggies that you can simply name and people respond with fear. I am not going to pretend that I am any different. You might wonder why I decided to grow them, and nurture them even. Why I would put so much love and energy into a plant whose fruits I was scared to even touch. Well, it has a lot to do with my brother, the chili aficionado. He lost most of his sense of taste due to an accident years ago, but like many others in similar situations, he can “taste” chili peppers. So chili peppers quickly became his thing.
It seems to be a family affair, because years ago as I trekked through the volcanic regions of Sumatra, I earned my nickname of Sambal, or chili sauce in English. I took the heat in more ways than one, as I insisted on eating local in every regard. I love food, and travel led me to more and more dishes around the world. Some of the Indonesian regional cuisine is so spiced that redness would appear as a creeping line that progressed up my neck until reaching my face. It didn’t help that though I only have a slight natural touch of red in my hair, to the dark haired Indonesians, my hair was a chili top of sorts. I was munching away on chili pepper sambal sauces, with tears running down my face, and my hair seemed to get redder in the process. One could say that I earned the respect of the community one chili pepper at a time.
On a subsequent trip to Indonesia, I climbed a remote volcano in pre-dawn darkness with a man who was traveling the globe in search of chili peppers. I will never forget his gregarious personality that lit up all that surrounded him. I should note that years later, I often took an hour and 20 min subway ride in NYC in order to get Brooklyn’s best Jerk chicken. I also once took a near daily schlep through dangerously off kilter Medan, Sumatra in order to eat the sambal sauce soaked eggs over rice that the bicycle taxi men ate for lunch. I called them “fire eggs” and that says it all. Over the years I have eaten a fair bit of cajun food, soul food, and the like, but rarely do I pick up a bottle of hot sauce. I am more inclined to use fresh chopped chili peppers in a dish, or make a fresh salsa verde on the spot. I like the handmade over the store bought. Over the years when I asked many a restaurant server to bring me “their” sambal sauce, glowing faces would return with tiny bowl of pastes in colors to terrifying to be food.
So it is with all these people in my heart that I put on my mechanic’s safety glasses and make a seasonal series of chili sauces that would make any Indonesian, and also a certain family member, or volcano climbing chili explorer very proud.
Squash and Awe 