Saturday, January 28, 2012

The trade winds are back. What this means is a clearing out of the vog (the volcanic debris blown in from the big island, which has an active volcano), a slightly cooling off in temperature and wind gusts up to 32 miles per hour. As I write this blog entry, I can here the wind howling around the condo buildings. If I didn't know better, I'd think there was a blizzard outside! But no, it's raining. The wooden slates on the windows rattle and the wind whistles through them. Kind of unsettling....

After breakfast, we walked to the beach. The downside of the trade winds is that when you sit on the beach, you end of getting blasted with sand when the wind gusts. Don't leave your mouth open too long, lol! We were able to do some whale watching while we were sitting there. The whales were about ten miles off shore, playing like children, in the water between Maui and Molaiki. They seem to alternate between swimming with one fin out of the water and swimming straight up head first out of the water, then a big splash as they go back under the water. What amazing creatures. I can only imagine their size. It was so cool, sitting there watching them, waiting to see where and if they would resurface.

Lunch was a Langostinos salad stuffed into little sweet peppers and served on a vinaigrette-dressed lettuce salad. It turned out better than I thought it might. I am using almost all new recipes, which is exciting although I have been accused (jokingly) of using my friend as a guinea pig. Otherwise, no complaints so far!

After lunch I baked up for tart shells for tonight's dessert using puff pastry and mixed up the marinade for tonight's steak. If I open the slats in the kitchen window, the kitchen doesn't get as hot as it usually does now that the trade winds are back. I read a little, then watched a movie on TV-"Polar Icestorm". What will they think of next?! After the movie it was time to start making dinner. I chopped the strawberries I used to top the tarts, whipped up the mascarpone cheese pastry cream for the Strawberry Mascarpone Tarts, cooked the potatoes for twice baked potatoes and readied the cherry tomatoes for Green Beans and Tomatoes with Carmelized Garlic. Everything was ready in about an hour and dinner was served! The marinade was a coffee-cinnamon base, quite unusual. Cinnamon is not a spice you would normally associate with beef. Part of the marinade was reserved for a dipping sauce (after adding sherry and sliced green onions) and while the marinade added a nice flavor to the meat, I was not so sure I liked the dipping sauce. I was glad I tried it though.

I talked with Jordan after dinner, then readied myself for bed. The wind is keeping me up, but I'll get used to it. Tomorrow will be filled with shopping for the week coming up as well as more cooking. We are invited over for dinner to John and Sandra's house tomorrow evening. John apparently does most of the cooking but is nervous cooking for a "chef". I told them not to worry-anytime someone cooks for me I am happy! Besides, John cooks a lot of Chinese food (learned while growing up) so it should be interesting.