sugar high of the month

we have a lot of citrus in our lives right now in northern california. i went to the farmers' market when we got back from hawai'i to see what's in season around here these days and that was about it: lots of citrus.


and because i'm on this kick of trying to use things i'd otherwise be throwing away, i got the idea to make candied citrus peels. with the help of smittenkitchen, i made a batch of assorted blood orange, grapefruit, and meyer lemon peels last week. they turned out really tasty, but i think i miscalculated on how thin to cut them and they were a little mushier than expected. i had intended to make orangettes out of them to serve to guests, but they lacked enough of a backbone to hold up to that intention. marty thought they'd be great paired with a dark chocolate cake, and i'm never one to say no to chocolate cake, but it took me a while to muster up the energy to actually make one. until last night, when my chocolate cravings were insatiable. i searched around the internet for a proper recipe; we were thinking something along the lines of a flourless chocolate cake was the way to go, but i didn't have enough eggs in my refrigerator for that, and i wanted to use my new cake pans (thanks, mom!). so i landed back with smittenkitchen for her double chocolate layer cake. i read that at first as "double-layer chocolate cake," but really she means "double chocolate" layer cake - as in not for the faint of [chocolate] heart - but who wants to hang out with those people, anyway?


i did a whole lotta substituting in the cake recipe in a desperate attempt to not walk to the store in the rain. the good news about that is: it's fine to use three different types of milk (and by milk i mean heavy cream, coconut milk, and powdered milk) instead of buttermilk in this recipe (just add a splash of vinegar and it's all good). and it's fine to use olive oil instead of vegetable oil in chocolate cake - i used to only use olive oil when i was baking a lot of cakes in high school and people love it. the bad news is: it didn't save me from eventually having to run to the store 5 minutes to closing to get more cream and chocolate, because there is no substitution for good chocolate. i used scharffen berger's semisweet for this and the results were fabulous.


i filled and frosted the two cakes with the chocolate ganache from the recipe along with a layer of the candied citrus peels, and i think they pair together quite nicely. i was trying to make another batch of candied grapefruit peels while the cake was baking - because i guess i have a hard time sticking to just one task - but they weren't done in time for decorating the cake, so i have them drying this morning. i cut them a bit bigger this time for another go at the orangette idea. but for now i can't think about any more chocolate.


here's a quick tip about cake storage: if you are like me and don't have a proper carrying container to keep your cake in and you don't want to have your tin foil or plastic wrap ruining your frosting- my go-to method involves cocktail umbrellas. yep, i use them to test if the cake is done baking (because strangely i have a lot of cocktail umbrellas but no toothpicks) and then they double as a festive tent poles for my tin foil wrapping.

solidarity crafts

e ala e - israel kamakawiwo'ole
[click that play button, this is the soundtrack for this post]

to wrap up the series of hawai'i reportback posts, i offer a different kind of craft: activism.
marty and i are both involved with creative direct action, and when we're home visiting kaua'i we do what we can to stand in solidarity with kanaka maoli - native hawaiian people - and support the struggles for self-determination, cultural revival, and environmental preservation.
on our previous visit to the islands, we talked about direct action, social movements, and roles for allies in solidarity organizing with katy rose, host of kaua'i community radio's show, out of the box. You can listen to our interview here.


during this last visit, we were called to action by the incredible attempt of hawai'i's governor, linda lingle, to steal and sell lands belonging to the native hawaiian people. governor lingle has filed a u.s. supreme court appeal to overturn the moratorium her own supreme court has put on selling off lands that were held "in trust" for native hawaiians since the illegal overthrow of the hawaiian government in 1893. these lands are commonly referred to as "ceded" lands, though they were "ceded" to the u.s. government by the very people who called for and supported the military coup that deposed queen lili'uokalani and then instated themselves as the new "provisional government," under the leadership of lorrin a. thurston and sanford b. dole (yes, Dole as in pineapples).


as if kanaka maoli aren't suffering enough from displacement, occupation, cultural and physical genocide, this is governor lingle's attempt to once and for all dismiss any claim that native hawaiians have any rights to their own land. really, that's what she's saying.


marty and i joined the kaua'i alliance for peace and social justice for a sign-holding demonstration on the main highway in lihu'e, kaua'i, supporting native rights and calling on lingle to withdraw her supreme court appeal. we made a number of signs for the demonstration, and a banner featuring the first flowers marty has ever painted on a banner (they look good, right?) these are some photos of the signs we painted.

that last sign aunty nani is holding refers to the akaka bill - a congressional bill introduced by senator daniel akaka of hawai'i that would give native hawaiians the same recognition as native americans. this might sound like a good thing, since kanaka maoli don't have any recognition right now, but it in fact would quash the claim for sovereignty and obfuscate the fact that native hawaiians never gave up their sovereign rights. and as marty and other native americans say of native recognition by the u.s. government, "you do not want to be treated like an indian in this country."
many see the "ceded lands" attempt by the lingle administration as paving the way for passage of the akaka bill, especially now with a democratically controlled senate and the support of president obama. read the open letter to president-elect barack obama, urging a moratorium on the akaka bill - written by kanaka maoli kupuna - elders.


