This recent trip was my first time in Maui, and the first thing that became clear is that Maui is for locavores. Other than fish, which I assumed would be local, I didn’t imagine the island being so prolific with the livestock and vegetables, but Maui is great in that respect. Grass-fed beef cattle and chickens are raised “up-country” along with asparagus, Maui onions, avocadoes, sweet corn, and much more. They even have a goat cheese dairy on Maui, the cheese of which is featured on many menus. Let me assure you that the local products not only have the feel-good factor of being locally and sustainably produced, they have that all important taste-good factor as well. It goes without saying that the fish you get on Maui is fresh and delicious no matter what.

We were staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Kapalua, so most of the places we ate were in that area (west Maui). The Ritz-Carlton is an amazing property which we normally wouldn’t have splurged for, but we got a really good deal as part of an Orbitz package. (I mean a really good deal… the recession is hurting tourism, for sure.) If you can get a good deal there, I highly recommend it.

After a delayed flight, a traffic jam, and a much longer drive to Kapalua than expected… I was starving and cranky. Enter my savior.

Oh wait. Not that savior. (Although it’s comforting to know he’s “coming soon”- like the next summer blockbuster!) This one: ahi poke from The Fish Market.

The Fish Market is in an unassuming strip mall just northwest of Lahaina, on Lower Honoapallini Road. Their ahi poke is excellent- tell them how spicy you want it, and they’ll grab some fresh raw ahi cubes, Maui sweet onion slices, and scallions, then doctor up the mixture with soy sauce and sriracha. I could eat it every morning for breakfast. Did I say “could”? I meant “did”. It’s a small styrofoam cup of heaven. In my starving cranky state, it was one of the best things I had ever eaten. Revisiting in a non-cranky, non-starving, relaxed I’m-on-vacation-in-Hawaii state did not change my view.

Of course, you can’t just keep eating the same poke when you know there are so many pokes out there for you to try. A great place to experiment is Lahaina Farms, which is a Whole Foods-esque Hawaiian grocery store in Lahaina Town (in another strip mall, natch.) Lahaina Farms has a poke counter with 8 different pokes, and the guy will let you, nay, he will encourage you, to try a taste of each and every one before deciding. All of the pokes were fresh and delicious, and the mango black pepper was a standout.

My birthday occurred while we were there, and not being the type to leave things to chance, I had made myself a sunset hour birthday reservation at Merriman’s (great thing about the internet: you can look up the time of sunset in any location in the world, and plan your romantic dinner accordingly.) This was an outstanding meal and one I will definitely repeat on my next trip. Every ingredient on the menu was from Maui- barring a few cases where a few things were from other Hawaiian islands. The service could not have been better, and the food was absolutely delicious. I would highly recommend it. The view wasn’t too shabby either…

Of the sushi places we tried, we liked 2 the best: Kai in the Ritz-Carlton, and Sansei in the same area. Sansei was majorly talked up because it’s good, and because they have some half price thing late at night or at 5 PM, yada yada yada, but I gotta be honest with you- vacation is not the time for worrying about half price or eating dinner at 5. Vacation is for being awesome and doing whatever you feel like. I will say that I think Kai had better quality sushi, but Sansei was more fun. One thing Sansei had was a kick-a$$ Mai Tai- one of the best I’ve ever had. So I would recommend taking a seat at the bar and getting some Mai Tais and their best-known roll, the panko-crusted ahi roll. It’s the best-known for a reason. It’s hella good. Kai is in a beautiful setting above the ocean, and the fish was absolutely fresh and so tasty, especially the sake sashimi. They also had some interesting appetizers, like a scrumptious short rib gyoza.

One day we were really jetlagged and woke up around 5:30 AM. We took a harrowing coastal drive on a 1-lane road to the town of Wailuku for hot malasadas (Portuguese donuts) and coffee from Home Maid Bakery. They only have hot ones between 5-10 AM and 4-10 PM, and you’re definitely gonna want hot ones.

On our last day, we drove through upcountry on the way to the Haleakala Volcano National Park.We passed through several different landscapes on the way up the mountain, with stunning views of Maui all the way up. It was a gorgeous drive but very curvy- luckily we don’t get carsick!

After all the raw fish, we were craving something a little different. We found it in Makawao, a sweet little cowboy town with several art galleries and glassblowers along the main strip. At first blush, we weren’t too sure about the banging screen door and mismatched furniture at Pizza Fresh, but one bite of the pizza and our worries melted away. The owner uses only the freshest ingredients, locally grown when possible, and the crust was perfectly doughy and crispy. It was just what we needed to fuel our hike on martian landscapes of the volcano.

Our last stop before heading to the airport for a red-eye was Mama’s Fish House in Paia, a cute hippie-ish town near the Kahului airport. Mama’s was heartily recommended by a whole bunch of people we know, and not similar people either- folks who have very different ideas about what makes a good dining experience. It’s a little tricky to find, and it’s pretty pricey, but it’s a neat experience. My favorite thing about Mama’s was that for each fish dish listed on the menu, they literally call out the fisherman by name and note where exactly the fish was caught (e.g. “line-caught by John Smith off the Taka Atoll”). I have never seen that on a menu, and I like it!

