Steak at the beachhouse, and faux kukui nut leis

Pretending it's June 21

Steakhouses don’t tend to be hotbeds of innovation, not because their chefs and owners lack creativity, but because, for the most part, their guests don’t want them to be innovative. When you go to a steakhouse, generally, you go to eat a steak. It should be delicious. The wine should be red and loud, because a steak can handle it. The chef should cook the steak properly and otherwise stay out of the way.
Since my job is to spot trends and to observe innovations, steakhouses are not usually useful places for me to go for work. Unless it's using some new cut of beef or serving it on Himalayan rock salt (like David Burke does) or getting unusually funky with the sides (BLT), there’s not a lot to learn, trendwise, from a steakhouse.
So I wondered why I had been booked to eat at the Beachhouse, the Moana Surfrider’s restaurant. I mean, I didn’t resent it. I like steak, I like eating on the beach in Waikiki, letting my mind empty itself of troubles while watching the sunset. That’s all right. But this is my job, after all. I must learn while I dine.
I did learn that I was wearing a faux kukui nut lei. Kukui is what Hawaiians call candle nuts — just like they call passion fruit lilikoi and have to say “mahalo” instead of thank you and “aloha” instead of hello or goodbye. They polish the nuts and string them together into leis. I got one a few years ago when I was on Mau‘i and staying at the Ka‘anapali Beach Hotel, as a guest of that island’s visitors bureau, so I thought something was amiss when I was handed one at the Royal Hawaiian and it didn’t weigh anything. Because kukui nuts have some heft.
I wasn’t sure it was okay for me to wear a lei. Did Hawaiians actually do it, or would I look like a touristy idiot?
I’d actually asked my taxi driver about it the night before on the way to dinner at Chef Mavro (yes, I have a rented car, and I already knew how to get there even without the GPS, but I planned on having wine with dinner, and it is bad form for food writers to get DUIs). He was a Vietnamese fellow who had been in Hawaii for a number of years. He said leis made of kukui nuts or seashells were sort of like neckties, to be worn by men as a way of dressing up.
Flower leis were for women, he said.
But in Mau‘i I had been greeted on my arrival with a nice-smelling tuberose lei.
“Welcome to Mau‘i. Please sign here to confirm that you have received your lei greeting,” said the woman who draped it around my neck, proffering her clipboard. It kind of dampened the effect, but I appreciated the gesture anyway.
I won’t say I was disappointed that I wasn’t adorned with a nice smelling lei when I arrived in O‘ahu, because that’s really looking a gift horse in the mouth, but, well, here I am mentioning it.
The Mau‘i bureau also rented me a Mustang convertible. It was a different economic time, I know, I’m just saying.
Anyway, I had my faux-kukui nut lei in my pocket in the taxi on the way to Chef Mavro. When the taxi driver said it was okay to wear, I put it on. I asked my dining companion, Mavro’s wife Donna, if it was okay to wear, and she confirmed that it was in fact a good accessory.
My server at the Beachhouse also said it was fine for me to wear it, but asked if perhaps those were faux kukui nuts.
I shrugged my shoulders. He reached out and touched them for less than a second and said, very politely, mind you, “Yeah, those are fake.”
And there was something interesting and trendy at Beachhouse: the wine list.
They’d just revamped it, clearly with the economy in mind, offering bottles to people who might want some wine with their steak but not if they were going to have to sell a kidney to pay for a bottle.
One way to do that is to stack the list with what people in the wine business call "fighting varietals,” wines that are just a step or two pricewise from jug wines and make up the bulk of the wine market. Often they’re brands big enough to advertise on television. You’ve heard of them all, and so has everyone else, and so they have a certain appeal for people who want wine without fussing about it. I think there should be more wines like that.
But instead the folks at Beachhouse stacked their list with relatively obscure wines that, because of their obscurity, aren’t in such high demand and so they can buy them cheaply. I asked them to pick a couple with the food I ate, so I had a 2007 Domaine la Bauvade Côtes du Rhône (a red one), with my Kona lobster bisque with crème fraîche and green onion crouton.
And with my Moyer Farms 20-ounce rib eye, I had a 2006 (red, obviously) Clos la Coutale from Cahors, in Southwestern France.
I also had a Mau‘i onion and hamakua mushroom sauté that wasn’t your typical steakhouse fair either.
I hadn’t expected that.

To view all the blog entries about my trip to O‘ahu, click here.

Beyond "Baby Fat"

Maury Povich is infamous for his obese babies episodes (a close second to paternity testing, of course) featuring children who are double…triple… even quadruple the weight that is recommended for their age and length. While I’ll admit to partaking in the Maury episodes in the past myself, the reality is scary. Some go as far as to call such cases that of child abuse. What do you think?

