I know this is a little late, but maybe it will help for next year. I am on a quest to find a recipe (in English or German) for THESE Lebkuchen:

I am pretty sure they are Odenwälder Lebkuchen. They are breadier than the stuff used for gingerbread houses and iced hearts, and they are not as nutty/lumpy as Nürnburger Lebkuchen (which are baked on a wafer and iced with sugar or chocolate. So, NO lebkuchen like this:

Which is, of course, the problem. All the recipes I’ve found seem to be for the sticky Nürnburger style with candied citrus inside, or for the shaped and iced American gingerbread. There is a possibility that the ones I’m looking for are the same as, or similar to, Aachener Printen. Perhaps I have a german reader who can set me straight…  or send me a recipe…

I would love to be a locavore and support small farmers, crop diversity, organic everything, and most of all, eat well. I’m too lazy though. I just can’t bring myself to learn to cook so many new foods here, and I certainly can’t bring myself to drive all over the island (as small as it is) to procure the ingredients. Recently, Kanu Hawai’i sponsored an eat local challenge. I didn’t do it, knowing I’d fail, but I did embrace their idea to start small and include one locally grown food a day. THAT I can do!

In fact, I have been doing that for quite a while. We love the green beans grown in nearby Ewa, and Big Island Honey is yummy. Much of the time, my breakfast is a local papaya (with off island cottage cheese and granola though).

One of the foods I’ve been playing with is Okinawan sweet potatoes. Kinda ugly on the outside, they are purple on the inside! I first experienced them mashed with garlic at Orchids in the Halekulani. With roast chicken, it was delicious.

At home, I’ve tried to recreate the garlic mashed version:

(The kids, not loving regular mashed potatoes, tolerated these. Purple in and of itself doesn’t carry as much weight as I had hoped.)

Then I moved on to Twice Baked potatoes (with cinnamon):

OK, but not really worth the effort.

And tonight I tried the much raved about Sweet Potato Biscuits. Surprise! — my lavender-grey colored biscuits turned green while waiting to be baked! I had heard that lemon juice will turn these purple potatoes magenta, so I’m guessing it’s the baking powder in the dough that turns them green. Baked up, they are grass green with little confetti flecks of purple. Party food!

Just for fun, I poured a little vinegar on my biscuit and, sure enough, it turned pinky purple. Move over  pH paper or red cabbage juice, let’s play science experiment with foods you actually want to eat!

First, check out our current house guest:

His name is Happy and we’re watching him while his family is on vacation.

We are vacationing closer to home.

Dad’s home and, having grown up in California watching surf movies, the first thing he wanted to do was see the famed North Shore of Oahu. We went to Sunset Beach, and yes, the waves were really big — much bigger than when the kids and I were at Pupukea a month ago. I’m hoping we can go back in another month or two and see really, really big waves. No swimming though — they were big AND total shore breakers. So, after soaking up the fact that we are in Hawai’i, we went down the road to the historic town of Haleiwa and lay out towels under a palm tree in the shelter of Haleiwa Harbor. The beach here was pretty quiet because everyone else was riding the waves out on the point. Apparently the waves were gnarly today. Word was that they were better formed yesterday.

Since we were on the North Shore we HAD to introduce daddy to shave ice. Not for us, of course — for him, and science.

Today we tried Aoki‘s next door to Matsumoto’s. I think I like their shave ice better, but I’m not sure. The ice cream on the bottom wasn’t great, but the ice was fine and silky and the flavors were distinct. They didn’t have the “snow cap” topping which I wanted to try. Actually, I think the lady in front of Lowe’s at the shopping center a few miles from us has the best ice cream, and the largest shave ice for your money. Her syrups all taste the same though. In researching shave ice I came across references to Waiola, which is supposed to be great, so it looks like we have one more reason to go into Honolulu (for scientific comparison of course).

We hadn’t been to the beach in a few weekends, so we went to Pupukea Beach this morning to explore the tidepools.

The tide pools were OK, the rock clambering was great, and I just like saying “poo-poo-kay-ah.” Zavi impressed us with his knowledge of the various volcanic rocks. A’a is the really rough stuff (you can remember that because you’d probably say “ah, ah” or worse if you walked on it barefoot). The smoother rock is pahoehoe (pah-ho-ay-ho-ay?) which he likes much better.

Then, because we were on the North Shore, we went to Matsumoto’s (home of the original Shave Ice).

I went for Green Tea flavor this time (very refreshing).

And because commenter Sally M said I should, I went for the adzuki beans this time. I have to admit, the beans didn’t do much for me. They are nice and sweet, but still beany — which is weird with ice and ice cream. I am now on a mission to become a Shave Ice connoisseur. Our next quest will be to find the Dave’s closest to us and try the Shave Ice with Mochi balls. Zavi says he wants to try a bubble drink (so much so that he’s willing to go to the laundromat with me).

Next to Matsumoto’s is a cute little gift and housewares shop. I went in looking for plastic tumblers with 40s-style travel poster images or old C&H Sugar ads on them for a bit of retro Hawai’i kitsch on my lanai. They didn’t have any, but they did have a gorgeous book, Lei Aloha, that we came away with.

Which, of course, led to trying one of leis since we had the right plant in our yard.

Not bad for a first try!

I hope you had a nice Sunday too.

Everyone’s been so quiet, but you are all dying to see some proof that we’re actually in Hawai’i, right?
Even if you’re not, here it is anyway.

While we were living in the hotel we had time to check out a few beaches. Here’s a nice little one at Hickam Air Force Base (where you can watch planes take off from that spit just to the left of where the kids are):

Last weekend we went to a festival at a beach park in Honolulu. I have to keep up my Fest Quota you know! There was food, the ocean, a view of Diamond Head, and rides, of course:

And finally, there’s Shave Ice. It is soooooooooo good — especially with the vanilla ice cream on the bottom.