Comfort Food

view of the path to our home-away-from-home with bathroom and outdoor shower against the side of the garage to the right

On the plane ride over to Hawaii, I read Luisa Weis’ book MyBerlin Kitchen, in which she described feeling constantly homesick, half of her life being in Berlin, Germany, while the other half being in Boston and later, New York. To cope with the perpetual distance from half of the people she loved, half of herself, she took to the kitchen, finding solace in the food she could prepare that magically transported her to wherever place she was missing at that moment. In Boston she prepared Plum-Quark cakes and thought of her mother in Berlin. When in Berlin, missing her father, she ate “Depression Beans” like he made for her every week when she was a little girl in Boston. Weis so eloquently described a state of mind in which I have found myself quite a bit this week: feeling torn between so many lives and so many people scattered across the country.

It’s not that I’m necessarily homesick, per say, because I haven’t had a regular home for years, since I left for college really, but I am feeling increasingly nostalgic for the days when the majority of the people I love lived right near by. I miss being surrounded by friends and family and feeling like I belong in that one place and there is nowhere else I would rather be. Though we had friends in Seattle, we never developed a solid community. I had my school community, but it was an hour bus ride away and was more of a professional circle than a social one. Since college, everyone, like they always do, began to move away to different cities in different parts of the country and form new groups of friends. Eventually Dylan and I did the same, starting new lives in Seattle.

I still feel connected to all of those wonderful people from so many different parts of my life because we have worked to maintain our relationships from afar, but of course it is not the same once we all moved. I am not there for their birthdays, they are not there to take me out for a drink after getting a promotion at work, and we cannot get together on a random Wednesday for a potluck knitting night filled with endless conversation and wine. I miss those days desperately and I feel that lose here, in tropical paradise more than ever before. It is just Dylan and I out here, and don’t get me wrong, we are having a ton of fun together and our hosts are incredibly kind and welcoming. We are quickly becoming friends, but after missing it for so long, I am very much looking forward to the end of this year when Dylan and I make it to Portland, Maine and begin to plant roots, together, for the very first time in either of our lives.

I know I have said it before, but we are not exactly cut out for this transient lifestyle, Dylan and I.  Though I am so happy we stepped out of our comfort zones and left New England for a while, experiencing city life in Seattle and now 4 months of farming in the tropics, I have finally made it to the point in my life where I miss my home. This is not a place I ever expected to find myself and it caught me by complete surprise. I miss having a community of people who truly know us and are as excited as we are to visit with one another. I miss having history, of knowing a place inside and out. Our history is in New England. It’s hard to believe in 3 short months we will be back there, ready to plant our roots and stay, to once again have a home. New England, I hope you are ready to welcome us with open arms because we are coming back for good this time.

So while we can’t exactly tear into a fresh Maine lobster or my mom’s homemade mac and cheese, we are finding much solace in our little outdoor kitchen, bonding over the new culinary traditions we are creating here that one day we will replicate in a future kitchen, nostalgic for our time in Hawaii. We have spent an exceptional amount of time in the kitchen this week, so I thought I would share a few of our experiences and experiments with you today. I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as we have enjoyed devouring them. I’m sure I will say this many times in future writings, but the food here, and Dylan’s creative uses for it, is nothing short of fabulous.

You can hardly tell we chopped a huge branch from this basil

We started this epic week of food by chopping off a huge branch of our incredibly prolific basil plant destined to become a beautifully green jar of pesto, because what else is there to do with this much basil? Being on financial hibernation means no chance at buying pine nuts so we worked with what we had, macadamia nuts and skipped the cheese altogether. Let me tell you, pesto with garlic, a little arugula for an extra kick, and those delicious mac nuts all blended together with plenty of EVOO and a bit of lemon juice, salt and pepper is pretty incredible. We’ve had it for a week and the jar is half empty already. A big spoonful of the stuff on a slice of fresh sourdough bread from the farmer’s market is my new favorite snack (in fact I’m eating some as we speak). We’re probably going to eat a lot of pesto while we’re here because, well it’s delicious for one, and there is a seemingly endless supply of basil on this farm. 

Pesto is done and the kefir is beginning its fermentation process

In addition to the Mac-nut Pesto project, we also experimented with our first batches of kefir, a yogurt-like fermented milk drink with incredible health benefits. I’ll admit, I was a bit weary of this stuff at first, the idea of leaving milk to sit out on the counter for 24-48hours in a jar in the heat of Hawaii seemed wrong to me, but the stuff is incredible. In keeping with tradition, our hosts passed down a capful of kefir grains to us, which we plopped into a large mason jar and filled most of the way with whole milk and put on the counter to sit for two days. It worked like a charm. Despite our apprehension, and blended with frozen mango chunks, it made a mean smoothie. Since we had bought a full gallon of milk to work with, we ended up with about 5 batches of this stuff to figure out how to use.

Smoothies are a great option, but you can only drink so much kefir, so Dylan flipped through Wild Fermentation, an amazing book Libby and Mike passed on to us when we were in Brooklyn last month, and found a recipe for kefir-buckwheat pancakes. We didn’t have buckwheat, but we did have a few pounds of whole-wheat flour on hand, so we worked with that. These pancakes are the best pancakes I have ever had. Ever. They are so moist and chewy with a delightful sour tang and they taste great both drenched in Vermont Maple syrup and done savory with some spicy chilies, green peppers and onion scrambled eggs with a dollop of sour cream on top. Regardless of what you pair them with, these pancakes are delicious. I’m adding them to my growing list of “new favorite recipes.” Just kefir, whole-wheat flour, and water mixed and cooked on the griddle. Yum.

