L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Time Flies When You’re Having Rum

Here it is the last day already. Where has a week in paradise fled? Into a tall frosted glass.

One of the many lovely attractions on Maui is the Seven Sacred Pools. It’s a long drive though and many miss it. But no tourist would miss the Seven Sacred Cocktails.

1. Mai tai, Lahaina Inn. I couldn’t recall the name of the bar so we stopped a group of locals in Kihei to see if they might know it from the description: an open air tavern facing the beach, lots of wood, ceiling fans and old whaling paraphernalia: harpoons on the wall and a ship’s prow figurehead over the bar. “Lahaina?” moaned one. “Isn’t that somewhere in Southeast Asia?” Lahaina is maybe 35 minutes drive up the coast, but it might as well have been another continent. When people settle in Hawaii, they settle. Like limpets. I wish we’d settled somewhere else for happy hour, despite promising appearances. The mai tai here looks like there’s a nice float of rum on the top, but it’s an illusion. A bottle of rum may have been somewhere in the vicinity but a sad amount of the glass was devoted to fruit juice. A wedge of pineapple is always welcome though.
2. This is a Kona Coconut Ale. I consumed this glass of this fine icy brew at the bar at the Kumu Bar and Grill in the Wailea Marriott. It was just after sunset and the sky was still painted with extravagant strokes of salmon and aqua. I’ve looked in vain for this particular ale in other establishments. It would be a crime against drinking humanity if Kumu has exclusive access to it. We get Kona brews in Seattle, but I’ve never seen this one. I will be on the hunt now, though.
3. Longhi’s, Wailea. This is a small miracle called a Lycheeto: Cruzan citrus rum, fresh mint leaves, fresh lime, soho lychee & club soda. Longhi’s turned out to be a destination all its own. Glen, our conspiratorial waiter who bears an uncanny resemblance Peter Lorre in Casa Blanca turned out to be an excellent tour guide through the bibulous backroads of booze by the beach. More from Glen in a moment. But savor the noble lychee for a moment. Mmmmmmm…
4. A Pina Colada at Mambo’s in Paia. (Don’t be distracted by the margarita lurking in the shadows.) How better to reward onesself for making the strenuous drive to Hana and back than with a little refreshment in laid-back, tie-died Paia. Well, I suppose there’s the herbal refreshment the island is known for, but we settled down with the fruity varieties. I can only tolerate about one pina colada a year. They’re a little too rich for my taste. But the thick and frosty pint somehow evaporated from the glass as if by magic. I give it a high rating on the fruit meter, but neither it nor it’s companion, the lovely margarita there, were excessively long on spirits.
5. Back at Longhi’s, the capable hands of Glen delivered unto us the Acai Yuzo Sour Mojito: Absolute Berry Acai vodka, yuzu sour, fresh squeezed orange juice, basil leaves, cranberry juice & club soda. Lovely. Really. You’ll have to ask Glen to bring you the secret book of cocktails. It’s not on the main menu. Tell him Eva sent you.
6. Happy hour at 5 Palms, Kihei. Or is it Wailea. I’m losing track. This is a Mango Margarita and my advice is: don’t. Just don’t. Speaking as a native Southern California girl, margaritas are sacred. They contain certain magical properties and one simply should not tamper with the spell. The spell does not include mango. Or a maraschino cherry. The spell DOES include tequila, which this glass, frosty and tempting as it may look, is innocent of. And frankly, I will tolerate logos on beer glasses, but a cocktail should be served in plain, clean glass. Am I right?
7. Behold the seventh sacred cocktail and the one that will remain, shining, in my memory long after the last of the sand has been shaken out of the swimsuits: The Garden Terrace Fuck Me Mai Tai at Longhi’s. It’s an “exotic blend of Ten Cane Rum, Cruzan Citrus Rum, Malibue Rum, tropical juices with a float of Myers Rum and is the grail of tropical drinks. THIS is what a Hawaiian vacation should be. FOUR kinds of rum in one glass. Heaven!