USA Today ran a recent article on this very topic: does extreme childhood obesity qualify as child abuse? Jerri Gray, a South Carolina resident, was arrested in June with charges of criminal neglect despite her claims of doing all that she could to help her son lose weight. Her son, Alexander, tipped the scale at 555 pounds at the age of 14 and this unfortunate story has made nation-wide headlines [1].

Those opposing the charges, take the stance that if and when Jerri Gray is found guilty, “you have set a precedent that opens Pandora’s box,” says Grant Varner. Fortunately and unfortunately, I guess…I have to agree. In recent years, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, New Mexico, Indiana, and California have toyed with the same predicament: what quantifies as a abuse when it comes to childhood obesity [1]?

Because the health implications of obesity many times don’t become chronic until adulthood, it makes it difficult to charge parents with child abuse, explains Linda Spears, Vice President of Policy and Public Affairs for the Child Welfare League of America. As for our South Carolina mother charged with criminal neglect, she could not comment as she has signed an agreement with a film documentary company for exclusive rights to her story [1]…what a winner of a mom, huh? If 555 pounds wasn’t evidence of abuse, benefiting from your son’s morbid obesity ought to be.

Some states are taking strides to reduce the rates and severity of childhood obesity, however. Twenty states (up from 4 states five years ago) have passed laws requiring schools to perform BMI screenings on children and adolescents. And while physical education is required in every state, the requirements “are often limited, not enforced, or do not meet adequate quality standards.” Not surprisingly, the CDC reports the number of obese children more than doubling in the past twenty years among children 10 to 17, and more than tripling among adolescents [1].

Rob Jones, a corporate wellness expert, advocates for charges being placed on parents rearing severely obese children. He explains that when parents give children drugs harmful to their health (illicit or not), they would be held responsible in court. Jones argues the same should hold true for food. Jones poses the question: is killing your children by way of food acceptable? Well, it’s not necessarily acceptable, but obesity does not necessarily put a child in immediate danger, either. Oh, the loopholes!

Keep yourself healthy and lead by example for your children. Introducing foods at a young age is key and participating in family meal times is integral to family togetherness and the maintenance of a healthy weight.

[1]. Barnett, Ron. S.C. Case Looks on Child Obesity as Child Abuse. But Is It? USA Today. July 22, 2009.

La Cense Beef Review

La Cense Beef is 100% grass fed on lush Montana fields. It is lower in fat and calories than conventional beef and is a healthy alternative for health lovers. A 6 ounce grass fed steak for example has approximately 100 fewer calories than a 6 ounce steak in which the animal was finished on grain.

La Cense Beef is also higher in Omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for enhancing heart health, as well as reducing the risk of arthritis, obesity, insulin resistance, allergies and autoimmune diseases. Conversely, La Cense Beef is lower in the Omega-6 fatty acids that may contribute to development of heart disease, cancers and depression.

La Cense grass fed beef is much higher in beta-carotene, with approximately twice the amount found in grain-fed beef. Beta-carotene is helpful in reducing the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

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Punk

Other of my passions is punk. EVERYTHING related with punk. I love punk music, punk fashion, punk thinking... sometimes I think that I should have live at London on the 70's decade.

Vivienne Westwood is one of my favourite designers EVER. I knew about her when I was 14 years old and I started to read about the Sex Pistols (my favourite punk band; yes, maybe you think that it's a topic but I have always love them). Her style catched me and stole my heart. She's always so great and original...

About music; yes, I love the Sex Pistols. And with the Sex pistols I mean John Lydon. I'm not one of those fanatic girls who sais that John Simon Ritchie (Sid vicious, you know him like that) was the best (I really believe that he was just a victim, anyway I'll write about him other day...)... I love that guy who was always screaming about politics and the disenchanted of the society. I must say that I love Public Image Ltd, the band that he formed after Sex Pistols; it was very original.

The Clash, The Jam, Social Distortion, The Adicts, Die Toten Hosen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sham 69, The Exploited, Misfits, Buzzcocks, Ramones, The Damned, Blondie (in her punk beginning), Dead Kennedys, Gang of Four, Generation X, Strangles, Vibrators, Ultravox... I've grown with all this music; and the fact is that no-one showed me, I discovered by myself; which sometimes is strange, because normally you listen to some kind of music from your parents, friends, brothers or sisters... but not in this case! One day i saw the Never Mind the Bollocks and just said... "for me"!