Dylan prepping the leeks & jar of kefir fermenting on the shelf

For our weekly potluck dinner this Wednesday, Dylan and I chose to share a bit of our Seattle experience with our hosts and new friends, while making use of the 4 big leeks that needed harvesting. Since there was such a small harvest, our hosts wanted the leeks to be featured at the potluck, so I suggested that Dylan and I make a batch of my favorite leek soup and she eagerly agreed, providing us with a big jar full of homemade chicken stock she rendered, unable to locate the duck stock hiding somewhere in her freezer. Dylan and I fell in love with this soup after our first Christmas in Seattle when we roasted a duck as our main course. It was my first whole duck since I gave up being a vegetarian earlier that year and determined not to let any of it go to waste, Dylan rendered stock with the left over bones and bits. We happened to have a bunch of leeks that didn’t make it on the Christmas dinner menu, so I suggested making leek soup with the duck stock. It was the best decision I have ever made.

There is nothing in this soup aside from 4 chopped leeks (the white and light green parts) and rich, homemade duck stock simmered together for about 35-45minutes. It didn’t even require salt. I love this soup and it will always remind me of that first Christmas in Seattle, our first Christmas away from home, and the year I discovered farm-fresh meats for the very first time, ending my 16 years of vegetarianism. Even with the chicken stock replacing duck, everyone loved our simple soup and eating it transported me to a wonderful time and place, providing some of the much-needed connection I’ve been missing lately. It warmed me thoroughly to be able to share a piece of our history with the people here in Hawaii on this farm we are temporarily calling home.

The tomatillos exploded this week after the rain, we could hardly keep up with the 5 plants... salsa verde is next on the list!

those are jars behind the hot sauce hold fennel we are pickling

Dylan was on a roll this week and also made a giant batch of tomatillo gazpacho, putting the mountains of green tomatoes to good use, along with farm fresh cilantro and green peppers, and chopped red onions, cucumbers, and creamy avocados from the farmer’s market in town. For my birthday last year Dylan made me a big batch of chipotle gazpacho lined with shrimp like a giant bowl of shrimp cocktail, so this cold tomato soup holds a special place in my heart. I seasoned this batch with a few drops of the super spicy hot sauce that we brewed this week using the Hawaiian red chilies that dot the farm like beautiful red Christmas lights, a fantastic contrast to the bright green and blue tones of the earth and sky here. Those little chilies pack a serious punch and there are so many of them that Dylan and I plan to make and bottle batch after batch to bring home as souvenirs when we leave.

Hot little Hawaiian Red Chillies, just like the ones used in Thai dishes, growing up on the terrace garden; those are pigeon peas dangling in the background that I mistook for edamame, they are equally delicious and buttery but a lot of work to shell

Oh and before I wrap up, I have to tell you that after two years of subjecting Dylan to kale, my most favorite green vegetable of all time, he has finally come around, willingly cooking and eating kale almost every single day now. I could not be happier with this new development in his culinary repertoire. When Dylan was working at the Confectional, back in Seattle, and had to open the market store on Saturday mornings, I used to make myself a weekly fancy breakfast for one. This comprised of oil and vinegar sautéed kale with cherry tomatoes, onions, and garlic, topped with a poached egg that would run it’s creamy yellow yoke harmoniously over the veggies. Dylan always mocked my obsession with kale, until now with kale being the most numerous plant on the farm. Now that Dylan has played around with it, he too has fallen in love with this versatile leafy green and I could not be happier.

this is just the main patch of lacinto kale, there are 3 other kinds and kale in 3 of the 4 gardens across the farm; also, that's our truck in front of Heather and Paul's house with the garage between it and our cabin on the left behind the mango trees.

Kale grows so easily, in just about any climate, and a single plant produces an incredible amount of food, making it a no-brainer for small farmers of a self-sufficient mind. Needless to say, we will be growing a lot of kale when we eventually get our own personal backyard grocery store planted in Maine. This week we have had kale under a blanket of scrambled eggs, a kale and purple potato frittata, and coconut-curried kale with blackened chilie-cauliflower (twice we’ve had that one now). We’ve had kale sautéed simply in EVOO with salt and pepper, in sesame oil with soy sauce and Hawaiian red chillies, and we’ve had it chopped finely and sautéed with eggplant. All this beloved kale makes the longing to plant our roots firmly in the Maine soil that much easier to manage. Well, that and the thought of so many of my favorite people reading this and sharing in our experience here on the farm. So I leave you today smiling and full of yummy food, and of course, lots of kale. Love to you all from hot, hot Hawaii.

The Monument Hike

Today, February 20th, 2013, Dylan shares his thoughts and tells his story of our Sunday afternoon hike down to the Captain Cook Monument on the far side of Kealakekua Bay. It was a beautiful, but grueling hike. On Sunday evening, as we neared the end of our upward journey home, I was cursing the hill, the island, and just about everything else through the wheezing and whining. This hike was intense! But Dylan really wanted to make the trek and though I loathed the adventure as we narrowed the gap between us and our truck, looking back I am grateful for the experience and for Dylan convincing me to go when I just wanted to go home and read after the Sunday farmer's market. But enough from me, here is what Dylan has to say about the experience:

We were all smiles and good spirits on the hike down, there are no pictures of our exhaustion on the way back up...

 There is a long, rocky ridge that comprises the north side of Kealakekua Bay. It slopes down through pastures into lava fields to the shore, losing 1400 feet in only 2 miles. As you emerge from the scrub grass into the rockscape you can see the entirety of the bay, its vertical rock face on your left that slowly fades into a palm lined beach on the south side. It’s an almost perfect horseshoe, and when you see the whole thing you come to understand why it is the kind of refuge a tired Englishman might seek.

