Pumpkin Cupcakes

I am back in San Francisco, where Fall is in full swing, and I love anything and everything Pumpkin. This recipe for Pumpkin Cupcakes from Martha Stewart is easy, moist, and delicious. Add your favorite cream cheese frosting (I do 1 stick unsalted butter creamed with 1 8 oz pkg cream cheese, add 1 box powdered sugar and 1 T. vanilla bean paste, mix until glossy using a stand mixer). For a more festive touch, I piped on a dollop of pumpkin flavored cream cheese from Noah's Bagels. In order to make it look a little bit less like pumpkin poo, next time I will pipe it using a star tip.

Be sure to buy pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie filling. As with most recipes, it says it makes 18 but it really makes 24-30.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Ingredients:
2 C. all purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 t. coarse salt
1 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1/4 t. ground allspice
1 C. packed light brown sugar
1 C. granulated sugar
1 C. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted & cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin puree


- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whish together brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs.
- Add dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.
- Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway.
- Bake about 20-25 minutes.
- Transfer to a wire rack, let cool completely, then frost.

Breakfast on the Island

No wonder everyone participates in rigorous outdoor activities in Hawaii - they have to work off their enormous breakfasts! Local-style breakfast is about meat & rice. It's not really that different than say, a big country breakfast, but the rice makes it seem more Asian and less Western.

For something basic, look no further than your local McD's.


This is the "Local" breakfast plate with eggs, Portuguese sausage, Spam, and rice. It comes like this:


Then you chop it all up and mix it together, and add Soy Sauce:


Pretty good if you want something quick, tasty and relatively cheap. Hawaiians love their Spam - I read that they consume 4 million cans per year, which comes out to about 12 cans per person per year. What I want to try and didn't, is the Spam musubi.


Another breakfast that I tried was the "Loco Moco". Also very simple: Eggs, hamburger patty, rice and gravy. Tasted a bit like having salisbury steak for breakfast - I suppose a lot depends on the gravy:


My favorite morning treat of all was the wonderful, fresh pineapple that is available everywere. I would buy some every day at the local ABC store, and savor the delicious, juicy chunks. It is so much a part of the diet and culture, that even McDonald's gives you a side of pineapple with every extra-value meal. It's like sunshine in your mouth!

Single Serving Honey Strawberry Pie

That's right. Honey strawberry pie baked in a heart-shape dish for people (me) without a honey - and therefore single serving. I should make more of these so that I don't eat 8 servings of pies by myself. I had leftover pie crust dough from the apple pie frenzy. To save the planet, I decided not to throw it in garbage but bake some more pies...



Directions - toss as many strawberries as you can fit in your heart-shape dish with as much honey as you want. Top with rolled out pie crust. Bake at 350 degrees until the top crust brown. Let cool. Refrigerate. And eat by yourself. Do not invite any friends.




Single serving honey strawberry pie - or - bleeding heart pie <3

Apple Streusel Pie and Honey Apple Pie

I don't know what got into me. Last week I bought about 10 pounds of apples wanting to make pies. I baked two. And I still have a lot of apples left. The first pie I made was apple streusel pie. I used 9 McIntosh apples, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg for the filling, and 3/4 cup of oats, 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 3 tablespoon butter, 1/4 cup raw sugar and 2 teaspoon of cinnamon for the topping.



The streusel pie came out a little sad looking because the topping didn't brown even though I baked it for almost an hour. I guess there's not enough butter.



I think the pie was a bit too sweet. Maybe I shouldn't use sugar at all in the filling and should just rely on sweetness from the streusel.

The next pie is a little simpler - a regular double-crusted pie, but instead of sugar, I used honey. This will be my favourtie pie recipe from now on. Nothing beats honey-apple and lots of butter combination.


Forgot that I should have crimped the pie at the end...

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


• 2 sticks chilled butter - cut into chunks


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 6 tablespoon cold water



• 8 Granny Smith apples


• 1/3 cup honey


• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour


• 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon


• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg



• 1 egg

Directions

1. Pulse 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, butter, salt and water with a food processor until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Gather into 2 balls. Wrap with Seran wrap. Flatten a bit and refrigerate for about 30 minutes to an hour.


2. Roll out a ball of the prepared dough big enough to cover a 9-inch pie dish on a floured surface. Line a pie dish with the dough. Cover and refrigerate.


3. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.