It’s What’s for Dinner

I haven’t eaten beef for at least a dozen years. No wait, I hadn’t eaten beef for at least a dozen years.

I’m not a vegetarian. I suppose I could be if I didn’t want to stay married. And if tofu tasted like chicken. But I do and it doesn’t. As for beef, when I read “Fast Food Nation” I was so horrified by how the beef industry is run, that I simply couldn’t bring myself to buy it any longer. I won’t go into the details – the information is readily available. Yes, yes, I know the chicken industry is evil too. But from what I’ve read, it’s not quite as across-the-board evil as beef. Please don’t assail me with poultry horrors! In the name of family harmony, I close my ears to the piteous clucks of chickens.

But twelve years later, something happened. A new place opened up in Redmond – Bill the Butcher. Bill the Butcher (actually Scott the Butcher at the Redmond store) doesn’t sell evil corporate meat. It’s happy, organic, sustainable, chemical-free, hormone-free, corn-free, local meat. It doesn’t end there. Scott’s cows have to submit hundred word essays about why they want to be dinner. I was so mooved by their heartfelt words scratched in crude block letters on the hoof-stained sheets in the notebook on the counter.

Scott himself is a strapping blond side of beef who grinned with just a touch too much glee when I confessed I how long it had been since I’d had… a cow. I gaped, fascinated and slightly horrified as he whipped out an enormous fillet.

“How about something like this?” he said.

I was lost.

I felt so… guilty when he placed the package in my hand. Its hefty weight dragged me down, down to its depraved depths. I could almost hear it beside me in the car, seductively mooing.

But oh, dear blog reader, it was delicious.

Photo credit: Redmond Reporter

Worst. Drink. Ever.

My son confessed to having ketchup shots at a party recently. You can see how it could happen, right? You’re in college (of course). Partying (naturally). Already hammered (duh). You want something to mix with that gallon plastic jug of Gordon’s vodka but there’s basically nothing in the fridge. It’s ketchup shots or mayo shots or maybe Listerine shots…

Once the nausea of imagining it passed, I started wondering about other horrors people voluntarily drink. Usually in college. I recall a friend years ago who ordered scotch and root beer at a bar. The bartender refused, bless him. My dear husband confessed to a youthful lapse that involved scotch and Fresca. I’ll share my own personal admission at the end. But I’ve been asking around…

From Adam: Peppermint schnapps. “I couldn’t look at a candy cane for months after without my stomach turning.”

From Don’t Use My Name: “Cement mixer.” (see photo). It’s a combination of Bailey’s Irish Cream and lime juice. Apparently the chemical reaction between the two results in something you have to drink quickly before you have to chew it.

From Dreah: Manischewitz Concord Grape wine for passover – “pancake syrup for alcoholics.”

From Cap’n Steve: “Lant ale. Google it.” (or “leint ale”) Personally? I don’t believe it. This is just so very very wrong.

From Squid: “Fermet. It looks like cloudy, mildew laden ditch water.  It tastes like typical bitters would taste if one allowed filthy socks to steep therein for a month or so and then added crushed aspirin. Basques love the stuff.”

Mine (what is it about college?): 1812 punch. It was sort of a Russian Dept. joke. You start by slicing cucumbers and soaking them in a bowl of vodka all day. And let me tell you, cukes are greedy little vodka lushes. 1812 punch is equal parts vodka and sauterne (Russians against the French. Get it?) add a little club soda and float the soused cuke slices. I definitely heard the cannon’s pounding roar.

What’s your worst drink ever? (If you’re reading this on Facebook, click over to the blog to share your shame with the world.)

* Photo credit: Roo Reynolds

The Bonehead of the Opera

OK, so in the great if oddly-plotted opera Il Trovatore the gypsy woman, Azucena, attempting to avenge her mother who was burnt at the stake by the count, steals the count’s infant son intending to toss the baby on her mother’s bonfire. But, in a moment of confusion, accidentally throws her own baby on the fire instead. (Work with me here. I’m not making this up!)

