On Day 4 on Big Island, we woke up in our cozy hilltop house early enough, considering we had spent a lot of the night driving miles and miles along dark roads, looking for one open store to buy some bread and eggs and such (ended up getting the best purplish taro bread, something that sustained us for a long time). We started the 45-minute drive back to Kona, stopping at a bakery for some Kona coffee and a passion fruit cheesecake breakfast. We wanted to get there early, as there was a big farmer’s market happening that day, and we wanted to get our pick of the best.

Kona is a very touristy section of the island, filled with tourist shops and resorts. Though it’s got its charms, I guess, I was happy we hadn’t ended up booking any rooms there. I much preferred the quiet beauty of Puako and Captain Cook! We wandered around a bit, checking out the different stores and picking up some gifts for people back home.

We headed off to the market, and bought a lot of fresh produce to enjoy for our dinner back in Captain Cook. This is when Soli found the ukulele he was going to buy. It was tricky finding things here that hadn’t been mass-produced in China, and then shipped here. Most of the tourist stuff was “designed in Hawaii” and “made in china or Indonesia.” Ukuleles that had been made in Hawaii with Hawaiian wood would’ve cost $500+++, so we finally got a good deal on one made with local wood, but in China, and it came with a case.

Before buying it though, we had to get to a bank machine. Now, at my bank machines back home, you get your bank card returned to you before you get your money. Because of this, I am used to taking the money and leaving. Here in Hawaii though, taking the money and leaving means your bank card is still sticking out of the machine. I walked away, heard some beeping, ran back to the machine to see it suck my bank card right up. Thankfully, the bank was open, so I ran in and explained the situation. The teller told me she couldn’t give it back, but I could contact my bank and they would send one in the mail. To my house in Canada. All of our money was stuck in my account, so I stressed the importance of having this bank card returned. Finally a manager came out and said she could return it, but needed ID. Of course, I had left my ID back in Captain Cook, 45 minutes away. And the bank was closing in 1 ½ hours. In the end, we drove back to Captain Cook and got back to the bank, which was closed, but the manager stayed there waiting for us, and I got the card. They were very nice, but talk about a waste of our time, and gas!

Ukulele in hand, we spent the late afternoon exploring, picked up some fish from the fish store, and headed back towards Captain Cook with lots of stops along the way. We drove into the coffee plantations, taking any roads that looked interesting, and came across the Painted Church, a Roman Catholic church hidden away on top of the coffee hills. It was a gorgeous evening, and the church was quaint and still stunning.

We looked around the cemetery as well, which had some interesting grave markers.

We kept driving, and kept stumbling upon beaches that were each more gorgeous than the last. This also included finding Two-Step, just a bit away from Place of Refuge, which became our favourite snorkel spot the next day. The beach is entirely made of lava, and it’s called two-step because all you have to do is step off the lava ledge, and you’re swimming with the most colourful, beautiful fish, and around massive coral reefs. Unfortunately, we never got any photos of this place, as we were too busy jumping into the water.

When we made it back to our place in Captain Cook, it was completely black out (the sun sets around 7:30pm, and after it sets, that’s it – no light at all). Soli prepared our fish steaks on the grill, and make one of my favourite things while we were there, a mango-papaya salsa with tomatoes and cilantro. A big, perfect meal for the end of the day.

On Day 5, we said goodbye to Captain Cook and started driving around the southern point of Big Island towards the Hilo side, where we were going to spend the last two nights (just outside of Pahoa). The ride wasn’t overly exciting, just a lot more old, black lava.

However, we made it a point to get to Ka Lae, which is the most southern point of all Hawaii. It’s a long drive down a dry and windy road, and it ends at these cliffs jutting out into the ocean. There were some groups of people there who were taking turns jumping off the high cliffs into the bright blue ocean below.

I wasn’t in the mood to get wet or leave the camera behind, but Soli jumped at the chance to leap into the ocean (though his nervousness was quite apparent). I think it might have been the rusty and crumbling ladders that you climb to get back up…

The only real downside to this was that to get back up the cliff, it was best to avoid the rusty ladders, and instead, you would have to get washed into a tunnel in the cliff and climb out of this strange hole. Very creepy. In the end, because of this, I was fine with not having jumped.