4. Peel, core and slice the apples into 1/4 inch slices. Toss with honey, flour, and spices. Transfer onto the prepared pie dish. Press down the filling a bit with your palms.


5. Roll out the other half of pie crust. Cover the pie and crimp the edges. Lightly beat an egg and brush the pie.


6. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 and bake for 30 more minutes.

Lemon Meringue Pie

My first meringue pie... Inspired by a mini-meringue pie my friend, Livia, bought last weekend. I had a bite of it and could not forget how it was so perfectly creamy, sweet and tangy. I was determined to bake one in my kitchen so that we can have multiple bites each.



I decided to follow this recipe from Epicurious.com with a few changes. I reduced the sugar by 1/4 cup, used 1/2 cup store-bought lemon juice plus the juice from 2 fresh lemons and all their zest. I didn't have cream of tartar and used 1/4 teaspoon of white vinegar instead in the meringue.



The pie was let cool for about an hour then refrigerated overnight. In the morning, the meringue pulled away from the crust and the pie became weepy. According to notes on the recipe, I might have to use more corn starch or cook the filling a little longer and let the pie cool at room temperature longer. But it didn't really matter. The pie was delicious - light and creamy, not too sweet, with a perfect balance of salt, tang and sugar.

Ceci N'est Pas Un Sno-Cone

This is shave ice. Let me translate. This is CRACK.

Kristina gave me her amazing shortlist of favorite places, and Waiola Shave Ice was at the top. "BEST Shave Ice on the planet", she wrote. I got in a cab and pointed to the address, and a few minutes later we arrived...somewhere that I was sure was totally wrong. Shabby little apartment buildings and houses surrounded us. "Uhhhh...." I said to the cab driver. "I think I have the wrong address".

"Shave ice - here" he said. "Best shave ice."

I felt like I was part of a joke, or that thugs were going to come take me away and steal my $20. Was Shave Ice code for dumb tourist?

Suddenly, I saw a corner store. Unassuming little place. Where you might go to buy, I don't know, toilet paper and a 40?

I looked at the cab driver who was saying, "Shave ice, shave ice..." and motioning me to get out. "I'll wait," he said.

I went into the store, and delivered the words like I was a nerd trying out a password to get into an underground rave. "Shave...ice?"

"Window", the girl at the counter said.

I went outside and there was a walk-up window, with a menu on top, looking like it had been written by Care Bears. Aha! I thought. At last.


I ordered a rainbow (2 flavors) of strawberry and mango mixed, with mocchi added to the bottom. It came back in a Dixie cup with a spoon looking an awful lot like a Sno-Cone, one that you made with your crappy plastic Sno-Cone maker at home.

Seriously? I thought to myself. This is it?

I got back into the cab and took a bite. Mmmmmm. Melted in my mouth. Delicious sweetness. So refreshing. Would be so good with vodka. But I digress...

My cab driver nodded knowingly as I ate and fawned over my shave ice. I showed him my list of Kristina-approved restaurants and asked him to take me to one of those, any one. What did I care? I was tripping on Shave Ice, HARD.

He looked over my list (which I had shortlisted from Kristina's short list) and took me to the one place that I hadn't written down. "Green Papaya", he said. "Eat there." I walked in, still cluching my Dixie cup of Shave Ice and spooning the last melted drops into my mouth.

That was it - I went from the best shave ice, to the best pho on the planet. I killed a family-sized bowl of beef pho (Waiter: "what kind of beef do you want" Me: "All of them?" Waiter: "OK") and went home to collapse into a happy food coma.

Now when I say "Shave Ice", I say it the right way. "Shave Ice!" with an anxious, panicked look on my face and spittle forming at the corners of my mouth. "SHAVE ICE"!!

I am grateful for the rain today. Otherwise, I may have never ventured to the Academy of Arts museum in Honolulu. What a wonderful gem of a place. The building, built in 1927, is like a Mediterranean villa. The art sits comfortably in a house, as if the owner picked it piece by loving piece. There is so much to look at! Everything from Hawaiian arts, through all parts of Asia, Europe, and finally contemporary art. In between the galleries are lovely courtyards, which seemed mystical in the light drizzle today.

This painting struck me - it's called "The Lei Maker" (Portrait of Lizzie Victor), by San Francisco artist Theodore Wores, painted in 1901. Isn't she lovely?

Wake Up Call

6:30am. Waikiki Beach. Waves lapping along the shore as you move through your vinyasa. Light rain falling. Amazing.