It happened to be Mother’s Day and an elegantly dressed older woman came by each table to check in- it was Mama herself. This place is so popular and with such a well-defined (read: crazy Tiki Hawaiian) style that I have no doubt Mama has been approached many times about franchising the business. She hasn’t done it, there is only one Mama’s. It’s the real deal.

We enjoyed one last technicolor sunset from the beach at Mama’s before saying Aloha to Maui.

View Maui Eats on Off The (Meat)Hook in a larger map

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Hey, now, I might use a little lard if I’m making some tricky authentic Mexican recipe, or a pie crust (although I tend to favor Crisco for that) but regardless, I have never needed to buy it in more than 1-lb increments. I can’t imagine what you would need 25 lbs. for all at the same time. It has 105,000 calories all in that bucket. Assuming an appropriate calorie intake of 2000 calories a day, you could just eat a fistful out of that bucket once a day for 2 months and nothing else and get all of your calorie intake. GROSS.

He looks so happy! But there is a story behind all of this, of course. A story by a vegan.

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UPDATE: as a commenter noted this is not a real product, but a ThinkGeek.com April Fool’s joke. Real or fake, it’s still gag-worthy.

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Now I have made cake from a box before, but never the strawberry kind. As you can see from the photo on the box, the cake should turn out a rather putrid color of pink. I poured the dry mix into the bowl and was rather surprised when the mix was pure white, like powdered sugar. Hmmm.

Adding the wet ingredients yielded some anomalous red spots, like little sores breaking out in the batter. Iwww.

A little mixing and you get that Pepto-pink you’re looking for. WHICH TOTALLY BLEW MY MIND. How do you go from pure white mix to My Little Pony Pink? It’s MAGIC. Or maybe it’s chemicals. Magical chemicals.

I would classify the batter as sickeningly sweet with artificial overtones and a strong Starburst nose. It’s baking right now and it’s making me nauseous. It smells like Strawberry Shortcake puked all over my kitchen. In other words, the kids will go crazy for it.

A note: While I enjoy a box cake from time to time, one thing I will not accept is frosting in a can. I just think it tastes nasty and chemically. So I’ll be making this pink cake into a car shape (somehow) with some tasty frosting tomorrow.

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The UFOs are basically like an oversized, flat-ish dark chocolate chip with a strong mint flavor. If you don’t like mint and/or don’t have access to Trader Joe’s, you could stick something else in the middle. Off the top of my head, some things that might be tasty are the small Reese’s peanut butter cups, a handful of white chocolate chips or a white chocolate pistole, or caramel-filled Hershey’s kisses. Of course, if you’re not averse to a few extra steps, you could just make the original Macheesmo recipe with the ganache and what have you and have even fancier cookies. Regardless- the cookie recipe is a keeper for sure.

Here’s the link to the Macheesmo recipe. A big hit- thanks, Macheesmo!

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• single serving glass of wine with sardine-can top from the Muji flagship store

• my favorite- milk in a tube. huh? (ok so it’s condensed milk… but still.)
  

• wasabi-beef flavor chips. yuk.

• a kit to make sushi look like soccer balls, to entice your kid to eat it. you’d have to be a REALLY nice mom or dad to go through all that trouble.

• I have never seen curry like this in Vermont, myself.

• Kobe and Matsuzaka beef for sale at Takashimaya- about $200/lb, raw (they were really mad that I took a picture, but I’m not sure why.)

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• The “Turkey Lovers” newsletter
• The “Turkey Talk” podcast
• The Turkey to Stuffing Ratio Calculator (including the important question “do you want leftovers?”)
• El Sitio de Butterball en Español

And if all else fails, you can always call the Butterball Hotline at 1-800-BUTTERBALL for all of your basting, stuffing, roasting, crisping, doneness-related questions.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

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As pointed out in the comments on Natasha’s site, the dark brown guy’s position even makes him look afraid… hilarious. I’d go so far as to say the light brown guy is resigned to his fate, and the white guy is very Zen.

See and read more about Natasha’s project at Nova Culture.

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Oh wait. Picture a kid trying to get the candy out. Um… creepy and perverse. Not helpful that it’s called “spliquid.”

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Martha Stewart doesn’t usually do it for me, but my GOODNESS these are lovely ghost and witch hat petit-fours. They don’t look as hard or time-consuming as I expected for a MS recipe but they are still kind of a lot of work. But how cool are they? Basically the recipe tells you take a cake and cut it into circles, then pipe a big pointy hunk of frosting on it, then pour a glaze over it. So if you bought like a pound cake or a banana bread or something instead of making a cake yourself, it would be a lot easier.

Also on Martha Stewart, these cute creepy cupcakes! I especially like the mummy ones and they have the added bonus of seeming the easiest to make. Find instructions here – if you dare. That’s, if you dare to spend an entire day making cupcakes because this would take forever.

Of course, if you’re more into the gruesome stuff, you could always follow this Instructables project which shows you how to hollow out a creepy doll and serve guacamole in it.

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