We kept driving along until we hit Punalu’u Black Sand Beach, which was a beach I was definitely excited to see. The sky was grey, it was cool and damp, the afternoon was coming to a close. The weather matched the dark and somewhat gloomy beach perfectly. We were amazed at just how black this sand was.

And then that’s when we saw it – our first sea turtles! We had been on a constant search for these creatures. At every beach, we hunted around for sea turtles, and even though we had only been there for 4 days by now, we were getting discouraged. We saw one turtle sitting in a lava rock crevice, enjoying the water rushing over him. The, down the beach a bit, there were two more turtles spread out and relaxing in the sand.

The day was coming to an end, so we zipped back the Volcano National Park (every single time you pass through there, you get rained on) and reached the Hilo side. It was hard to believe we were on the same island – long gone where the dry, desert like conditions, the heat, the lack of vegetations. This was like a steamy, damp rainforest, full of lushness and it was not rare to have rain falling. We paused for some gas and sampled the Spam sushi, something we would never, ever sample again.

We arrived at our rainforest home, which was adorable. The entire side of the house was plexiglass – including the shower! It was like sleeping outside with all the tree frogs, who chirped incessantly all night long. They’re must have been millions of them out there. We went searching for them one night, and did find one or two buried deep in the bark of one of the trees.

We enjoyed a great dinner that night at one of the most expensive restaurants we ate at, in the town of Pahoa. At home, we fell asleep quickly. The next day – Volcano day!

With autumn now officially here, I thought I would greet the season with some appropriate baked goods. When I found this recipe for pumpkin bars, I thought they would be perfect.

However, I was mostly disappointed with them. I was expecting more flavour – something more interesting. I mean, these were good and there was nothing wrong with them, but there was nothing spectacularly right about them either. They are amazingly moist and have a perfect texture, and the pumpkin flavour really does stand out and goes well with the light orange flavour. They definitely have potential!

I wasn’t fond of the browned butter frosting – all in all, it was pretty much just an icing sugar-and-butter frosting, with no real taste other than sweetness. A cream cheese frosting would’ve made these bars 10x better – perhaps with some cinnamon. A chocolate ganache (either on top of cream cheese frosting, or as the only frosting) would’ve been fantastic. And finally, I would increase the amounts of spices in the recipe. Simply doing that would have really improved the bars.

So all is not lost! Even as they were, they went great as a simple breakfast treat or evening snack, and paired excellently with a cup of coffee. This is the recipe I used, but keep in mind that you may want to up the spice amounts and perhaps change the frosting.

Orange-Spice Pumpkin Bars with Browned Butter Frosting

BARS
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

FROSTING
1/3 cup butter (do not use margarine, as it won’t brown)
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 to 4 tablespoons milk

BARS
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease bottom and sides of a 15x10x1-inch pan (I used a 9x14x1 successfully) with shortening; lightly flour (or spray with a baking spray with flour).

2. In a large bowl, beat bar ingredients with electric mixer on low speed, scraping bowl occasionally, until moistened. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.

3. Bake 25 – 27 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely, about one hour.

FROSTING
1. in 2-quart saucepan, heat butter over medium heat, stirring constantly, until light golden brown. Remove from heat.

2. Stir in powdered sugar, vanilla, and enough milk until smooth and spreadable.

3. Immediately spread frosting over cooled bars. Refrigerate about 15 minutes or until set. If desired, garnish each bar with orange strip peel.

The next day on Big Island, Hawaii flew by. The place is so big, and there’s so much to see and do, we were always on the move to somewhere new. We had six night to spend on the island, so we had divided the time up to spend two nights near Puako, the next two nights in Captain Cook, and the last two nights near Hilo. So after our first two nights, we somewhat begrudgingly packed up our Jeep and headed out on the long drive to our next home, up high in the hills of Captain Cook.

Of course, we made many stops along the way. One of the first was the Mauna Lani Resort, where we hiked through some old lava fields and saw some pretty amazing lava tubes.