our signs made a reappearance this week at another sign-holding demonstration on kaua'i - marking the 116th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the sovereign hawaiian government. an estimated 5,000 people demonstrated in waikiki on friday, with the same message of opposition to the governor's attempt to sell "ceded" lands.
more to come this year, as the state prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of "statehood."

imu cooking

next in the series of hawai'i reportback is the imu.
imu is the traditional hawaiian pit oven, dug into the ground and filled with hot lava rocks. traditional foods cooked in the imu include pua'a - pig, 'ulu - breadfruit, and 'uala - sweet potato, which are wrapped in ti leaves and placed in the pit with the hot rocks, on top of juicy mai'a - banana stumps, leaves, and burlap and then the pit is filled in with dirt to seal the baking process. one of my favorite dishes is laulau, where your pork or fish is wrapped first in lu'au leaves - kalo (taro) leaves, and then wrapped in a ti leaf package.
we dug a pit into some friends' yard this year around the holidays to do an imu. we prepared breadfruit, sweet potato, kalua pork, and pork laulau, as well as a bunch of turkeys that were bought in a sale frenzy, some rice pudding, and coconut stuffing.


since it had rained every day for weeks, the wood was a bit wet and we had some difficulty getting the fire started to heat the lava rocks. however, using new technologies such as the leaf blower and some hardwood pallets snagged from a local business, we were able to get up and running.

word to the wise: don't get too involved in your firestarting to notice if your hair has started burning off.
as the rocks were heating, we were chopping and crushing the banana stumps, which are very high in moisture and provide the steaming effect for the imu. this is a great material to use because bananas reproduce asexually from suckers that shoot off the side of the plant, so when a banana tree bears fruit it must be cut down (or it dies on its own) to provide room for the next shoot to emerge.

once the fire burned down and the rocks were sufficiently hot we covered them with the banana stumps and then laid our food on top of them. as you can see the steam is working its magic already.


from there the food gets covered first with banana leaves.


then with palm fronds.

usually the next layer is burlap, but we used a couple of tarps.

from here the edges first get sealed shut with dirt.


and then the whole thing is buried.


and then you leave it cooking for several hours while you go fly kites.


and when you get back you do the process in reverse.
you dig out the dirt.


and peel back the tarps.


and it looks like a crazy sea organism.


and then you check the turkey to make sure it's done.


and shred the meats.


and the feast is on.


thanks to my stepmom, kat, for the photos.

new year's traditions

the past three weeks marty and i spent in hawai'i with my family for the holidays. and while we were enjoying ourselves and even doing radical domestic stuff, i couldn't bring myself to sit in front of the computer to blog about it. but now we're home and so it's time to catch up on the vacay postings.

we'll start with mochi pounding.


mochitsuki, the pounding and making of mochi, is a japanese new year's tradition, and my family joins our closest friends on kaua'i each year before the new year to pound it out and roll it up.


the process starts the day before, soaking the mochi rice overnight. after soaking, the mochi rice is put into the seiro, a series wooden steaming frames, and steamed.

the hot cooked rice is then put into the usu, a big carved stone bowl, where it is pounded with a kine or wooden mallet. typically three mochi pounders go to work first smashing and then pounding the mochi in rhythm.


the job is then finished up by one pounder while one adept person with quick hands scrapes the sticky mochi from the sides of the bowl between pounds with the mallet.


when the mochi has reached optimum consistency it's delivered to a wax paper and katakuriko , potato starch - covered table where the mochi gets made. one person pinches off little balls of mochi and the others form, pinching and patting them in their hands into the proper mochi shape.

some mochi are made with an, adzuki bean paste, in the center. we've also branched out to non-traditional but oh-so-tasty varieties like chocolate-peanut buter filled mochi.

most of the mochi are made into standard palm-sized confections, with a few batches made into special sizes for new year's traditions, such the tiny mochi balls used for ozoni, a soup made with mochi. also, special mochi are made for the kagami mochi, a traditional new year's decoration and offering made with one smaller mochi atop a larger mochi, which is then topped with a mandarin orange with the leaf attached.


the kagami takes its place near the entrance to the home at new year's time along with the kadomatsu, an arrangement of bamboo, pine and flowers that sybolize good luck for the coming year.
my family spends new year's eve with our friends, eating traditional good luck foods, such as toshikoshi soba (yeah, buckwheat!) and lighting off fireworks. our established tradition in the past few years is to build what we call a "morning glory circle" around our fire pit in the front yard. this tradition started one year when we had a few boxes of those fireworks called morning glories, which resemble sparklers but have the added effect of popping off sparks and being a little more firey. bored with the typical use of holding and drawing shapes in the air with these sticks, we planted them in a circle and lit the whole thing on fire. this was great fun, and each year the amount of boxes of morning glories showing up at our house multiplied exponentially, such that the circle of planted morning glories is now feet deep and the fire produced at midnight when we light the circle resembles something nuclear. here are some images of this year's circle, which we built in the back since the front yard was too saturated from weeks of rain.

happy new year.