Saturday, July 17, 2010

Oahu's KCC Farmer's Market


Today I'm going to take you on a photo safari through the Farmer's Market at Kapiolani Community College. This tale starts on a Saturday morning, when I awoke in a strangely pissy mood, given my usual sunny disposition. I don't know what my problem was. But I knew that I had already planned to make the trek to town to FINALLY check out the farmer's market. I was going to go alone, saunter around, sniffing & chatting & touching & photographing & tasting. What was there possibly to be pissy about? Those are among my favorite activities.

But still. The clog in the parking lot once I got there didn't help. I finally found a spot about 700 miles away, gathered my stuff and started heading toward... I wasn't sure where I was going. But there was a steady stream of people coming from the opposite direction, so I swam upstream. Men passed with kids on their shoulders, dirtying their dads with sticky fingers, tourists passed by with bonzai trees and flower arrangements, a gorgeous girl with a huge bunch of sunflowers, and a guy with a very sexy, um... loaf of bread. Seriously, it was a great looking french bread!

And I realized as each person passed me, my mood was steadily improving. I was heading toward a food wonderland! It was a beautiful day in Hawaii & I had hours to putter about. sigh..... With a renewed attitude & a growl in my stomach, I made my way to the rows upon rows of tents and people & food, oh my!

There was a crap load of people, which started to arose a bit of grump in me, but I jumped in & watched them & soon became one of them.

There is something so much better about shopping for food while talking to the guy who grew it. Baskets overflow with pineapple, mangoes, onions & turnips...

I stopped to smell the flowers, and all was right with the world. The white ginger below is sold in bunches and used in making ginger leis. My favorite!


The buckets of tropical flowers reminded me of how truly lucky I am to live here.
Then I met Paul, the honey guy. I experienced my first honey tasting as spoon upon tiny spoon was thrust my way with an enthusiastic description of the process & the flowers that were the go-to's for the bees to make each one. I was amazed at the difference in taste from one to another. I left with a jar of Ohia Lehua (a hawaiian flower) honey and I have been using it in sparing, special circumstances, like it's liquid gold.


I really wanted to try these BBQ'd abalone from the Big Island, but the line was crazy. I plan to check out their farm the next time I am on The Big Isle though, especially since I just saw an episode of Dirty Jobs where they went to an abalone farm. Fascinating stuff....
And my search for the sexy bread came to an end here. Loaves & loaves & loaves of manna from heaven. I too would be the owner of a sexy loaf!
Soon enough my bag was filled with a strange array of things, and the growl in my stomach was screeching at me. Thankfully KCC's Culinary Program had a tent selling some killer kalua pork sliders with coleslaw on a taro bun. Oh. Yeah. Baby. I pulled up a patch of grass and wolfed mine down while watching crowds of people, bags overflowing with their own goodies, hunched over mountains of shave ice, slices of pizza, fried green tomatoes and god knows what else. It was a beautiful thing.
And with my day's plunder of jalepenos, limes, tomatoes, mesculin, melon, honey, heart of palm, breadfruit, and yes - my sexy loaf of bread, I rode the wave all week making many a concoction to feed my people & my soul.

So the moral of the story is: When Life Makes You Pissy, Surround Yourself With Food. Worked for me anyway.
When you're in the neighborhood, be sure to hit the KCC Farmer's Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Parking Lot C (Off of Diamond Head Road)
Kapiolani Community College
4303 Diamond Head Road
Honolulu, HI 96816

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the wonderful trip!

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  2. How come you never took ME there??
    Next time?? Please??

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  3. Joy: The pleasure is mine! Glad you enjoyed the trip.

    Anonymous: Next time for sure. Did I mention there is a crap load of people???

    Cheers,
    H

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  4. That's o.k. Will focus on the food.

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  5. We must support our local farmers. It's fresh too!

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