Mango Mascarpone Tart

The problem with recipes is, I can never follow them, even if they're my own. You know the phrase "you never step in the same river twice"? That's what it's like eating and cooking in my kitchen...you never eat the same dish twice. Most of the time I don't mind...it's fun cooking with what you have, substituting on the fly, but when it turns out stellar, I'm unable to recreate it because I don't remember what I've done.

In the throes of mango season, and inspired by the mango recipe contest at the Moana, I set about making a mango mascarpone tart. But while I'm providing a recipe below, it's merely a launching point because honestly, I probably wouldn't make it the same way again. For one, it's an incredibly expensive recipe, with the mascarpone and Sauternes, and it's really not worth it when the mangoes are stellar in themselves. Also, the filling is a little bit loose with the added yogurt. So ideas for next time: skip the mascarpone and whisk the yogurt with egg and bake into the tart, and then top with mangoes; omit the Sauternes and macerate the mangoes in lime and ginger syrup.

Mango Mascarpone Tart

Sweet Tart Dough (from Alice Waters' Art of Simple Food)

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cups flour

Cream together the butter, sugar, and salt. Add egg yolk and mix until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add flour and mix just until incorporated. Chill for 4 hours or overnight. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out and press into an 8-inch tart pan with removable bottom. Chill tart shell in freezer for 15 minutes. Line tart shell with foil and fill with pie weights. Bake 20 minutes, then remove weights and bake another 20 minutes, or until shell is deep golden. Cool completely in pan before filling.

Filling

2 mangoes, peeled and diced (reserve mango pit with attached flesh)
1/2 cup Sauternes
8 ounces mascarpone
1 cup yogurt
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/2 teaspoon grated lime zest
Chiffonade of mint, for garnish

Squeeze flesh around mango pit to extract the juice and add Sauternes in a bowl. Add mangoes and macerate for 1/2 hour. Strain in a sieve set over a small saucepan, reserving mangoes. Reduce liquid until syrupy, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together mascarpone, yogurt, sugar, lime juice and lime zest. Pour into cooled tart shell. Top with mangoes. Drizzle syrup all over tart and garnish with mint.

Hawaii State Farm Fair

I've been to county fairs as a kid, but never had as much fun as I did this past weekend. Just goes to show grown-ups (if I can call myself that...that's me on the right shoving watermelon in my face) can have just as much fun as kids. I didn't win the contest, but at least I didn't throw it all up like the guy next to me. That's him, just as he's about to blow.

Then, judging the cook-off between the firefighters and Councilman Dela Cruz. The firefighters, calm, serious and composed. The day before, in a face-off with Mufi, they won with a fried rice topped with a red hot dog cut to look like an octopus. 

Dela Cruz, more light-hearted, using every last second. 

Dela Cruz's fried rice slippah, plus extra Big Island portuguese sausage. Because we can always use a little extra!

The fire fighters' pineapple, mac nut fried rice. I have to confess, though I try to fight the kitsch, I have a weakness for hollowed-out pineapples and cocktail umbrellas. The firefighters won by just a hair, or perhaps I should say, by a grain of rice.

One of the judges offered this advice for cooking competitions: use extra sugar because it makes the flavors explode. Not so much for regular cooking because it would make you sick, but for competitions when judges take only a few bites, he says it's a guaranteed winner. Personally, I prefer spices and textures over sugar.


An egg scale. What looks like an antique just for display is actually Peterson Farm's actual egg scale. Sharon Peterson Cheape, manager of the egg farm, wasn't kidding when she said a lot of their equipment was as old as her grandparents.

During the livestock auction, I got swept up in the moment and desperately wanted a hog. Ben set up a spreadsheet as I fed him hog weights and bid prices, calculating price per pound of actual usable weight from the live weight. Usually the voice of reason, suddenly, he had no limits. We lost out by 10 cents. When we came to our senses we realized we had come too close to writing a $1100 check in exchange for a 200 pound hog. The star of the night was a red Duroc hog, bid up to $13/lb for a 250-lb hog by Roy's Restaurants.

If not a hog, then maybe a chick? Not this time...

In the midst of all the fun, the difference between going to a farm fair as a kid and as an adult is having a keen awareness of the sponsors and their presence at the fair. As a kid, it's just about rides, cotton candy and corn-on-the-cob; as an adult, it's contemplating the state of Hawaii agriculture, in which growing food for our island loses out to Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta fields. There's also the irony of Aloha Air Cargo's banner at a farm fair that promotes eating locally: "If it's grown, it should be flown." No doubt, to neighbor islands in addition to mainland, but the slogan has the sensitivity of Chevy's marketing of "Nova" in Mexico (i.e. "no va" or "doesn't run" in Spanish) 

Angel of Agriculture

A few weekends ago, I spent the morning with Dan Nakasone for the North Shore Cattle Co story. We kept loading activities in, so our schedule became packed with breakfast at Haleiwa Farmers' Market (giant burrito for Dan and his wife Linda and two cups of shave ice for me and Ben...we couldn't resist trying all of Waialua Sugar Mill's homemade shave ice syrups), tour of North Shore Cattle Co, and Kahuku Farms' new vanilla venture, all before a tomato patch luncheon at Jeanne Vana's North Shore Farms.

At Haleiwa market, Dan is no less than a celebrity. Sabrina St. Martin of Naked Cow Dairy calls him an "angel of agriculture", a phrase I'm to hear again later on other farm visits and interviews, and Laurie Carlson, publisher of the Honolulu Weekly, calls him a fixer, the ag equivalent of a local guide who helps foreign journalists in providing local connections, translation and transportation. Just recently, he was guiding Conde Nast Traveller journalists through the Hawaii local ag landscape. But his expertise isn't exclusive to "foreign" journalists; he's also responsible for sourcing much of the local products used in Alan Wong's restaurants. 


At Haleiwa market, I see Mohala Farms' beautiful produce that I had seen in the fields just a few days prior.


And Twin Bridge Farms' stand, there's the asparagus, of course. Milton Agader stands behind his produce, like a proud parent, guiding me to the purple bell peppers, potatoes (I'm still absurdly excited when I see local potatoes) and four different varieties of hot peppers.


Then to North Shore Cattle Co...we feel especially privileged to be up here, and Kay Lum takes time to talk to us right before she jets off to the Phillipines with family. I never met Doc Lum, and as cliched as it sounds, his presence is still felt on the ranch--in the cattle, in the family that work there. The resulting story is inadequate in capturing the scope of his life.


This is the second ranch I've been to in Hawaii, and it confirms my belief that during the cattle's life on pasture, their lives are worthy of envy for this writer: beautiful views and endless hours to ruminate. The grass during the summer is a little drier than the ranchers would like. Hence the constant refrain: "Pray for rain!"


Then to Kahuku Farm's vanilla project in Haleiwa. They just finished hand-pollinating the flowers, and we're too late to see any of the vanilla orchids, but if we bring our noses close to the green pods, we smell the hint of what's to come. Harvest is projected to be in January, and it's then, via the curing the process, that vanilla begins to develop its prized fragrance.


Dan leaves us at Jeanne Vana's tomato patch, for a Slow Food lunch. I wish had pictures of the spread and of our tables between the tomato fields, but by then I'm simply ravenous for the good food and good company in the warm North Shore sun and I ditch the camera.