A hike in reverse is the cruelest form of treachery. You begin, refreshed and ready, and are treated to a leisurely stroll downhill. During this jaunt you can’t help but think about your egress later in the day, but the sun is shining and the beach is approaching so your mind does what it always does with future discomforts, exiles them. The hottest part of the descent comes as you escape the trees and enter the lava fields, which are simply rocks and dust in ample proportion. At midday they radiate heat and I thought about white towels and small cedar rooms. Shortly you feel the relief of wooded flats by the shore, and you take a left when the trail forks. About 100 feet on there is a clearing and in the middle of it sits a white stone monument. In any other circumstance had I stumbled upon a 20 foot white stone obelisk in the middle of the woods I would have assumed it to be part of some occult ritual and fled in terror. However, in this case, it was our intended destination.

The beautiful bay was steps behind me as I took this photo

This is the monument to Captain James Cook “discoverer of these islands,” a title which instantly begs a semantic question. One can discover things that are genuinely novel, say a species of insect or a new prime number, but it’s hard to see how sailing until you see something constitutes discovery. Then again, colonialists are known for their ability to turn ignorance into triumphalism. Discovery aside, why put a monument like this in such a hard to reach place, what’s so special about this small plot that the area directly adjacent to it is actually part of the British Empire? As it turns out, this is precisely where the good captain died, or rather, was killed.

James Cook was born on the 7^th of November 1728 in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire the second of eight siblings. His parents were farmers, but he escaped his lot in life, went to school, and eventually joined the British navy. He cut his teeth during the Seven Year’s War, harassing the French up and down the St. Lawrence. He became known as a distinguished cartographer, mapping the coast of Newfoundland for the crown, and hopefully suggesting a more creative name. At the age of 39 he was made lieutenant of a ship, the HMS Endeavour, and charged with sailing to the pacific to record the transit of venus across the sun. To make a long story short, he spent the rest of his life sailing all around the globe, looking for continents that didn’t exist, mapping, measuring, naming places that already had names, and so on. Until 1779, when he first made landfall in Kealakekua Bay.

In front of the rope blocking the monument

Cook had been to the archipelago before. He had landed in Kauai about a year earlier and upon witnessing the beauty of the islands started the trend of corporate sponsorship, naming them the Sandwich Islands, after his benefactor, the Earl of Sandwich. Sounds so much better than Hawai’i. The next year, while mapping the coast of this big island, he stopped in Kealakekua Bay. His arrival coincided with the festival of Makahiki, a harvest celebration in honor of the god Lono. Some contend that the natives deified Cook and his crew because his boat and its sails and rigging resembled some of the trapping associated with the worship of Lono. I’m more inclined to believe that everyone was simply in a good mood due to the festivities and Cook and his crew reaped the benefits of that cheer. Either way, there was rejoicing and mingling of gene pools and the crew of the HMS Endeavour left feeling refreshed.

Soon after they left they ran the boat aground and were forced to return to the bay for repairs. By then the Makahiki was over and the Hawai’ians saw Cook’s return as a bad omen, either because Lono should not be there at that time of year or simply because they thought themselves rid of the limeys. Fights broke out and the natives stole one of the captain’s small boats. Like any reasonable explorer, Cook responded by trying to kidnap the King of Hawai’I, but was routed in his attempt. His men were forced to retreat, and while running for their lives Cook was struck on the head and killed. The monument stands on the spot where Captain Cook fell. While we were there, hiking through the trails by the beach, I could imagine being chased, and being at a supreme disadvantage. The rocks and beaches were these people’s home, and the Europeans were just tourists trying to make their escape.

The monument is about 30 feet to my left on a small patch of grass amidst the rocky shore of the bay

These days it seems to be quite the opposite. Visitors to these islands are swept into the culture immediately. Tourism is a huge industry here, and murdering Europeans is frowned upon. When I first arrived I was struck by how exotic it all seemed. I was quickly disabused of this notion after the first MacDonald’s and strip malls started to dot the landscape. This is certainly the United States, but at the same it retains so much of the idyllic paradise that Cook stumbled upon. It is easy to imagine how the native myths and stories came to be; a cursory glance would suggest divine intervention almost instantly. Knowing only this place would foster a worldview to which I can hardly relate, and I think that is the draw for a lot of people. Escapism is part of the American experience and this island paradise, with its clear blue waters, tropical flora, and unpronounceable words seems so far away from Minnesota and Texas and England.

       

We left the monument to Captain James Cook in the late afternoon and with the sun at our backs climbed back up the 1400 feet in less than two miles. It was an experience I do not wish to repeat any time soon, but in my delirium I thought about Cook’s crew sailing home after his death. Those sailors had left soggy England to cross the known world and see things that were not common fare for British citizens in the 18^th century. Having been almost destroyed by paradise they had to make it home without their captain. His crew went on to their own prestige, perhaps most notable William Bligh, future captain of the HMS bounty. Apparently being captain is not an easy task.

           

 It’s hard for me to reflect on this story and to not think of it as a prime example of colonialism, of westward expansion and its numerous sins. A bunch of overdressed, smelly, white guys showing up in our beautiful island home to pick a fight, how typical. The impulse to explore, however, isn’t necessarily one born out of malice or greed, but maybe just boredom. England can be dull and dreary and if you spend your life there you might be inclined to go out and see if there are any better options. Hawai’i, on the other hand, is almost always stunningly beautiful, and trading it for some other place is probably a losing proposition 99% of the time. Tourism is no different. We escape our daily lives to remind ourselves that there are more beautiful places, that life can be slower and different. We just have to remember that some people don’t feel the need to leave, and for good reason. We might not have the civilization we have today if the whole earth was a tropical paradise. The merits of such a hypothetical world are open to discussion. 