Boneheaded move, you say? But even Azucena was not so boneheaded as to drive 30 minutes into Seattle before remembering that the opera tickets were still affixed to the fridge door with a New Brunswick souvenir moose magnet.

The spousal unit was remarkably restrained as I exited the freeway, swung around and headed back home where we canceled dinner reservations, grabbed the tickets and a quick bite and headed out into the night once again. Like Leonora, we arrived at the castle in the nick of time and we didn’t even have to drink poison to get in. But even so, it’s going to take a while to live this one down.

Thanks, S.B., for the terrific suggestion to bring spoons to tap along with the Anvil Chorus. I assure you the people around us found it most charming. It made a lovely accompaniment to the gentle snores of the elderly English gentleman seated to my right.

And for those of you who have not had the pleasure of seeing it, I give you:

LEGO IL TROVATORE!

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

The Laying on of Cats

A story of the miraculous curative power of cats.

Something went terribly wrong with my trusty Mac Powerbook yesterday. I was attempting to stream live video from an event at a local coffee house when suddenly its ability to see wi-fi dried up. Pfft. I won’t go into all the things I and helpful others attempted to stir it back to life. Suffice it to say heroic measures were taken, but the patient never so much as blinked. The affliction was so pernicious that an attempt to connect via ethernet took down the internet supply to the whole building – a fact I did not give my laptop credit for until later.

When I got home that evening and tried again, the stubborn network still wouldn’t appear. I tried ethernet too and suddenly the router went down and could only be coaxed back to life by disconnecting the laptop, unplugging the router, letting all the bad juju trickle out (or whatever it is electronic devices do while you wait 60 seconds), plugging it back in and powering it up. That is when I started to suspect that the internet going AWOL at the coffee house was not just a weird coincidence.

At this point, I figured I was looking at a new network card at least, filled out a service request form at the local repair shop’s website and went to bed.

This morning I found my cat Pixel was cozily ensconced on the Powerbook keyboard, as it is arguably the warmest spot in the house and cats have world-class Warm Spot Detection (WSD). I shooed her off and Lo! Wi-fi was restored!

Repairs while you sleep! On a Sunday night, even! I plan to offer my cat’s services, at reasonable rates, for all your computer tech support needs.

Payable in catnip. Cat hair thrown in gratis.

Chopping List

They say to be a successful blogger your blog should have a theme. I’m sure that explains the resounding silence that generally greets my posts. But I do have a number of recurring themes and one of them is soup.

In an effort to beat back the bad habits that always seem to creep in during December like an evil (but tasty!) mildew, I decided to reprise the two-week cleanse diet I did last September. If you’re too stuffed with fruitcake to click on the link, it’s two weeks of low-starch veggies, lean meat, a little fruit and eggs and gallons of cranberry water. A day into it, I remember what was really annoying about it: The incessant chopping. There’s no such thing as slapping together a sandwich. Anything you want to eat requires chopping and lot’s of it. Perhaps that’s the exercise component?

Here’s a very simple soup I made up today for lunch that I’d eat even NOT on the diet. It uses a premade soup as a base:

Eva’s Curried Tomato Pepper Soup

Heat a little olive oil in a sauce pan and saute some garlic, sliced mushrooms, onion and the stems of two large Swiss chard leaves (chop the leaves too, but save them for later on) along with some kind of protein (I used leftover turkey any kind of cooked leftover meat or tofu ‘chicken’ strips or whatever would be fine). You know how I am about measuring anything, but it was probably about 2 cups worth of chopped stuff. It doesn’t matter if your soup is not a clone of my soup. Deal with it. Saute until the onions start to brown.

Add the chopped chard leaves and 2-3 tablespoons of curry powder and saute until the leaves are getting tender. Then pour in a box of Trader Joe’s Organic Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Low Sodium soup. It comes in a quart carton. If you’re not so fortunate as to have a Trader Joe’s nearby, I’m sure you can find something similar.

When the soup is hot, it’s ready to eat.

