Food & Wine
Lunching with One of Hawaii’s Real ‘Descendants’
By Julia Flynn Siler, first published in the Wall Street Journal‘s Speakeasy blog on 3/12/2012 Julia Flynn Siler and Her Royal Highness Princess Abigail Kawananakoa. A few days before heading to Honolulu on book tour for “Lost Kingdom,” I got a phone call from the assistant to Her Royal Highness Princess Abigail Kawananakoa, the woman…
Read MoreMy Conversion to Liking Breadfruit: “I’ve been ulu-cized!”
When I arrived at a garden near the town of Captain Cook, on the big island of Hawaii, to attend a Breadfruit Festival in late September, I was a skeptic. Beforehand, I’d talked to one of the world’s leading experts, the Breadfruit Institute’s Director, Diane Ragone PhD., who had told me she hadn’t cared for…
Read MoreMeeting the Alice Waters of Hawai‘i: Chef Alan Wong
“Be sure to eat on the flight” the oft-repeated joke goes, “because the airplane meal is likely to be the best you’ll have on your trip to Hawai‘i.” Honolulu magazine’s October cover story on Hawaiian regional cuisine traces that jibe about the Aloha State’s supposed lack of gourmet dining to Bon Appetit’s former editor-in-chief Barbara…
Read MoreHow Novelist Kaui Hart Hemmings landed a role opposite George Clooney in “The Descendants”
The statistics are daunting: less than two percent of all the books optioned for the screen ever enter production. Far fewer make it into theaters. My first book, The House of Mondavi was optioned twice, but never came close to becoming a movie. That’s why it’s been a vicarious thrill to watch Kaui Hart Hemmings’…
Read MoreKava in South Kona
I caught a glimpse of the sign out of the corner of my eye: “Ma’s Nic Nats & Kava Stop.” I made a quick U-turn on the Mamalahao Highway in South Kona and headed back, pulling across from a laundromat where children chased each other outside as their parents waited for clothes to dry. From…
Read MoreSearching for Kau Kau
I first came across the word “kaukau” in a note that the Hawaiian Princess Ka‘iulani wrote to Robert Louis Stevenson more than a century ago. The Scottish novelist and his family had arrived in Honolulu in the afternoon of January 24, 1889, and the beautiful princess dropped them a short note, inviting them to her family’s estate and adding that “Papa promises good Scotch kaukau….” Arnold Hiura’s new book, titled Kau Kau: Cuisine & Culture in the Hawaiian Islands, explains the origins of this word and a lot more.
Read MoreMo’ Bob Mon …
The elegant Mondavi arts center, above, is a dramatic addition to the rural landscape of Davis — and it will soon be joined by the Robert Mondavi Institute, depicted in an artists’ rendering below. Anyone driving east from San Francisco on Highway 80, the 10-lane transcontinental highway to Nevada and points east, can’t miss the…
Read MoreCopia chairman asks: “Can it survive?”
Sparse crowds at Copia have contributed to its financial challenges. (Photo from Sacbee.com – Owen Brewer / Sacramento Bee file, 2002) Despite my intention to take a summer sabbatical, an investigative story that appeared on the front page of last Sunday’s Sacramento Bee brought me back to my keyboard. The story raises some new questions…
Read MoreKing Lear and The House of Mondavi
Two kings: Ian Holm as Lear and Robert Mondavi. Photo of Holm from the University of London; photo of Mondavi by Mike Kepka/SFGate.com What can Shakespeare teach us about a troubled family business? That’s a question I’ll try to answer at a discussion hosted by a long-lasting and large book group in Burlingame, Calif., this…
Read MoreEdible Portland
David Schargel, in blue, offers “epicurean excursion” participants a sampling of Portland’s culinary prowess; below, a sampling of the single-source chocolates from Sweet Masterpiece, one of the excursion’s ports of call. (Photos by Aaron Rabideau) The last stop on my paperback tour for The House of Mondavi was Portland, Oregon, where I can truthfully, if…
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