Developing a Routine

It is Friday, February 15, 2013 and we have just completed our first full week at the farm. We are starting to settle into our lives here and have begun to develop a basic schedule and routine, which is nice. Having a routine helps me feel grounded and Dylan is feeling much more at ease now that he has a pretty good idea of what needs to be done each day and has, for the first time, been able to relax completely since we left Seattle and became essentially homeless. The transient lifestyle is definitely not for us in the long term, but being stationary here in Hawaii for a few months is not a bad way to spend our time, especially since we’ve had a few cloudy days to escape from the sun.

Aloha! This hammock makes a nice spot to relax at the front of the farm, check out those coconuts hanging from the trees!

So here’s a basic rundown of our daily routine thus far. We wake up nice around 6:30ish and slowly get ready for the day. I have never been one to allow more than 15minutes or so to get ready when I have to be up early so having over an hour is an amazing luxury that I feel like I missed out on when I was younger. I guess that’s one bonus of going to bed before 10pm every night, we can wake up slow, have a cup of iced coffee with almond milk, pick out what to wear, fill up and drink down an entire water bottle and fill it back up again, and eat a little breakfast. Oh and then spend about 15 minutes applying that all-important sunscreen.

At 8, I head over to the house to hang out with my little buddy K, while Dylan heads off to move the mobile chicken coop, feed all the chickens (there’s a second much larger coop with free-ranging fenced in area), and start his projects. K and I sometimes tag along and help with the chickens, she likes to toss them some grains and watch them peck around for a bit. Then we usually head back to the house and read some stories, or splash around in the water table or whatever else she feels like doing.

Check out that nice mulch work Dylan's done under the mango tree, lots of shoveling, he's doing all the trees on the farm.

This week, Dylan has gone from planting a border of lemongrass and comfrey around the perimeter of the garden, to mulching the mango trees. Since he spends much of his morning working independently, he’s started taking his phone out and listening to NPR podcasts while he works and zoning out in nerd-heaven. At some point in the day, little K decides it’s time to make “salads,” an activity consisting of ripping up pruned and discarded leaves from the front bush, and using them to fill a salad bowl that she delivers to Dylan so he can take a break from mulching to pretend-munch on her carefully prepared lunch. She loves this activity that came about as an attempt on my part to positively redirect her desire to rip the pages of her books, and now we bring Dylan about 2-4 salads a morning. It’s so cute to hear her say “Dylan” (sounds more like Dalyn) when I ask whom her salad is for.

When noontime rolls around, K heads in with her mom for some lunch and a nap while Dylan and I retire from the intense midday heat for a nice long sit, some reading, more iced coffee, and lunch. Every other day or so we brew a big pot of really delicious Kona coffee, put it in a big mason jar and pop it in the fridge so that we always have some of the precious black gold on hand to cool us down and replenish some of the energy the sun has inevitably drained away. Dylan makes the coffee on the weaker side so I can actually drink it (watered down further with ice cubes and a few tablespoons of almond milk) and so that the coffee lasts longer. Coffee is expensive here even though it’s harvested and processed next-door to us in multiple directions. Coffee flowers fill the air with a sweet, light fragrance all over the island; it is really lovely.

Some kitchen staples provided by our hosts include coffee, brown rice, beans, oils, vinegars, salt, tuna, spices (chili powder gets used most), quinoa, almond milk, dried beans of a few varieties, canned tomatoes and tomato paste, and salt and pepper.

Coffee is a big part of our morning, accompanying our granola, or quinoa with VT maple syrup (thanks mom!) and a fresh mango, papaya, or banana. At lunch, we pair our deliciously nutty iced coffee with a garden fresh, mixed-green salad topped with some combination of garlic greens, red onions, canned tuna, quinoa or brown rice, pumpkin seeds or macadamia nuts (my latest island obsession) When they eventually ripen, we’ll add some avocados into the mix. It is so hot that the idea of anything warm at lunch time is enough to kill anyone’s appetite, so we’ve stuck with daily salads to munch on as we sip our coffee and read and write for a few hours under the shade of our kitchen awning.

I love this part of the day. It is much like Europe’s Siesta I imagine, and it suits us quite nicely. Noontime hits and just as we all feel like we’re melting in the sun, everyone heads off to their respective spaces for a few hours of relief from the heat. Dylan rinses off since he gets pretty dirty working on the farm, and plops himself down at the table, chugs a bunch of water and opens his book (he’s already read 741 out of almost 900 pages of the Huey Long biography since we’ve been here!). Since his work is far more physically draining, I have taken on the role of lunch prep and pour us a cup of iced coffee, go out and harvest some greens and make our salads while Dylan gets his energy back.

I have been using my Siesta time to catch up on my Pinteresting, to upload pictures, and do a little education research and writing for K and the preschool project as well as for my other blog, Searchingfor Sparks. This week I also created a professional page on Facebook for my Ed. Blog so I can post more pictures, share links, quotes, and more of the resources I’ve been accumulating now that I have a few hours every afternoon to dedicate to it. Have I mentioned yet how much I LOVE being self-employed? I feel so much more productive than I have ever been! It’s great to finally be able to get caught up on all the reading, writing, and projects I was forced to put off when I was working at the preschool because I just didn’t have any energy left after an 11 ½ hour day.

Dylan, too, has taken to farm-life with great relish. Being able to work hard for a few hours and make a ton of visible progress, brainstorm and prep food projects, cook dinner and have plenty of time to read and write and philosophize, or whatever it is he does while I’m working away on my laptop, really suits him well. We’ve already been daydreaming and brainstorming ideas about making this kind of life possible once we get to Maine. Neither of us is particularly interested in being full-time farmers trying to make a living from farming, it’s too much work and our love of farming comes from our love of eating well, not necessary from working the land, though that is an enjoyable part of the process, it’s not the motivation. I don’t want to get ahead of myself so I won’t share the results of our brainstorm sessions quite yet (Dylan is constantly calling me out for doing this) but fear not, I doubt I’ll be able to keep my excitement under wraps for very long.

