...and here's what I come home to. From tropical fruit and beaches to a raging blizzard. At least it feels like winter!

           Thank you so much to Bobby and Ming Wei and all of the incredible people I encountered on the big island. I couldn't have imagined a more wonderful trip. I don't think I'll be able to stay away for long...

A HUGE banana flower. All the little green things coming out of the sides are baby bananas. It looks like there will be about 100 on this stalk!

Cracking open mac nuts 

Coffee plant!

If you pop the berry in your mouth and chew the skin, you can spit out the beans that are used for roasting. It tastes a bit sweet and is apparently very high in vitamin C. 

           Ming Wei and I took the afternoon off and went to the beach yesterday. It was a really nice little bay with lots of little nooks formed by lava rock. We went snorkeling and saw parrotfish, angelfish and needle fish, but the most exciting thing was the baby octopus! I spotted him hanging out on a rock, changing colors like crazy. As he moved from the sandy bottom to the coral rocks, he would change from a light tan to a dark gray color. The colors seemed to ripple through him, it was insane to watch. We also swam out to a little point to see Neil Young's house! He's livin pretty large. 

           It got a little chilly as the sun started to go down, so we decided to crash a resort's hot tub. Best idea ever. Walked in with our clothes half wet and hair all beachy... maybe a little bit conspicuous. The trick is to try to grab a pool towel as soon as possible, because if you have the resort towel, no one will dare question you. It's ideal if you can snag one off a cleaning lady's cart before you walk out into the open. Thanks to Rapin family vacations, I'm fairly well practiced. 

            All 60 bananas are ripening at the same time! We've been giving them away right and left, and yesterday I made banana bread. This was no ordinary banana bread. I added sweetened shredded coconut and super bitter cacao nibs, so it was very island-esque. I also used the cream off the top of the raw milk Bobby and Ming Wei get from their neighbors. So rich. This morning I had a piece toasted with coconut butter. Oh. My. God. 

          The bananas keep coming so I'm going to keep experimenting!

           

Most Fruitful Yuri (name that movie pun)

             Besides his incredible enthusiasm and energy, the best thing about spending a day with Yuri is the FRUIT. He knows every little spot to get every kind of fruit on the island. To make some extra money, he harvests a bunch of coconuts and takes orders for delivery.  While I was with him, he had to make several stops to drop off coconuts to his customers. He has this little basket in his back seat, full of fruit, and every time we stopped somewhere, the contents of the basket would change. He would drop off a few tangerines and pick up a few star fruits, give someone some cacao and bring back a stalk of sugar cane.  Seriously. Throughout the day, that basket held oranges, tangerines, bananas, cacao, star fruits, papaya, lilicoi (basically like passion fruit), and tree tomato. 

            As we drove out of one guy’s driveway, he spotted a ripe papaya. “Ok, I’m going to back up to the tree and you’re going to stand on the back of the truck and pick it.” I couldn’t reach it so he came around the back and said “I’ll poke it with a stick and you catch it.” I braced myself against a banana tree and waited for the papaya to fall. As it fell towards my face, I totally fumbled it and the over-ripe fruit exploded on my shoulder, rolled off, and was caught by the banana tree.

            We jumped back in the car - off to make the next delivery - Yuri grabbed the carved coconut shell spoon hanging from his review mirror and we scooped out the sticky sweet flesh and slurped the whole way home.  

The bountiful fruit basket. Yellow sugar cane and a pomelo next it. 

The inside of a lilicoi fruit. 

Yuri opening the cacao pod. You can suck on the beans and then they are roasted and ground to make chocolate!

Waipio Valley

            Yuri, one of Bobby and Ming Wei’s first interns, took me with him to do conservation work in Waipio valley. It’s a very sacred place and less than 100 people live there. They view from the look-out is absolutely breathtaking. The ‘road’ down into the valley is treacherous and steep and you must have a four-wheel-drivel vehicle to even attempt the trip.

            Yuri is part of the Agriculture group at the University of Hawaii in Hilo, and once a month or so, they make a trip down to the valley usually to work on removing invasive species, or help in some of the residents’ gardens. Four of his fellow students and I piled into his aquamarine pick-up truck and slowly made our way into the heart of the valley.