About the thinking, i must say that the real punk way of life is a little bit impossible today, but at the 70's it was a mood, a state of mind created by the disenchanted society in the UK. Yes, I know that the punk movement started at the NY City, but in that case it was music; it doesn't contains any politic ideas or critiques towards the society; they were a group of young people having fun... but in the UK it was much more; they were angry... really angry... and so I am sometimes these days!
My destiny was punk...!

.. but I'll talk about the skins & punk another day... (yes, the 60's skins is my other big influence!)

***

Otra de mis grandes pasiones en esta vida es el Punk. TODO lo relacionado con el punk: música, moda, pensamiento, ideología... a veces creo que debería de haber vivido en el Londres de los años 70, con toda aquella explosión creativa que el punk significó.

Vivienne Westwood es una de mis diseñadoras favoritas. La descubrí a raíz de leer sobre ella con 14 años, gracias a una biografía de los Sex Pistols (mi banda favorita de punk; sí, a lo mejor es un típico-tópico, pero los adoro desde siempre). vivienne ha sido siempre rompedora y original; y éso es algo que me encanta de ella...

... y adoro esa campaña de accesorios con Luke Worrell!


En cuanto a la música, sí; amo a los Sex Pistols; y cuando digo Sex Pistols me refiero a John Lydon. No soy una de esas fanáticas que afirman que John Simon Ritchie (aka Sid vicious) era el mejor de todos ellos (al contrario, siempre he creído que era una víctima, pero ya escribiré sobre ello). Yo siempre he preferido a aquel chico que gritaba sobre política y el desencanto de la sociedad. Por cierto, también me encant ala banda que formó tras los Pistols, Public Image Ltd.



En serio, me hubiera casado con él... XD

The Clash, The Jam, Social Distortion, The Adicts, Die Toten Hosen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sham 69, The Exploited, Misfits, Buzzcocks, Ramones, The Damned, Blondie (en sus comienzos punk, aunque también me gusta su rollo disco), Dead Kennedys, Gang of Four, Generation X, Strangles, Vibrators, Ultravox... He crecido con esta música, y es curioso que nadie me la enseñó, sino que la descubrí por mí misma. Normalmente tomamos este tipo de música de nuestros padres, amigos, hermanos o hermanas... pero para mí no fue así. simplemente un día vi el never Mind the Bollocks y dije... "para mí".

Sobre el pensamiento, dcir sencillamente que el verdadero pensamiento y forma de vida punk es algo imposible hoy día; pero en los 70 era un modo, un estado de la mente; todo creado por el desencanto de la sociedad en Reino Unido. Sí, el punk surge como movimiento musical antes, en Nueva York; pero es en Reino Unido donde surge toda su filosofía debido al malestar social que había en los 70. El punk neoyorkino no contiene las críticas hacia la política o las ideas que el inglés contiene, éso no puede discutirlo nadie... en Reino Unido estaban enfadados... muy enfadados... tanto como yo me siento a veces hoy día...

Mi destino era el punk!




... y de ahí, el skin, pero el de los 60; del cual os hablaré otro día (aunque sí, soy demasiado punk para volverme una rude girl XD)

1st day of holiday

1st day of holiday! yes yes yes. finally. cettt... kuciwa jgk sebenarnye.
bebdk ipt lain semua da sem baru larh! org baru nak cuti plak...
skrng bebdk dr ovesea je ade bercuti jgk. tp majoriti jejauh meyh. uhuuu.
ape blh dkatekan ttg last paper audio, editing, mixing last wednesday?
ermmm... sshhhh amatttt sgtttt. serious. sampai terpk, camne kalo repeat?
n buat sesape yg leh score cara halal tu baguslah. good 4 u.
sape yg score care x halal tuh... pk2 la nnt. haih~ [berapiiii ...]

erm. semlm habis exam, lunch d mc d. mc value lunch weyh!!! jimat~ hee.
then, blk ptg, terusss main game sampai mlm. yer. sampai mlm.
tgk lola + kebun2 puas2 + sampai skt pinggang. ahah... erm. n semlm bnyk msg.
mlm da lain mcm je rase. leteyh semcm + bnyk bersin2... then.
da naik atas katil, but both maxis hp ditekan bergilir - gilir. reply msg.
i'm helping them. the girl, and the guy that i do really care.
act, those matter do affects me. think bout it almost all the time.
whatever it is b & a, think wisely, life goes on + plz b strong.
i do really care 4 both of u~! and hello~~~ i'm here. always~! =]