Check out those bananas up there growing next to the potting station in the main garden! These little guys are called "apple bananas" and they are so sweet, a little tangy and have skin that is yellow and velvety soft when ripe, I'm in love with them

Anyway, once we’ve had our fill of reading and writing, or rather, once we’ve cooled off enough (usually around 3-4pm), we head off to do something fun before it’s time to feed the chicken, collect all the eggs from the day, and start cooking dinner. Monday we headed off to the super shaded part of the farm to do some yoga, that’s right, I got Dylan to do a full hour yoga session with me and he actually enjoyed himself! Tuesday we headed into town in search of some items we needed, like flip-flops for Dylan, a nail-brush to get the garden out from under our fingernails, and a bottle of white wine to sip on. We lucked out and found a shopping plaza (after a lot of stressful driving and searching) that had a drug store that happened to have a decent wine selection. Rather than our typical preference for oaky, buttery, California Chardonnays, we opted for a light and refreshing Chennin Blanc, on special for 7$, perfect for our state of financial hibernation (thanks Dan Eling for coining that phrase).

Every Wednesday there is a farm pot-luck dinner and the theme for this week was “Greek,” though it was really more Mediterranean because I think only one dish could claim it’s culinary roots to Greek cuisine but, but everything was so delicious. It was cool to hang out with everyone on the farm for the night and get to know everyone a bit. Dylan made another batch of our farm-variety caponata, a tangy roasted eggplant relish, since we had an abundance of those delicious purple vegetables this week, and a big plate of sliced and grilled kalamata olive bread to accompany it. Others made humus, baba ganoush, whole-wheat pitas, beef kababs and yogurt chicken skewers with big slices of red onion and whole mushrooms. I stuck to the chicken and it was stunningly tasty, but Dylan raved about the beef kababs. We ended the night feeling satisfied, sleepy, and full of good food and good company. I think I am going to like this tradition and I know Dylan is happy to show off his culinary skills to an eager and appreciative weekly audience.

Harold H. Higashihara Park

Yesterday, being Valentine’s Day and all, we decided to head out on a little adventure. There is this giant, amazing playground and park we kept driving past on our way into town that I wanted to check out and photograph for Searching for Sparks, so Dylan offered to take me there. We wandered around this incredible play structure, with the ocean down the hill in the background and played like little kids, imagining how hard it would have been to drag us away from this place had we come here as seven year olds. It was a ton of fun and Dylan even agreed to snap a few pictures for me since I’m always the one behind and never in front of the camera.

After we got our fill of playing and photographing, we headed off to search for a bottle of Hawaiian rum to mix with the spectacular array of tropical fruit we have accumulated this week. We headed to Island Naturals, the local natural food store that happens to be closing its doors at the end of the weekend. We got a great bottle of rum and stocked up on a lot of basics like olive oil, granola, mixed nuts, and a few other things that were seriously marked down as part of the closing sale. We also picked up a ½ gallon of milk since our hosts are going to teach us to make Kiefer, a fermented dairy product similar to yogurt but more drinkable (and sour) and full of even more healthy bacteria. They make it all the time and mix it with the tropical fruits of the farm and it’s perfect for smoothies, not to mention the insane nutritional benefits. More on that once we get our first batch going.

This was the best cauliflower I have ever had!

We ended our trip to town with a delicious gelato at a cute, islandy sweets shop next to the market. We split a cup of “Moka Mudslide” that was Kona coffee flavored with mac nuts and chocolate chunks. It was so, so good, especially since it was the first sweet treat we’ve had since our arrival, except for all the fruit of course. Back at the farm, we made a tasty dinner of sesame fried kale and blackened chili cauliflower, both of which we harvested only a few minutes prior to cooking. We celebrated the day with blended rum cocktails with the papaya, mango, and passion fruits we gathered earlier and watched a cute romantic comedy called Switched with Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston. It was a lovely Valentine’s Day and filled with Dylan’s favorite joke, “hey, want to go to Hawaii for Valentine’s Day?”

So now it is Friday afternoon and it’s time to start the weekend off with a trip to the beach. It’s about 3:30 here now so here’s hoping we’ll avoid another sunburn! Who knows what we’ll do this weekend, so far making pesto and going for a hike are our only plans but I’ll be sure to let you know next week what kinds of adventures we ended up on!

I actually got Dylan to smile for a picture! Happy weekend everyone :)

Settling Into Island-Farm Life

Today, Monday February 11, 2013, was our first day of work here at the farm. We arrived on Friday morning, exhausted after twenty-two hours of traveling and immediately overheated. It was HOT. Heather, one of our hosts, picked us up with her sweet daughter, the 1 ¾ year old Karuna, and drove us the half hour from the airport in her 1991 maroon VW van to our new home. Heather is still recovering from being super sick so she gave us a quick tour, handed over the keys to our truck, told us how to get to the nearest beach, and headed off to take a nap, leaving us to our own devices.

Kealakekua Bay, the beach just over a mile down the hill from the farm, our first adventure upon arrival on Friday

We poked around the property for a few minutes, stashed our stuff in our half tent half cabin home and as we halfheartedly began to unpack decided that it was too hot to do much of anything so we grabbed towels, threw on our swim suits and Dylan drove us down to the beach. We had hoped we would be able to walk but the Big Island’s hills put Seattle’s to shame. The roads are windy and there is no shoulder, let alone a sidewalk and the sun is too unrelenting to make a walk to and from the beach an option. But luckily we have a sweet old Ford Ranger, also maroon, to tote us around. So we made it to the beach, still in shock that we are actually here, in Hawaii, for four whole months! It still feels a bit like a dream, but starting work today helped the reality to sink in a bit and we are beginning to get used to the island-farm life.