Doing yoga on the beach is like nothing I have ever experienced. It's more challenging in some ways because you can't anchor yourself like you can on a hard floor - the surface, sand, is always shifting and moving under your weight. So you really have to balance. But in another way, you can kind of maneuver yourself into stability by using the sand as a prop.

We used mats to do the lying down poses and stretching (I had to laugh at myself for kicking sand in my own face a few times). Then for the standing poses and vinyasas, we rolled up our pants and went right down to the water's edge. We did our DFD's with our backs to the water, and rolled through our chatarangas on a slight slope, which was really hard. When it came time to do balancing, we faced the ocean and got into tree pose, and then held hands in a line formation to help each other balance. I few people stopped by and joined in, which was cool.

The sound of the surf and the feel of the breeze were so refreshing. When you closed your eyes, it was wonderful to concentrate on those natural sounds. When class finished, the rain started coming down HARD, but I enjoyed it. It's a warm rain, and I walked the mile back to the studio taking my time and feeling how awake and alive my body felt.

Locals Only

Today we drove to the south side of Oahu, and I got to experience something new - the tension between the locals and the haoles. As we rounded the island's curves, I saw how the water became more rough and the land more dramatic with its craggy, volcanic hills and harsh landscape. And in keeping with this, our first stop along the shore at Sandy Beach yielded a harsher terrain in terms of how we were received. The beach was filled with local people, mostly male, and you could see their dark brown skin and black hair bobbing up and down with the waves, striking in contrast to the blue water. In the parking lot, they slapped each other's backs, and spoke in pidgin English. You knew that they were aware of the hierarchy of everyone present. Each one had some sort of tribal tattoo, and bodies that had become weathered with years of living on and in the ocean.

My brother understands this dynamic very well, having lived here before. We were cautious and quiet and kept to ourselves, observing the scene. He told me how you need to be respectful and keep out of their way, as a confrontation with a local would result in the whole beach turning on you.

It's understandable. This is their homeland, not ours. Looking at the amazing beaches, you can see why they would guard it so fiercely. It must feel offensive to have a bunch of amateurs show up with their expensive equipment that they don't know how to use, who have no respect for the water or the people whose ancestors spent generations on it, come in and act like they are entitled to the place.

I feel even more lucky to be able to experience this beautiful place, and humbled to be in the midst of the proud people who once held claim to all of it.

Doing it Raw

I was jonesing for some sushi last night, so I walked over to Sansei Sushi on Waikiki Beach, near the Duke Kahanamoku statue. It's a nice little sushi bar featuring some very fresh fish and special rolls. The sushi chefs were friendly and cool, and I had the best uni of my life - amazingly fresh and tasty, like someone scooped it directly from the sea and plopped it into my mouth (with two quails eggs convieniently finding their way on top). Not everyone likes uni, but those who do know that it has to be super, super fresh. I always ask the sushi chef before I order it if they have it, and you can tell by his expression if it's as fresh as you want it. When I asked last night, his eyes widened and he said, "Oh, yes. Very fresh. VERY fresh." He was dead serious, and of course, it was just as fresh as he said.


I also tried one of the specials, which was innovative and very tasty - Torched Kampachi with a yuzu aioli, shiso, and hot sauce. It had a bright, tangy flavor and the flesh of the fish was amazingly tender.


The problem with sushi is that I can eat so much of it - put sushi in front of me, and I become like that whale that glides through the ocean with its mouth open at all times, with rolls and nigiri going in one after the other. Sansei is great, but not inexpensive - it would be easy to walk out of there $100 later, especially if you add beer or sake to your bill. I managed to restrain myself, but 24 hours later I am tempted to go back and have more of that uni...

Aqua Man

Laird Hamilton is not human. No way. The man is beyond physically fit and can handle the most insane water conditions imaginable - in fact, he chases them down. He's like Neptune, if Neptune was an X-games champion and Superman. Plus he's supposed to be a great guy and family man. And a badass.

Let me tell you just how badass. He did the 426 kilometer crossing between London and Paris in two days with his own manpower: pedaling a bike and paddling across the English Channel on a stand-up paddleboard. Phew. It makes me exhausted just thinking about it.

I tried the stand-up paddleboard yesterday. 4 tries and I almost got up on it. They say it takes about a day, so I actually did all right - they recommend that you paddle on your knees for a while before standing. All I know is that I felt what it feels like to have to do something. I will get up on that board. I was on a Town & Country 10'6" board, which is about a foot shorter than what I would have been on had I rented one - but I will master that board. It is my white whale.