It was an easy walk, though hot…we were rewarded at the with a walk past a lagoon with fish splashing out every few seconds and then to the beach front, a quiet beach with some gorgeous views. We swam and enjoyed a lot of the morning in this area.

We continued driving through the fields of old lava surrounding us on both sides. No plants, no trees, just black, hot rock. Eventually we came to a small, rocky path leading off the highway, in the direction of the ocean. All along we had been taking these little detours, and finding some wonderful hidden beaches, so off we went. I can’t figure out what the name of this road was, or where we were going, but it was bumpy! We were tossed around the Jeep the entire, slow ride down. For miles and miles and miles on either side of us were dried lava fields, the rock under us crunching and popping as we drove through it. The heat was almost unbearable. We made stops to sit on the hot black rock and were pretty much in awe of this place. It pretty much looked like the end of the world.

Continuing on, we whipped through Kona quickly, knowing we would spend some time there the next day. After all that moving around all day, we stopped for our first plate lunch and loco moco experience. Both of these dishes are pretty unique and special to Hawaii. While Soli wasn’t particularly a fan, I enjoyed both meals…the loco moco is a hamburger steak on top of rice, covered with a fried egg or two, a salty brown gravy and a side of creamy macaroni salad. The plate lunch is almost the same…rice, macaroni salad, and your choice of one, two or three meats. We had some friend fish and teriyaki beef. I loved the starchiness of it all, the saltiness, the comfort-food feel, and I certainly wouldn’t have minded eating more meals like this.

The drive to the little room we had booked in Captain Cook was a long and fun one. We were going to be staying at an elevation of about 1000 feet, so as we left Kona and started driving up into the hills, it got cooler, and more like a rain forest. The road was right along the edge of the hill, making for some fantastic views. When we finally reached the place we would be staying, the day was ending. The home was almost at the top of the hill, looking down at a whole hillside of homes and gardens, right to the ocean. It was a gorgeous place, with an outdoor kitchen, surrounded by gardens, with a balcony that gave us spectacular views of the sunset and ocean and black sand beaches below.

And some of the amazing wildlife in the gardens surrounding the house:

I’m trying to keep these posts brief…but there’s just so many photos I’d love to share! Next up, our trip to Kona and the bank card mishap, a ukulele and the sea turtles!

Here is the first of many very photo-heavy posts about our summer vacation to Hawaii.

We were only supposed to spend two weeks there, one on Big Island, the biggest and youngest of the Hawaiian island, and one on Kauai, the oldest island. Well, once we got there, we decided almost right away to change our flight schedule and we spent an extra week on Kauai. After 17 hours of air travel, and after seeing how perfect and idyllic Hawaii is, it just doesn’t seem right to stay there for anything less than that.

BIG ISLAND, HAWAII
Days 1

The journey to Big Island was a long one! We flew from Montreal to Los Angeles, then from L.A. to Oahu, then from Oahu to Big Island. The flights in Hawaii were exciting enough to make me stop caring about my exhaustion – talk about some spectacular views! We finally ended up at our final destination in the early evening, and after an extensive kerfuffle at the car rental place, we were driving in the pitch black through old lava fields to Puako on the north-west of the island, where we would be spending our first two nights. We stopped along the way for our first bottles of Kona beer and got our first glimpses of coconut M&ms and what become a mild obsession, the sparkle-cards.

We woke up before the sun was up, partly due to jetlag, but mostly due to our excitement. Right across the quiet, flower-lined street we were staying at was the shoreline of Puako, so we got dressed and wandered out for our first feel of the ocean as the sun was rising.

The beach was not a sandy one, but once of volcanic rock. The waves weren’t enormous, but it certainly wasn’t anything we wanted to swim in. We walked up and down the shore, then headed back to shower and get going for the day, but not before taking photos of all the different flowers that were blooming absolutely everywhere!

After a filling and tasty breakfast prepared by our hosts (along with big mugfuls of some of the best Kona coffee ever), we took the Jeep out for our first day of exploring the island. Our goal was the check out the northern tip of the island, and some of the eastern side. We ended up stopping several dozen times along the way; it seemed like there was another beach to swim at about every mile.

