All posts tagged: Hawaii

Sewing my wedding dress

There is a superstition (which I am convinced was invented by the wedding dress manufacturers) that it is bad luck to make your wedding dress. Marriage-wise, my own observation would indicate that it is extremely good luck to make your own dress- all the women I know who did have had long and happy marriages. Perhaps the bad luck is in the making of the dress itself? I could see that. Making my dress was an unhappy and traumatic experience, and both my mother and mother-in-law suffered unfortunate incidences related to the making of their dresses (one of which involved brand new sewing shears, tripping over the toile, lots and lots of blood, a trip to the emergency room, and a permanent scar). Still, if that is the price you pay for a successful marriage, bring on the wedding dress making horror stories! My dress was a case of anything that could go wrong, did. Part of the problem was that in between bouts of dress making, I wrote a thesis, graduated from university, moved …

Ono kine grindz

Published by The Dreamstress

I don’t talk about it much on the blog, but I’m a huge foodie. It’s no surprise, my parents grow food (really, really good food), and my sister is a chef. It’s in the blood. We’re all foodies. My trip to Hawaii was kind of one huge food party. Most of it was healthy stuff from the farm. But not all of it. For one thing, there was the malasadas. Malasadas are Portuguese doughnuts. And sometimes they come stuffed with haupia, which is coconut pudding. And then there were all the desserts my sister (the chef) and I cooked. Mango kuchen: And passionfruit cheesecake: There were also slightly healthier things, like passionfruit pancakes: And poke. Poke is raw fish. And raw octopus. And wonderful. This is my poke tasting extravaganza: There was also the hamburger of wonderfulness, made of local (like 5 miles down the road), organic, grass fed beef, with tomato and avocado from my parents farm, and buns baked by the chef sister. And then there was the real healthy stuff, like this …

Friday Review: Kalele Books

Published by The Dreamstress

I hate chain bookstores. They are so sterile and generic and I feel completely overwhelmed and uninspired at the same time. And somehow all books look bad in chain bookstores. Also, the Borders in Wellington has a whole section called “Vampire Romance”. It’s bigger than their “Spirituality” section. I’m scared. But I adore used bookstores. They are interesting and quirky and every time you visit there are new things to explore. And with the really good ones you can become friends with the clerks and they save the best stuff for you when it comes in. So, on the odd chance that you should happen to visit the very small island of Molokai, I thought you should know that Kalele Bookstore and Divine Expressions is a really good used bookstore. Kalele Books carries an enchantingly random assortment of both new and used books, and some excellently chosen art. The bookstore is currently hosting three paintings done in red dirt, which sounds a little gimmicky, but is actually amazing in person. Who knew you could get …