Right now Laird is designing oversized paddleboards (think of his creation of the foil board and imagine his determination in this area). He's an enormous human being, yet when he stands up to one of his paddleboards, he looks like a dwarf. These bigger boards, called Guns, are larger and heavier so that they can handle the BIG waves. I think his latest board measures about 14 feet right now.

There is nothing like attempting something to understand and appreciate when someone is the master of it. Watching Laird on a paddleboard is amazing - he is so in command, and so fluid. Best of all, you can tell that he is having the time of his life. And that's what it's all about, at any level.

Giving it Back Since 1940

This is awesome. It is an actual ad in the Oahu phone book, right under some other radiator company. First, the name of the company slays me. It sounds like someone from Crank Yankers made it up... you are just waiting for the punchline. And how about that cute little "Military Welcome" sign? Yeah, you betcha the military is welcome - bring on those muscle bound service folks. Lest you think that this is all some funny misunderstanding, take a look at the logo. That little boy means business with the radiator. K. IFuku. IFuku long time...

Pear Blackberry Pie

When Hannah was over making maple nutmeg cream tart, she left me extra pie dough. That perfect delicious butter-shortening pie dough. So I made pear and blackberry pie from 2 pears and a bag of frozen blackberries.



The crafty flowery top crust was because I didn't have enough dough to cover the entire pie. The pie came out really pretty but the filling was a little off. Maybe more lemon and/or sugar next time.

Slice of Heaven

Waimea Beach, noon.

Same Time Tomorrow

Mid-day drink, mid-day taco. Yeah, I'm getting how everyone stays so relaxed down here. Uh huh.

These pictures were from Cholo's in Haleiwa, on the North Shore. The margarita was a special house blend, called the "Li Hing Mui", made with plum powder which gave it a sweet/tart flavor - you can see it on the rim if you enlarge the photo. The fish tacos were made with local ahi, and were simple, fresh, and delicious.

There was an amazing woodie parked out front, built in 1948, family owned, and all orignal - not one bit restored. It was in beautiful condition. The owner, a local artist, was a very nice guy. His daughter was one of the stunt girls in the movie "Blue Crush", and his son is a filmmaker in San Francisco.

A Good Start

Kailua Pig Tacos and a $3.00 Mai Tai, at Moose McGillicuddy's. Could get used to this.

Not Too Distant Shores

When I landed on Oahu yesterday, I had to ask myself...why in the world have I never been to Hawaii before? It's a mere 5 hour plane flight from San Francisco, about the same time it takes to get to Chicago or New York, where I have been countless times in the 10 years that we have been living on the West Coast.

I came here to relax and it seems to have everything I need - beautiful beaches, great food, nice people and a snail's pace of life. I've never been in a place where the surf culture is this prevalent - everyone does it, and you see boards wherever you go.


My brother is living in Waikiki, so I am seeing this place from a different view than most vistors. The plethora of designer stores from Cartier to Prada to Quicksilver are virtually empty, looking out of place with their in-season plaid wool skirts and fur lined jackets, despite bus after bus of Japanese tourists. Who wants to shop when the beach is only a block away?


Time to get on the road and see where it takes us.

Tea Party

Mad Hatter: Would you like a little more tea?
Alice: Well, I haven't had any yet, so I can't very well take more.
March Hare: Ah, you mean you can't very well take less.
Mad Hatter: Yes. You can always take more than nothing.

Yesterday, Amy and I checked out the new tea room in Ghiradelli Square, Crown & Crumpet. The decor was absolutely beautiful (very Cath Kidston, for those of you who love her prints), with bright, happy colors and whimsical touches. They have managed to achieve a girly atmosphere without looking too twee.







We had the Tea for Two ($42) which was nicely presented and very tasty, but everything was too tiny and delicate to fill us up. It's unfortunate, because the place could have a lot of potential, especially in this location. Our server also seemed put off by Amy''s darling and very well-behaved little girl, and this left a not-so-sweet taste in our mouths. Pity.

The tea itself (I had a Bergamot blend) was delicious, and I would stop by again for just tea and a nibble, not a full meal. They would do well to develop a partnership with their next door neighbor Kara's Cupcakes, as I think the customer base would be very similar, as well as the aesthetic. We stopped by there afterwards for an additional sugar fix, along with a few other princesses in the neighborhood.