From Ground to Grindz — Day 4: Touring the Stores

By /
Reading time: 6 minutes.

Read the rest of our From Ground to Grindz coverage:

Tours on Tap

Posted Tuesday Sept. 28, 9 p.m.

The hunt for local grindz has already sent me to many of the food sources near my home, some of which I’d never been to before. I’m not done exploring yet, and I’ve asked two of the stores participating in Kanu’s Eat Local Challenge to let me kick the tires.

On Wednesday, I’ll be visiting Whole Foods Market in the Kahala Mall and Foodland Farms — an upscale version of the ubiquitous grocery franchise.

Officials at both stores, including Foodland Chef Keoni Chang, will be showing me around and talking to me about how they work with local farmers to keep Hawaii products on the shelves.

I’ll be updating here at Civil Beat throughout the day about my food adventures. Stay tuned.

Just Three Bananas

Posted Wednesday Sept. 29, 10 a.m.

After a late night Tuesday working on a story about new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, getting out of bed was a struggle Wednesday morning.

Eggs were out of the question (no time), and our new papaya isn’t yet ripe. Luckily we had not one but two small bunches of ripe local apple bananas available to us. One was ours and one was graciously donated, along with two sizable local organic mangoes, by Civil Beat’s Randy Ching.

I brought a few to work with me and consumed them at my desk. Korina did the same, and brought some longans to snack on. This is my first morning without any protein in a few days, and I’m hungry. It doesn’t help that I’ll be touring Whole Foods Market in Kahala 30 minutes from now. I always try to avoid going to supermarkets when I’m hungry as I typically come back with tons of junk food I don’t really need. I hope my mouth isn’t visibly watering during the tour.

When’s lunch?

Eat and Run

Posted Wednesday Sept. 29, 1 p.m.

Between trips to Whole Foods Market in Kahala and Foodland Farms in Aina Haina — I’ll be writing more about those experiences soon — I barely had time to stop back at Civil Beat to eat my leftover opah and vegetables.

The copious amounts of butter had congealed a little bit in the fish tupperware, but two minutes in the microwave had my officemates asking what they were smelling. Garlic and butter still do the trick.

(Quick tangent: It seems my original suspicions about garlic might have been correct. We’ve now made two different purchases of “local organic” garlic from Down to Earth, but I’ve heard from a couple of different folks that nobody grows garlic commercially in the islands. I’ll get to the bottom of it.)

Whether inspired by my struggle to find subsistence or completely coincidental, the lunch conversation turned to a debate contrasting the quasi-reality adventure shows Man vs. Wild and Survivorman. For the record: I’ve watched both, and you can count me firmly in Bear Grylls’ camp.

My colleagues have consistently shown an interest in my progress — some even generously contributing local snacks to the cause — but I haven’t converted any apostles yet. As I left for Aina Haina, I surveyed and documented the food choices of my compatriots:

The Civil Beat team enjoys non-local delicacies like soda, sushi, Subway sandwiches — and Cheetos.

Maybe a few more whiffs of garlic and butter and I’ll turn one or two of them.

Night on the Town

Posted Wednesday Sept. 29, 10 p.m.

For the first 11 meals of Eat Local week, Korina and I ate food in one of two categories: single-ingredient items like fruit and hard-boiled eggs, or more complex items we cooked ourselves. But for Meal 12, we decided to place our trust in the professionals.

just a block from Civil Beat’s Kaimuki headquarters is one of Kanu Hawaii’s partners in the Eat Local Challenge. Before we made our 7:45 p.m. reservation, I called many Honolulu restaurants claiming to participate in the challenge. You can read more about that “Fact Check” of sorts in the entry titled “Reservations About Dinner.”

Kanu describes Chef/Owner Ed Kenney as “a leader in the local food movement,” and the restaurant’s motto is “Local first, organic whenever possible, and with aloha always.” The menu featured four 100 percent local items, and we tried them all as part of a prix fixe menu, along with a couple of 100 percent local libations.

Korina and I were already enjoying our mai tai and “Dark and Gloomy,” respectively, when the salad of butter lettuce, radish and breadfruit chips (yum) arrived. Next up was an appetizer featuring grilled flatiron steak of Kulana beef and wild tomatoes on a bed of paiai — a delicious taro concoction someplace in between raw root and pulverized poi.

The paiai, pounded in-house by a friend of the restaurant this week, we were told, was certainly the highlight of the evening. It was so good, in fact — far and away superior to any runny poi I’ve ever eaten — that I asked our waiter why tradition would even call for the paiai to be pounded any further.

The main course was mahi mahi topped with citrus butter sauce and served with a wide assortment of vegetables — tasty, but no challenge to the steak and paiai dish. Desert was a pairing of soursop and starfruit sorbets with a few slices of pineapple.

The meal was delicious, and it was a relief to not have to think about shopping for ingredients or hand-cleaning pots and pans. But it came with a price: $125 for dinner, drinks, tax and tip. That’s the most expensive meal we’ve had since we moved to Honolulu six months ago.

And this time, there were no leftovers.

Read the rest of our From Ground to Grindz coverage:

Support Independent, Unbiased News

Civil Beat is a nonprofit, reader-supported newsroom based in ±á²¹·É²¹¾±Ê»¾±. When you give, your donation is combined with gifts from thousands of your fellow readers, and together you help power the strongest team of investigative journalists in the state.

 

About the Author