Dylan poses for me on the lava rocks on our excursion to a really neat national park filled with the huts of the Royal natives who once inhabited this land. There was a tiny outdoor museum, lava rocks and waves everywhere, and a nature reserve for sea turtles, the park was named after them. Sea turtle in Hawaiian is "honu" we learned

Anyway, the beach was beautiful, warm, scenic, and everything you would expect of tropical paradise. There are palm trees everywhere, fresh mangos from the farm that burst with so much juice and flavor that you have to eat them over the sink. We got them all over our faces and the juice dripped off our elbows but man, are they the best mangoes I’ve ever tasted. We didn’t stay at the beach for long, only an hour or two to cool off in the water and feel the breeze on our skin. I took a few pictures while Dylan read a book in the shade. We loaded up on sunscreen but still managed to get a little burned. It has taken a few days but now that we have a bit of a base tan I’m hoping the burning will begin to decrease. Don’t worry though, I am vigilant with the sunscreen, refill our water bottles a million times a day, and stay in the shade as much as possible. We are clearly were not ready for this kind of heat!

The beach behind me is for sea turtles only. It was so beautiful and sandy, the beach where we went swimming is off in the distance behind those palm trees and was not sandy at all, just giant ledges of slab lava rock, the water was amazing though!

It rained Friday night, which I guess it hadn’t done in months, which meant our first night on the island was cool enough for a light comforter and was practically bug free. Heather and Paul invited us to join them for dinner, along with Daniel and Brenna who, along with another couple, make up all the members of the communal farm. We didn’t know before arriving that more than one family share the space on the farm but it works out great because it means more people tending the garden and they are really nice and super knowledgeable about lots of things farm-related. For our first dinner, on Heather and Paul’s porch with the ocean sunset in the background, we ate a delicious farm-fresh salad some brown rice with macadamia oil, a chipotle and butternut squash soup and a loaf of bread from up the street. It was delicious and the cool breeze of the evening made the soup a surprisingly nice touch.

View from one end of our cabin to the other, dresser and bookshelves at my back

Despite being Friday it was an early night for everyone except Paul who left for his weekly poker game while the rest of us headed off to our respective beds. Though it was only 7:45 Hawaii time, it was after midnight back east and after barely sleeping in the airport the night before Dylan passed out cold. I stayed up for about an hour putting away our clothes and trying to get settled in before I too could no longer keep my eyes open and feel asleep at just a few minutes before 9pm. Though we usually struggle to sleep in new places, both of us managed to sleep soundly until the sun came up. Along with the sun came the crows of roosters from nearby farms and the droning buzz of the many, many swarms of bees heading off the neighboring bee farm on their morning pollen run.

Another picture of the Sea Turtle reserve beach, you can see one of the native huts by the palm trees, they were scattered all over the park, it was really neat to see. Hawaii is every bit as beautiful and idyllic as one might expect, but to feel the sun and ocean breeze and see it all around you is more amazing than we could have ever imagined.

I have never been a morning person, and Dylan even less so, but in Hawaii, on the farm, we have quickly fallen into the farm schedule. The time change made this transition for us at first, but it just gets too noisy and hot to sleep much after the sun comes up. Also, it is so beautiful that we haven’t wanted to waste any time exploring. So far we’ve been to 2 different beaches, gone snorkeling in the clearest and bluest water either of us has ever seen, visited a national park and historical location, seen a sea turtle swimming a few feet away from us, and explored the little town of Captain Cook and its wonderful Saturday farmer’s market. All our food has come right from the three acres around us, with the exception of the loaf of bread, a cucumber, a bag of fresh macadamia nuts, and avocados that we picked up at the market.

Sea turtle lazing around Pu'uhonua o Hanaunau National Historical Park in the Sea Turtle Reserve beach, no swimming allowed here unless you are a turtle!

It has been a bit of an adjustment learning to eat exclusively what we have on hand, especially since there are no meat (a duck will soon be harvested though!) or dairy produced on this farm, but the freshness and the flavors are so delightful that we’ve hardly noticed what’s missing. There are plenty of farm fresh eggs though! Dylan has fully fallen in love with planning meals by wandering the garden and cooking in our outdoor kitchen; did I mention our kitchen/dining room is completely outside? At first I thought I wouldn’t be down with being quite so close to nature, but it has actually grown on me with alarming speed. I guess all those years of playing in the pond catching frogs and salamanders came flooding back to me as I watch the little green geckos climb up the wall next to me while I wash dishes under the awning.

This little gecko came to slurp up the mango juice we spilled on the kitchen counter

If you do not like lizards, I hate to tell you but Hawaii is probably not the place for you because there are at least four or five different species of lizards and geckos that we’ve spotted so far and they are not shy. At least once a day a gecko sneaks into our cabin/tent and into our bathroom, which is behind the wall of our kitchen (yes the bathroom is inside and is a regular bathroom, though the shower is outdoors). Today I even found an albino gecko hanging out on the inside window of the bathroom and Dylan found an inch-long baby lizard still trying to grow his tail perched on the faucet of our kitchen sink. I love the geckos; they are like neon-green, dry salamanders and they eat all the bugs in sight so we have become fast friends.