Thirteen chopping days left!

Sweets to the sweet. Here, have a nut.

Kudos to Bonefish Grill

My sister, Pam, is one of those peanut allergy people you read about in the newspaper – the ones who are responsible for depriving you of the small, salty joy of a thimbleful of peanuts on a long plane flight. But for any goobers who are itching to know the meat of this issue, peanut allergy (the most common food allergy in the US) exists on a molecular level. For some, there is no such thing as “just a little.” There is none and there is dead.

Pam had an experience the other day that gives me a chance to both do a little education and give credit where it’s due:

Bonefish Grill has long been one of our favorite restaurants. Recently I decided to try something new instead of one my usual favorites. I am severely allergic to peanuts. So much so, that I carry an epinephrine syringe, albuterol inhalers, and other allergy medications with me wherever I go. I asked the server about the ingredients in the sauce, and was given a tasty sounding list that did not include peanuts. So I was more than a little surprised when I realized I was having an allergic reaction. It turned out that oh yes, the sauce did, indeed, contain peanuts, but “not very much.” Fortunately I was able to get to my medications quickly.

What’s most striking about this incident is not that I was accidentally fed something that’s poison to me; that’s happened before and will no doubt happen again. What’s worth noting is the reaction of the restaurant, and most especially, the corporate offices.

The manager and staff at the restaurant were sincerely concerned and apologetic over the incident, clearly willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure my health. The manager spent quite some time with me and listened attentively while we explained about peanut allergy and the need for staff education. That was more or less expected. What was less expected was the reaction I got to a letter I wrote to the corporate offices letting them know about the incident. It wasn’t an angry letter. I just wanted to educate them and suggest measures they could take to avoid such incidents in the future. I’ve written such letters in the past, and been uniformly ignored. My guess is that lawyers advise companies not to say anything for fear of admitting guilt.

Not so with Bonefish Grill. Today I got a personal phone call from their Director of Operations. Not only did he want to check and make sure I was ok, he also wanted to let me know what actions they were taking to ensure this never happens again. He told me he and the president of the company had read my letter several times and were taking my suggestions very seriously.  He’d just gotten off the phone from a conference call with all his store managers about the incident and they were instituting new staff education policies as a result. They are producing a big chart listing menu items with nuts, and the restaurants are being given one week to get the chart printed, laminated, and posted where the servers can reference it. The chart will be updated with each change to the menu. The staff is to be educated on allergies and menu ingredients immediately. In addition, they are looking into making changes to the print menu to make it easier for patrons with allergies to identify which items contain peanuts. Oh, and we get a free meal next time.

I was amazed just to get the phone call. When he started telling me the measures they were taking, I was blown out of the water. I’ve never had such a positive response from a large corporation in my life. They listened. They cared. They didn’t try to dodge responsibility. It’s nice to know that some companies do things right. And I will be eating at Bonefish grill regularly as a result.

Pam East
www.pameast.net

There’s a Bonefish Grill just 10 miles from me. I may have to go check and see if they have their chart laminated.

The Magi had it easy…

They may have trekked hundreds of miles through trackless deserts, but didn’t try to find phyllo dough in Redmond.

It’s not that there isn’t any. Actually, there’s quite a bit – they had it at six of the seven stores I went to. But it’s gone through a transformation that echoes the current economic recession: It’s been downsized.

Phyllo dough, if you don’t know, is tissue paper-thin sheets of dough which I have layered with butter, nuts, cinnamon and sugar to make baklava every December for the past twenty years at least. My great-grandmother used to make her own phyllo, but as soon as machine-made dough became available, boy did that stop. So now, unless you’re some kind of baking survivalist Luddite, you buy it in the freezer section of the supermarket. It comes in a box of 12″x18″ sheets – the ideal size and quantity in one box to make one pan of baklava. A little trim to the stack of sheets and it’s a perfect fit in a standard 11″x17″ pan.

Until this year.