“Is your door unlocked?” Yuri asked me as we started the decent. “Yeah…” “Well, if we were to go over the side, just open you door and jump out. Oh, wait. That door is broken…role your window down. Ok, so if we go over, jump out your window and try to grab onto some guavas or something.” I’m not kidding, and neither was he.

When we got into the heart of the valley, we hiked the rest of the way to the ‘garden’ we were going to work in for the day. It was basically a patch of Taro (A Hawaiian staple root you may have eaten in the form of chips) someone had planted in the middle of the jungle, slowly being overtaken by invasive weeds. We started pulling weeds like crazy, but our efforts felt futile because every time you stood up you would see the same weeds carpeting the entire jungle floor. Weeding a jungle is a bit like counting grains of sand on a beach.

Another group of students came and we harvested the Taro, cutting of the root and separating the leaves. The agriculture group is having a big senior dinner and will be preparing the pounds and pounds of the crop; steaming the leaves and boiling the root. A soft-spoken native woman with a new born baby on her hip showed us how to properly pick the root and how to distinguish between the different varieties. Every so often she would pass her baby off on someone so she could get down in the dirt and pull some weeds. How she managed to hike up and down through the narrow trail and over multiple rivers with a new born is a mystery to me.

The reward for this mosquito-infested work was a swim in the fresh water lagoon. So refreshing; like lake Michigan in early June.  

We also hit the black sand beach on the way out. It was incredibly windy and sand was pelting us from all sides, but it was gorgeous. Yuri cut open a few of the coconuts in the back of his truck for us to drink on the way out, and we made our way up, offering rides to several exhausted hikers on the way. 

Miracle Berries

         They grow this little red berry here on the farm that they call the 'miracle berry'. The name is quite appropriate - they are incredible. You put it in your mouth, masticate the skin and scrape the jelly off of the seed with your teeth. You swish the juice and suck on the seed for a good five minutes and then spit it out. NEVER throw the seeds away because you'll most definitely want to re-plant every last one once the fruit works its magic on you. 
          Now for the miracle: for the next two hours, everything you eat will taste like it has been drenched in sugar. Ming Wei gave me a plate of lemon wedges and when I gave her a look, she assured me that I would want to eat them all. They tasted like the too-sweet lemonade that you buy at the fair. Unbelievable. Everything tasted UNREAL. Black coffee tasted like my dad's coffee - he adds at least two heaping spoonfuls of sugar to every cup. Cherry tomatoes tasted like candy. I could have drank the balsamic vinegar on my salad. You just want to eat everything. The only reason I stopped myself from eating an entire lemon was that my lips started to hurt. 
         Apparently they sell the berries at high-end bars in New York. The price? $5 per berry. Entirely worth it I think. Although, alcohol is dangerous after you've had the fruit. You won't even wince at the cheapest vodkas, and Tequila tastes like iced tea. But when you're sucking down the sugary sweet poison, remember that the effect definitey won't work on your vomit the next morning!
         The way these berries work is still a bit of mystery. Some scientists think that the juice coats the mouth and tongue and inhibits all the taste buds except for the ones that detect sweetness. Other's think that it confuses the sour taste buds and makes them taste only sweet. Either way, it's amazing, and you really have to experience it to believe it. 

The Market

           Saturday morning Bobby took me to the farmer's market in Waimea. It was a classic market with the little white tents in a semi-circle, and lots and lots of samples. I was overwhelmed from the moment I saw the booth with hundreds - no exaggeration - HUNDREDS of jars of different kinds of tropical jams. And you could sample as many as you wanted. Oh. my. god. I tried at least 15 different kinds. Guava, lilicoi, pineapple marmalade, tangerine marmalade, coconut butter, passionfruit...so many interesting flavors. 
          There were also many many macadamia nut (they call them mac nuts here) products. Mac nut butter, mac nut cookies, mac nut brittle, spiced mac nuts, candied mac nuts... I tried chili lime, coffee, and ginger spiced mac nuts. Yum. I had to resist buying the outrageously priced packaged nuts because as Bobby reminded me, we can just crack them in the back yard with the pigs for free. 
          Coffee, honey, stone baked bread, tons of fresh fruits and vegetables, and so many nice people. Bobby seemed to know almost everyone there and introduced me to many of his friends. The greeting here is "Aloha" and a kiss on the cheek. Just like in the movies, the kiss caught me off guard the first time, awkward. 
           When I left the market I had one dollar left in my pocket. There will definitely be a Christmas package making it's way back to Michigan sometime soon. 
             I'm convinced. Universally, farmer's markets are the place to find the nicest people and the best food in any community. 