To my right is our cabin and path from the farm and front of the house, then the bamboo wall blocking in the outdoor shower and door to our bathroom which is attached to the garage so we are all the way in the back of the property, so very private

I don’t have a lot to report yet about our work because today was our first day and it mostly consisted of a big introduction to the regular farm chores like watering, weeding, dead-heading the plants (plucking off the dead leaves), feeding the chickens, collecting eggs, etc. I get to hang out with Karuna much of the time while Dylan does the farm chores but we tagged along today so that I could learn and so she could start to feel the rhythm of farm life so that when she gets older it won’t seem like chores so much but just part of the everyday routine. I like the idea that this little munchkin will grow up having such a close bond with the land around her and such a strong connection to the garden that sustains her. I hope that someday gardening, even if just a little bit, will be a part of every kid’s routine, if not at home than at school.

Dylan harvesting tomatillos in one of the farm's gardens

Anyway, life on the farm is pretty nice so far, despite the sunburns, the insane midday heat, the lack of cheese, and the bugs, and I think we are going to enjoy ourselves these next 4 months. I haven’t had the chance to start working with Heather on the preschool project since she’s been sick but she’s super excited about it and so am I. Oh, and I can’t forget to tell you that I caught a chicken today with my hands! Two got out and Dylan and I had to wrangle them back into their pen. He went around one side and I went on the other and he chased it toward me and I grabbed it gently but firmly around the middle and carried it back to the pen where Dylan opened the gate and let us in. I had gloves on but still, it was quite the adventure! Ok, well that’s all I have for now, I hope you enjoy all the pictures and please leave us comments to let us know what you’d like to see and hear more about and I’ll be sure to include it next time!

Getting to Hawaii

--> It is Friday morning, February 8, 2013. We left San Jose about two hours ago where we spent the night sleeping on the floor of the airport’s meditation room with a fellow traveler awaiting her flight to who knows where. It was a long night, but the dark quiet meditation room made the experience slightly more tolerable and I even managed to doze off here and there despite the cold hard concrete just below a thin layer of worn carpeting. So here we are, Dylan and I flying somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on the final leg of our journey to Hawaii and I have finally allowed my excitement to take over, leaving my uncertainty and anxiety about this adventure behind. Yesterday we were in chilly Boston, having just concluded a 4-week trip up and down the Northeast visiting all the friends and family and favorite places we could pack into one month, making up for the lost time when we were in Seattle and saw almost no one from home.

Until now, as I glance below at the pillowy, cotton clouds below, it didn’t feel like we were actually doing this, leaving behind our lives in Seattle to take a chance at a life that felt like a fantasy, perpetually out-of-reach. When we first made the decision to leave, to finally give in to our desire for a different, more authentic life, it seemed like such an obvious, logical choice. We want to one day have a farm, to build a home, and to live as much as we can off of our own land. The longer we stayed in Seattle, as much as I really did love and do miss a great many people and places there, just felt like procrastinating, or perhaps avoiding our dream altogether. As the lease to our house there drew to a close and we contemplated once again packing up and moving to a new place and another year in Seattle, our desire for change finally outweighed our fear.

It made sense to move out to Seattle when I finished graduate school and we were twenty six, but now that we are two years closer to thirty with a few years of city life under our belt we had the firm understanding that this place that we had tried so hard to love would never be our home. We grew tired of the daily commute, the rush of the city, the people everywhere you turn and the endless, overwhelming options of where to eat dinner and spend all our hard-earned cash. What was at first so alluring, had become tiresome and city life was beginning to take it’s toll on us, especially Dylan who is far less of a city person than even I am. So with a month left to go, over a flight of Pumpkin beer samples at the Beer Junction after work one night, we discussed and debated and ultimately decided that it was time to move on. 

The prospect of returning to New England in the height of winter did not sound particularly inviting, however, especially if we planned to take our first step toward this new self-made life of farming and creative endeavors. Thus, the idea of Hawaii was born. I had heard of the WWOOF program from friends who knew people who had traveled to all sorts of different farms of the world to live and work and learn on various kinds of farm skills and though they had always urged me to consider it, I never bothered to follow up on this advice. But that night when we got home from our beer tasting, we joined the WWOOF Hawaii network created our own WWOOFer’s couple profile and began browsing the 250+ farms in Hawaii that participate in the program.

Our WWOOFers profile picture

There are coffee farms, and orchid farms, and smoothie stands on the beach, and acres and acres of tropical fruit trees to choose from and we were immediately bewitched by the idea of spending a few months in tropical paradise. In the beginning of our 3rd dark and rainy season in Seattle, with a lifetime of snowy New England winters awaiting us back east, we both agreed that a few months in Hawaii was exactly what we needed to get out of the slump we had fallen into our last few months in Seattle. The chance to gain precious farm experience, some much needed warm weather and vitamin D, and the chance to engage in those creative endeavors we had both had to put off as we poured all of our energy into our careers felt like a dream come true.

Though I was the one who made the initial suggestion, after a particularly frustrating day of work after which I was exhausted and drained of social energy and missing Dylan, who had been working nights and weekends for months now as I continued my weekly day schedule at my beloved preschool, his enthusiasm for this new prospect sealed the deal. I suggested it on a whim, with only a short time to make the decision, find a farm, quit our jobs and pack up our stuff, something I would otherwise never do, but as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures and neither one of us was keen on continuing down the same path for the duration of another lease. We had long before decided that we would be leaving Seattle eventually, but it was definitely a shock when we decided to leave just over a month before it was time to go.

I never do things last minute, especially something this major, but when I stumbled upon Heather and Paul’s WWOOF profile, I knew that if we could work with them, or a farm and family like theirs and that this was absolutely the right decision for us. They had a 3+ acre mango orchard and were looking for a like-minded couple, one interested in growing food for personal consumption (they sell only their mangos commercially), with an interest in farming from a foodie’s perspective, an interest in developing new ideas and improving the still-start up farm. But what really sealed the deal for me was that they wanted one partner to focus mostly on farm projects, while the other helped care for and homeschool their going on two-year-old daughter. Being a preschool teacher and pretty devastated about leaving a school community that I adored, their profiled immediately jumped out at me.

