Locavore Dinner at Alan Wong's

Back during my Eat Local Challenge, if I wanted to stay true to my diet of eating only locally grown ingredients, eating out was not an option. But on May 20, Alan Wong will be taking on the locavore challenge by cooking a locally-sourced dinner, all the way down to the seasonings. It's an impressive undertaking by a restaurant, one that probably only a chef as well-connected with island producers as Wong could pull off. (I imagine the town restaurant chefs would come a close, too, but would never give up their olive oil and parmesan cheese.)

One thing Wong has, though, that I didn't, is dairy products. Naked Cow Dairy, which won't officially open until the end of June, is supplying the butter and cheese for the dinner. Though I lament the loss of Oahu dairies, their extinction is giving rise to such innovators as Monique and Sabrina van der Stroom who are not only bringing dairies back to Oahu, but taking a hard look at why they disappeared in the first place. Story soon...

Above: a brown Jersey cow among the more common Holsteins at Naked Cow Dairy

Sugar and Spice Mother Daughter Tea

Most of my childhood eating experiences revolve around time with my grandmas, who would make an army of jiao zi on the kitchen table, or with my dad, forever experimenting with French and Chinese food, seafood and duck breasts in the kitchen. It was only occasionally that I would spend time alone with my mom, just eating (and not working on calculus or physics or whatever I was failing at the time). Sometimes she would make an afternoon snack of peeled tomatoes and sugar (funnily, the only other time I've had something remotely similar to this is in Alan Wong's restaurant kitchen), but some of my favorite memories were when we'd go to the Strawberry Tea Room in our neighborhood and order afternoon tea with cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, little cakes, and my favorite: bubble-and-squeak, if only for the name. It seems appropriate, then, to spend Mother's Day weekend enjoying afternoon tea. Though I suspect I'm now too old to join the "Sugar and Spice Mother Daughter Tea" at the Moana Surfrider, I can only imagine the memories that will be made over little finger sandwiches and scones and clotted cream.

Details: Sugar and Spice Mother Daughter Tea, Saturday, May 9, 2009 from 1-4pm at the Veranda at the Moana Surfrider. For reservations or information, call 921-4600 or visit www.moanasurfrider.com