Soli and looking over Hapuna Bay. This really shows how pale we were…it also really shows how excited we were at just a glimpse of the ocean.

We spent some time at Spencer Beach park. This was our first experience snorkeling in Hawaii, obviously, and Soli’s first real snorkeling experience ever. Compared to some of the other beaches we snorkeled at, this one wasn’t fantastic. But at the time, having nothing to compare it to, it was great. Got to see some fish, and what was thought to be an octopus…but it wasn’t. The water was warm, the morning hot.

As we were driving, we remembered a “hike” that had been recommended to us by someone we met on the airport shuttle bus, and headed towards http://www.hawaiiweb.com/hawaii/html/sites/lapakahi_state_historical_park.html>Lapakahi State Historical Park, which is the site of a ancient Hawaiian settlement. It was completely deserted and we wandered around for over an hour, checking out the old walls and buildings and resting under the palms next to the bright blue ocean.

We stopped for a quick lunch en route, and to pick up what became our pet pineapple, a small and extremely fragrant fruit that we ended up toting around every where, but never eating, as it just smelled too good.

Lunch included a pretty potent mai tai and a sampler plate with some kalua pork quesadillas that we wished we had about ten more of. We made some more stops along the way to our goal of the Pololu Valley lookout. There was an amazing valley that Soli ended up running through. We also stopped for some freshly picked tangerines that were in a box by the road, with only a box to put your $1 in.

Finally, we reached the Pololu Valley lookout. The view from up there was breath-taking, but seeing all that black sand waaaaay down, and the little dots of people instantly convinced us that we had to make the long and steep hike down into the valley and towards the beach. The way down wasn’t so bad, and we got there quicker than we thought. The waves were angry, and we barely ventured in up to our knees before running away and hiking into the valley a bit. The way back up was arduous (but again, compared to the hikes we went on in the weeks to come, this one was pretty easy), as we were hot, sweaty and barely breathing by the time we got back up.

We did some more driving around that day, heading into the town of Waimea via one of the scariest roads ever. It had these turns that would almost have you flying off these mountains. I wish we had photos that captured this road properly…

and picking up our first poke (raw, marinated fish or seafood), a kimchee crab (this became one of our favourite meals) one and some shoyu tuna. We devoured it back at our place in Puako, and almost instantly fell asleep.

Next, the wastelands of old lava fields, loco moco and Captain Cook!

The rumor going around is that the Neiman Marcus cookie is the best chocolate chip cookie in the world. Given that I really, really like chocolate chip cookies, and given that I have made about a dozen different recipes for them in my life, I figured I should give this one a try.

Am I ever happy that I did!

The variations between this cookie and any other cookie recipe are small, but those tiny changes make all the difference. The Neiman Marcus cookie is the perfect texture for all cookie lovers. You like them crispy? These have a crispy-ish edge, and a nice crust. You like them chewy? The centres are very chewy, dense and sweet. They have the perfect amount of salt, and a nice buttery overtone to them. The coffee powder (I used instant, as it’s hard to find espresso powder here) adds a whole other dimension, wonderfully balanced with the rest of the cookie.

I understand when people say the quality of chocolate used in cookies is important; I found some special dark chocolate chips and used those, and the end result was far superior to the normal chocolate chips I use. Next time, I’ll even step it up, using higher quality chocolate chunks in them.

They also seem like they would be quite versatile – I’d like to add some shredded coconut next time, and switch up the chocolates used. Perhaps M&Ms? Or white chocolate?

Watch the baking time though – mine only needed 15 minutes.

The Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie
adapted from Neiman Marcus
2 dozen cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder
1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream the butter with the sugars using an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy (approximately 30 seconds)

2. Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract for another 30 seconds.

3. In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture at low speed for about 15 seconds. Stir in the espresso coffee powder and chocolate chips.

4. Using a 1 ounce scoop or a 2 tablespoon measure, drop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Gently press down on the dough with the back of a spoon to spread out into a 2 inch circle. Bake for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned around the edges. Bake a little longer for a crispier cookie.