Waimea Farmer's Market

Flowers at the market

Unbelievably white, creamy, Hawaiian honey

A cross between cauliflower and broccoli!

Mysterious sounds outside the camper

Last night I woke up to some interesting noises. I would hear a dull crack followed by what sounded like an old man snoring while having very unpleasant dreams. It sounded like the action was happening right outside my window for a few minutes, but then it slowly faded away and I fell back asleep. 

In the morning I asked Yan about the noises, and he knew exactly what I had heard; pigs cracking open  macadamia nuts. Yes. Wild pigs, cracking shells of the gourmet nut typically paired with white chocolate, at 3 in the morning. Apparently, there's a cluster of the trees right outside of the camper. Apparently, pigs like macadamia nuts. Just rooting around for a late night snack! Who knew?

Guava

mmmm, guava for breakfast. These aromatic fruits are EVERYWHERE. They're ripe   when they are yellow, slightly soft, and come off of the tree easily. They have the texture of a pear on the outside, and the inside is similar to a passion fruit. They taste sort of like a cross between a lime and a grape, tart and flowery. The seeds on the inside are small but very hard, so you have to chew cautiously and try to just swallow them whole. 

If the color of this font were a paint chip, I would definitely call it guava. 

Bananas!

      This morning we harvested bananas! When Ming Wei told me the plan, I pictured us picking each yellow banana one by one off of the tree. I was way off. We drove a pickup truck out to the cluster of banana trees (this is inaccurate - bananas are actually giant weeds in the grass family, so I guess you just call them banana plants...) and Bobby got out the machete. Ming Wei pointed out the ripe bunches (which were mostly green with a few turning yellow) and we cut down the entire stalk. Each stalk only produces once, so you can cut down the whole thing instead of attempting to climb to get at the fruit. Bobby hacked at the stalk with the machete while Ming Wei and I waited under the giant plant. "As I cut, the stalk will slowly fall towards you and you should catch it and ease it to the ground. It will be really heavy," Bobby told us. Before I knew it, a mass of over 40 bananas were falling towards my face. I tuned my head and put my arms up, and we just barely kept the bananas from smashing to the ground.
      We cut off the bunch and Bobby cut the stalk into chunks which we put around the base of the plant. They will decompose and provide nutrients for the rest of the stalks.
      We ate the two yellow-ish ones right away...not your typical Dole banana. Their a bit tart with an orangish interior. Very tasty. The rest are hanging from the side of the house and will begin to tun yellow in a few days. I'm not exactly sure what four of us will do with 40 ripe bananas...mash em up and make bread I guess! Although Yan once at 30 in two days...Bobby had to stash some in his sock drawer to make sure he got at least a couple. I'm up against a serious banana lover...

Here!

After a full 18 hour day of traveling (Hannah Boggard is a star for driving me to the airport at 5 a.m!), I made it to my two-week home on the big island. I was welcomed by the farm owners, Bobby and Ming Wei, and their intern Yan. Incredibly enthusiastic and passionate, Bobby started to fill be in on life on their little piece of paradise, while Ming Wei offered me polenta and chick peas with sweet/hot thai sauce. yum. 

I was ready for bed the moment I arrived, but they advised me to wait until after 9:00 so I would adjust to the time change. "It will be good if you are very tired, because the pigs, cows and roosters can be very noisy during the night,"Yan told me as he led me to our camper. Yan is a 6'6'', 27-year-old, incredibly thin Slovenian with chin length hair, a charming accent, and a knack for hitchhiking. I would pick him up. :)

We walked through the dark along some treacherous trails, and up an excessively steep hill to get to our beds. I got a bit nervous when Yan said "Try not to step on the two middle logs - they're starting to split," as I walked across a gorge on a rickety bamboo bridge. With my bags putting me off balance...it could have been the end of me. 

After simultaneously stargazing and using the outhouse, I collapsed into bed in the tidy camper. It is UNREAL that I am actually here.