Merrie Monarch Blog No. 2-Monday
Monday, March 31st, 2008Wanda Adams’ Merrie Monarch Blog, No. 2.
HILO, Hawai’i, Sunday afternoon through Monday early morning— “Aia e la i Hilo, /’O ka nani e … There, indeed, is Hilo, Is the beauty.”
And though the skies are low and gray, and there is no view of the mountain summits today, it is beautiful. A calm beauty. Would nahenahe be the right word? I don’t know enough Hawaiian to be sure if that’s right. But it’s gentle and lovely here on a Hilo Sunday, like a sweet Hawaiian song.
What a day I had on Saturday! I packed it with adventures because, when the Merrie Monarch Festival hula competition starts (Wednesday is Halau O Kekuhi’s annual free hoike, hula show; Thursday is Miss Aloha Hula competition), I’ll be so busy I’ll have no time for everything else I love to do in Hillo.
Like eat.
And shop. And walaau (talk or gossip) with people with whom I’ve now had enough time (this is my fifth MM) to start to call my friends, like clothing designer Sig Zane and Richard Ha the Hamakau Coast banana and tomato king, and a guy I just met but consider already a friend, Derek Kurisu of KTA Stores.
Plus, of couse, I gotta call back to Oahu and tell all my friends and family what I’ve been doing. Like… I’m in Hiiiiiiiloooooooo … and you’re not!
And eat. Did I say eat?
Ohmigosh, I got in at like, 9 a.m. Saturday, and went directly to Cafe 100 for have cutlet moco and met up with the winner of our Advertiser Travel section drawing, Na Wahi Heke, The Best Places in Hawaii, which runs next week; she gets a trip for two to a Neighbor Island. … but who would want to leave Hilo???
… Anyway, she just happens to be a daughter of the original Cafe 100 restaurant family, renowned for inventing the loco moco although it probably wasn’t actually them, though their restaurant did make the moco an institution and does serve an amazing variety of mocos. (This week, the special is salmon moco.)
Her name is Gloria Kobayashi (but the family name is Miiyashiro). She’s a school teacher and writer and historian who introduced me to a beautifully written book about Hilo history that she helped prepare along with elders in the Hilo Japanese community. It’s about a densely poulated neighborhood where many Japanese lived, where KTA stores originally started.
It was called Waiakea. And though technically it was the little right elbow of Hilo, it was key to the 20th-century develpment of many Hilo institutions.
You know what it is now? Liliuokalani Gardens, the lovely park at the edge of Hilo.
So, between bites of moco, I got all this Hilo history (and history of any kind is the thing I love second only to food to any kind). More on this in the print edition, when I can get it written.
Then, I drove up the hilll to meet the Merrie Monarch’s pageant queen, Leilani Kerr, and what a lovely person she is! She does, in fact, meet the criterion for this odd bit of only-in-Hawai’i pageantry: She doesn’t have to DO very much (except keep still for hours and hours), but she has just what they’re looking for — a beautiful carriage, a beauiful character and a beautiful soul.
We met at Starbucks (well, of course, where else does anyone meet these days?), across from Sears, not too far from Borders — see? Hilo is definitely in the 21st century.
We talked about how a person who has only lived in Hilo three years and — get this — has NEVER physically been to Merrie Monarch, can come to portray the wife of Kalakaua, the person for whom the festival is named (more of this story in our print edition).
Thursday night, she will walk that stage in her holoku with the train and she will embody the queen.
Okay, so den I w’en go talk-story wit’ Derek Kurisu, who is the face and voice of KTA, the most amazing grocery store chain in the Islands. Other local stores have things to recommend them, but KTA manages to be completely local while also carrying Greek yogurt and hummous, to sell the most wholesome whole-grain breads while also offering indulgent coconut cheesecake, to live up to a commitment to local products — milk, meat and more — while also bringing in anything you want.
When I come to Hilo, I don’t turn right from the airport, I turn left, up the hill and go to KTA and buy a cooler and all kine local stuff fo’ grind in my hotel room while I’m here.
First thing he says, it’s about 12:30 in the middle of the day. He says, “Did you eat?” I say, “No.” He says, ‘Kay den, we go eat. Whea you like go?’ ”
Okay, this is like a major almost-top guy in a good-size company and he stay talking like my cuz. And not only that, he stay talking talking to ME, Miss Haole Face But I’m From Here, Garanz, I No Lie. (Most locals just look at me and assume I’m from somewheah else.)
And we walk a few doors down because my girlfrien’ tole me was good, Hiro’s Place, just Puna side of the Big KTA, the one at Puanaiko where we was.
And I think it was when I ordered the dinaguaan (Filipino blood stew, which was broke-da-mout’) AND the Chinse eggplant with chicken that he actually accepted that I was in fact a local girl.
“Good girl! Smart girl,” he said (which is nice to hear at 56). But I noticed he said similar things to people all day long. This is a man who loves to find the positives in others and praise them to the skies.
That day, we talked and we ate (not too much but all good stuff), and we drove around Hilo. He introduced me to so many of KTA’s “partners” in business. These included people who sell to them, like the Two Ladies (Mochi) Kitchen, or who work with them (like Kawamoto Lunch Shop, which sometimes does catering for them — and which is an old-style okazu-ya that may be the single reason I will move to Hilo someday).
I’m supposed to go to dinner tonight and all I can think of is the leftover nori chicken (more on this later in my food columns in the print edition) from Kawamoto’s that’s sitting on the bureau of my hotel room.
Oh, gosh, I’ve been writing for hours and I haven’t even finished my day. After traveling around with Mr. Kurisu, I THEN checked into my hotel and ironed all my clothes (because that’s what women do when they check into a room, especially Portuguese women), and then I went to Hilo Bay Cafe with my dear friends, Randall and Clarysse Nunokawa (who just opened a tiny little wine shop caleld Grapes in Hilo a few doors down from Kawamoto Lunch shop).
At Hilo Bay Cafe, my dear friend Josh Ketner is still the chef and still producing food that causes me to make embarassing noises in public (good ones, like mmmmmmmm and ooooooooh). Try the specials. The Dish of the Day for me Saturday was an appetizer, Parmesan custard (technically a budino) with artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, sun-dried tomaotes and lavosh ($8). Num, num, num.
And, friends, that was just Saturday.
Sunday I went to church (New Hope Christian Fellowship in Upcountry Hilo, and how inspiring it was), picked up a big bento at Kawamoto’s, came back to my room, turned on mindless TV, ate awesome shoyu pork and CRASHED for hours of sleep beore writing this. And Monday, many of my friends and hula sources begin to arrive here. I’ll be attending hula rehearsals!
And I get paid to this?!