Sunrise over Ballard on my final walk to catch the bus to work

As much as I want a life of the land, I love teaching, working in education, and using my creativity to research and brainstorm endless ways to improve the state of education. I was not ready to give that up quite yet. Working with Heather and Paul and their little daughter Karuna would mean the best of both worlds for me, farm experience without giving up my place in education. When I first happened upon their profile, I wasn’t sure Dylan would be interested since he seemed weary of sharing close quarters with just a single family on a small farm, but as we explored our other options, mostly large commercial farms and coffee farms seeking many WWOOFers at a time sharing a common living space, the idea of being on our own with a single like-minded couple he admitted was far more appealing than dancing around a fire with a bunch of transient 20-year olds taking time off from or avoiding the responsibilities of regular life (not to judge, but we just felt too old for that).

So finally, and I’ll admit a bit nervously, I shared Heather and Paul’s profile with Dylan, trying not make my favoritism show, and to my relief he was immediately on board, thrilled at the list of possible farm projects listed, among which was building an outdoor brick oven, something he’d been dreaming of for quite some time. So that night I sent Heather an email explaining our bit of gardening experience, our desire to learn and our interest in their small, start-up project in self-sufficiency, and my experience and interest in education. She called me the very next day. I was in the middle of an open-house at our preschool that Monday night and so I was unable to answer her call, but when I heard the voicemail saying she loved our profile and was interested in finding a time to discuss the possibility of us working together I literally did a little jump for joy in the bathroom at school where I had snuck off to check my phone. I was electric with excitement.

I was like a kid on Christmas Eve as I made my hour-long trek home on the bus, bubbling with energy as I walked in the door. This could be it, I thought, our ticket to Hawaii and the start of a new life for us! I danced around the apartment for the 45 minutes waiting for Dylan to get home with our leftover pizza from work. Normally I would have been starving and exhausted after a 14 hour day but I could hardly sit still. I wanted to tell him in person so I waited for what felt like an eternity, busying myself with tidying the apartment, my usual way of coping when I am anxiously awaiting something big. When he finally did come home I practically leapt on him, nearly knocking the pizza box out of his hand and shared the good news. We opened a bottle of wine and discussed exactly what to say in an email response to Heather’s call. Finally, I sent her a message and she responded the next day and just like that we had a Skype date planned for the following Monday evening to “meet.”

Mt. Rainier from the plane leaving Seattle for the last time

A week later when the time came, we anxiously turned on the computer and awaited their phone call. It was Paul who called and we awkwardly exchanged our Skype info and sat in silence on the phone as we tried to get our computers set up. Finally we were computer screen to computer screen in a weird “couples dating service meet-up” as Dylan so aptly described the experience. The initial awkwardness quickly wore off and we found we had a ton in common. It was easy conversation and we chatted like old friends for over an hour, finally calling it a night when little Karuna began falling asleep in Heather’s lap and we were all yawning profusely. Once we signed off, Dylan and I turned to one another, breathed a sigh of relief, and grinned like giddy teenagers as we discussed what we thought of them. Instantly we agreed that we wanted to work with them, that they seemed to be offering the exact experience we were hoping for and then some. So just like that it was decided and I crafted the email that solidified our commitment to change our lives entirely.

So here we are, quickly approaching the Big Island of Hawaii, just an hour or two now before we touch down at Kailua-Kona Airport, just 20 minutes north of Captain, Cook Hawaii, where we will spend the next four months of our lives living and working in tropical paradise. We will be spending about 25 hours per week expanding and helping out in the gardens (it is off-season for the mango orchard), building various structures around the property, getting to know our new hosts through endless culinary adventures, and pot-lucks with the neighbors. Not only will I get the chance to work one-on-one with an adorable soon-to-be two-year-old, but to sweeten the deal, once Heather learned the extent of my interest and experience in education, she invited me to help design and create an entire cooperative preschool program for the families in their rural, agricultural community! This is a dream come true for me.

Until today, on this very last leg of our travels from New England to Hawaii, none of this has felt real, not even a bit. As we dragged our bags from house to house up and down the East Coast I hardly allowed myself to think about what lay ahead. I don’t’ know if it was out of fear, anxiety, my continual discomfort with ambiguity and the unknown, or that the whole thing felt too good to be true. Likely, each of these pieces completed the puzzle that I have now cast aside, allowing myself at last to be overcome with excitement once again. It was hard to leave Seattle, there was so much I loved about my life there, even though I knew all along that leaving was the right decision. It will take me some time to process that loss but now here we are on our way to live a dream-come reality and I am ready for it.

Who knows how this whole thing will turn out, what our cabin will look like, how our new friends and hosts will like us an become a part of our lives. And who knows what challenges and adventures lay ahead, but, I mean, we will be in Hawaii, just Dylan and I relying on one another, a world away from everything and everyone for four whole months. It sounds crazy but here we are, we’re doing it, crazy and all. With a part-time work schedule and all of our food and shelter provided by the land and our hosts, we will finally both have the time to reset ourselves on this new path, to shed the bad habits we’ve been dying to part with, and embrace the one’s we’ve been too exhausted to take the time to develop.

This is our chance, to start fresh and set ourselves up to truly be who we want to be and live how we want to live. I am pumped to take full advantage of this opportunity to breathe, to read and write, to create, to explore, and reflect on all of our experiences. Though I cannot speak for Dylan, I know he is just as excited and determined to make the most of this experience as well. I cannot wait to discover what Hawaii has in store for us, but for now I will leave you with the same anticipation that I carry with me as we grow closer and closer to our complimentary end-of-flight Mai Tai and first view of the Island we will call home between now and early June. Aloha, be well, and stay tuned.