For some inexplicable but surely evil reason, phyllo dough sheets have shrunk to 9″x14″ while my pans have stubbornly clung to their former dimensions. The phyllo has to fit the pan. You can’t have a stack of sheets in the middle of a pan and a syrup moat. Trust me on this or go look at the recipe for yourself.

I went to six markets: Safeway, QFC, Fred Meyer, Target, Trader Joe’s and Top Food. Five of them had phyllo – all in the cute new useless miniature size. I considered stopping by Office Depot for a quire of tabloid-size sheets of tissue paper. Enough butter and sugar and who would know? In the aisle of Top Food, I caved: Enough already! I’ll buy smaller pans!

At Bed, Bath & Beyond, they had 9×12″ pans, but only nonstick. The thing about nonstick pans: One knife slice and zip, they’re ruined. To a nonstick pan, baklava is “death by a thousand cuts.”

The BB&B clerk commiserated. “There’s not a plain baking pan anywhere in the northwest outside a restaurant supply store. It’s all nonstick. Everything. Maybe you could bake cookies? The nonstick pans are great for cookies.”

I stomped out, muttering.

“One more store. I’m going to one more store and that’s it. The end of an era. We might as well get a plastic tree and a blow-up Chilly Willy yard decoration because it won’t really be Christmas anyway.”

But lo! A star rose in the frozen food aisle! Whole Foods had 12×18″ phyllo sheets! Organic too. Pah-rum-pah-pum-pum. I am saved!

And you are too! The first two people not already on the ‘get some’ list who reply to this blog post will get a box of my baklava in the mail.

How the Web Saved the Day

What did we ever do without the Interwebs? A promise of fine autumn weather and a very rare unprogrammed Sunday drew us out of the bat cave. We settled on a drive to Mount Rainier National Park and a hike along the Naches Peak Loop Trail – about four miles of surprisingly level walking with spectacular views of the mountain. However, a quick web check for Washington State travel alerts turned up a mudslide which had just buried SR 410 – DOT en route! – just 10 miles from the park. A disappointment to be sure, but nothing compared to the inconvenience of driving eighty miles first. (To say nothing of the inconvenience to the people whose homes were destroyed by the mud slide.)

Back to the web to draw on the collective wisdom of Facebook. Lot’s of great suggestions within minutes. We settled on the Washington Arboretum. A place not 20 minutes drive from home that we NEVER go to. (Well once. Twelve years ago. We drive through it on occasion on the way to Nishino - the best sushi.) A few clicks later we had an arboretum trail map in our hands and off we went.

Was the arboretum a satisfactory substitute for the majesty of Rainier? Well, no, but it definitely wasn’t a wasted day. I don’t have time to write twelve thousand words. The sun is still shining.

Day 15: Which Way to the Egress?

My two-week liver cleanse is over… I think.

I feel good. The little nagging problems that led me to the program in the first place while not “cured” are relieved to a noticeable extent. I lost six pounds and am now three pounds below my scream number.

If I die tomorrow they’ll have to beat my liver to death with a stick.

I learned a lot:

• There’s a difference between habit and hunger
• There’s a difference between want and need
• Less can still be enough
• I have a shred self-control
• Have a backup plan for when self-control wears thin*
• Read labels
• Swiss chard is good stuff

What I haven’t figured out is my exit strategy. How do I keep that five pounds from pouncing the moment I turn my back? I can feel them lurking in the shadows. Snickering. Plotting. Their weapons? Bread… pasta… cheese… potatoes… wine… chocolate. They loom like a Samoan tsunami, threatening to sweep me out to a carbohydrate sea.

Michael Pollan’s guideline is: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Who could argue with the cheerful simplicity and sense of it? One could choose to classify brownies, crusty loaves, ice cream, marmalade and champagne as plants, but I don’t think that’s what he had in mind. I really never thought I could do it. Now I know I can. And when I do eat a brownie (as I surely will), it will be a treat.

*Blogging served me well. I couldn’t let down my imaginary readers. Regular programming will now resume. Thank you for your patience.