then 2day, i woke up erm...not so early-not so late. mandi2, siap2.
then bout 11am, gerak ambik salghee & again, we went to KLIA.
die nak blk tawau, sabah. so hantarkan... then. nak boarding n check in.
1st time weyh check in sendiri naik mas. kalo air asia biasela. cuz.
slalu dgn fmly je naik mas, so senanglah. then, td... cam terkial2 jgk la.
tp sume officer mas d counter, sume friendly2 lak. handsome2 lak tuh. hahaha
yer...salghee tegur sy blushing~ wahahah. obvious sgt gamaknye.
then settle down everything, masok sume kedai d airport. ahah... tahan je la.
tahan tgk chocssss + perfumessss + sumeee bnde pon cam best.
then bout 230pm, sampai umah. sleepy, amat. but x blh tdow. idk.

well... ramai jgk org da start tnye. nak buat ape cuti nih? erm.
cutiku x selame cuti kalian...dlm 3-4 weeks je. kot. soooo... nothing much.

1. dgr lagu the fray + pink sampai jd apam... wahaha. semlm da try transfer sume lagu the fray n pink latest album dlm hp, 1st time plak memory card hp tuh nak full.
   
2. nak habiskan sumeee english novel yg da beli berkepam tuh. haih~ remember buku six suspects yg khairi kasi bln march? plastic pon x bukak lg weyh!
   
3. jmpeee lola + farm ville + barn buddy + sorority life. tp seriously, kene kurangkan addiction tuh. sbb asal duk umah je, jd mls nak buat bnde lain. parah tuh~!
4. bln baik skrng nih... hurm. so. aqilah. cubeee la cuci hati + cuci diri + muhasabah diri benyk skittt. tahlah...kdg2 sedar buat salah, buat dose, but still... haih~
5. since those few weeks cam sgt bz, so bilik cam sgt dusty. kene pakai topeng & buang sumeee habuk!!! kalo tak pakai topeng, mule la bersin je cam goofy da~
6. and. tmbhkan ilmu... kekurangan pengetahuan am da rase. hua3...
7. nak hang out with those yg masih ade + free
8. nak blk srwk! nak nak nak!!!!!!! rnduuu gileeeeee... urghhh. nak jmpe 7 kittens tuh. x jmpe lg since die org d lahirkan. lgpon gg sakit... ={
9. erm. tgklah camne... buatlah ape yg patot. ahah~

btw. hari tuh kan awal bln bnyk gle shopping on9 kan? sampai duit da x de.
so, 3 weeks after kene la jimat habis2 sbb ade skit je tinggal. i've bout 150. for 3 weeks.
imagine... hari tuh. dlm sehari org habiskan more than 150 camtuh je.
tp, org da berjaye jgk survive dgn 150 dlm 3 minggu nih! hahahahaha...
bangga habis weyh dgn diri sdiri! XD

and erm... nak bgtaw. bad habit jgk nih. baru jgkla. dlu x camnih...
tp, da lame kot camnih. da almost a year kot...
sy bkn jenis 24 hours dgn hp da. esp bile dkt umah / luar umah.
cammm... kalau dkt umah mmg slalu sgt3 sy silent hp, n letak merate.
so, mmg slalu la kan call x diangkt / sms x di reply. minta maaf awal2...
dulu. yer duluuuuu... sy mmg jenis 24j dgn hp. tp x da. kalo ade pon...
dgr lagu. seriously. no sy x kenal? lg haram la sy nak angkt call kan.
MALAS! harap maklum... so kalo sape2 gune no baru ke, sile bgtaw. haha.
kalo x...mmg sampai ble pon x dilayan. tp kdg2 angkt jgk. sbb takot ade emergency.
sorry btw 4 this, erm, bad attitude should i say. sorry again.

esok? erm. full suda rasenye. kot~ ahah...sabtu mama ajak g jln tar.
cam best. lame x gi. harap2 dpt la kawal nafsu shopping. amin~~~

btw. no1 fav song from faith hill - there u'll be
[the famous song from pearl harbor]

When I think back On these times
And the dreams We left behind
I'll be glad 'cause I was blessed to get
To have you in my life
When I look back On these days
I'll look and see your face
You were right there for me

[Chorus:]
In my dreams I'll always see you soar Above the sky
In my heart There will always be a place
For you for all my life
I'll keep a part Of you with me
And everywhere I am There you'll be
And everywhere I am There you'll be

Well you showed me How it feels
To feel the sky Within my reach
And I always Will remember all
The strength you Gave to me
Your love made me Make it through
Oh, I owe so much to you
You were right there for me

'Cause I always saw in you My light, my strength
And I want to thank you Now for all the ways
You were right there for me
You were right there for me
For always