Staring down at the roasted pig’s head adorning a kiosk at the Mealani’s Taste of the Hawaiian Range and Agricultural Festival at the Hilton Waikoloa on the Island of Hawaii, I had no idea the wild bore I had just happily sampled would mark the start of a weekend I can only describe as the ultimate foodie fantasy. After flying in from Seattle, we checked into our room at the neighboring Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort with just enough time to shower and change before heading to the Taste event. The rush was worth it. The event showcases everything that’s great about the local Hawaiian food/agriculture scene, including luscious organic produce and top chefs who bring the best out of locally raised (or wild) pig, beef and lamb. The event has a nose-to-tail philosophy which, depending on the luck of the draw, sees chefs creating delicacies from not only the most popular cuts of meat, but also the least appetizing including tripe and the now infamous mountain oyster, aka bull calf testicles. Each year participating local chefs draw to see which meat they’ll prepare for Taste about a month prior to the event in order to come up with a concept designed to wow the large crowd of foodies who attend annually. This year the mountain oyster challenge was presented to chef Jayson Kanekoa and his chef de cuisine Raylynn Kanehailua from the Waikoloa Beach Marriott, who came up with a kind of bull testicle tamale, which I wasn’t brave enough to try — but fed to my more adventurous partner who gave it a big thumbs up. I did indulge in a taste of heart sausage created by the chefs from Roy’s Waikoloa and it opened my eyes as to how the less-noble cuts of meat can be transformed into something delicious. The next morning I was scheduled to take part in the Chef Shuttle tour offered as part of a package at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott and was surprised to see my personal guide for the day was Chef Jayson Kanekoa of mountain oyster fame whom I’d spoken to briefly the night before. Chef Jayson and I embarked on our foodie travels at 7 am and headed for two farmers markets in Waimea. On the way, we stopped for breakfast at a local institution called Hawaiian Style Café, where particularly large Hawaiian men cooked up pancakes the size of hubcaps and where you can order the Internet Loco Moco featuring Spam, Spam and more Spam. (My partner and I ended up driving to Waimea twice more to the café for breakfast in the all too-short week we spent on Hawaii.) Fortified with breakfast, Chef Jayson and I headed for the Hawaiian Homesteaders Farmers Market and Town Market where together we sourced out ingredients for what would later become dinner for a group of us back at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott. Market-goers and vendors alike greeted Chef Jayson with alohas, handshakes and hugs. Maybe it was being in the company of a celebrity chef, but I found the vendors exceptionally friendly and knowledgeable about the organic produce, fish, meat, flowers, treats and coffee they were selling. I met a coffee grower who had a photo album on display detailing the history of his family’s plantation from its start two decades earlier, as well as Mike Hodson, a retired vice cop who now owns and operates one of the most successful organic farms on the island, Wow Farm. Hodson told me that after surviving two decades on the force, there was no way he was going die from spraying chemicals on his tomatoes. The end result? Juicy, delicious, pesticide-free tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes. By the end of our tours of the farmers markets, Chef Jayson and I had chosen the main ingredients for a four-course meal I will never forget. Our dinner, a deliciously divine example of the farm-to-table philosophy driving the agricultural tourism industry in Hawaii, began with seared ahi tuna accompanied by roasted garlic, Kamuela tomato gazpacho, followed by some of those Wow tomatoes served with the macadamia nut, basil-infused goat cheese I had earlier chosen at the farmers market. Our entrée was a veal chop with poha berry jam, local mushrooms and purple sweet potatoes from the neighboring island of Molokai. Dessert was coffee crème brulee with a cup of brew hand-pressed at our table — both made from beans purchased earlier from that same grower. Even more delightful was the line printed at the bottom of our menu, “Prepared for Ms. Sandra Thomas…” This personalized touch is part of the Chef Shuttle package. Completing our foodie fantasy weekend was Sunday night’s Sunset Luau at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott during which we indulged in Kalua pig, which had slow roasted in an underground oven all day, Lau Lau chicken and numerous mai tais. Sure there was talented fire knife dancers, beautiful hula dancers and traditional Hawaiian music, but on this foodie weekend, it was all about that sumptuous buffet. And here’s a brief look at Chef Jayson during one of his Chef Shuttle Tours: More: Sandra Thomas: PHOTOS: A Taste Of The Islands At A Hawaiian Food Festival
Posts Tagged ‘ mountain ’
Renée Zellweger Lists Connecticut Country Crib
SELLER: Renée Zellweger LOCATION: Pomfret, CT PRICE: $1,500,000 SIZE: 3,400 square feet (approximately, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While snacking on some dry toast backed up with a stiff, mid-day gin & tonic pick-me-up Your Mama received an unexpected press release that announces Oscar-winning actress Renée Zellweger has listed her rural retreat in puny and purdy Pomfret, CT on the market with an asking price of $1,500,000. Miz Zellweger has been a bright light in Tinseltown for quite some time and is best known perhaps for her roles in Cold Mountain, Jerry Maguire, Chicago, Nurse Betty and the Bridget Jones’s Diary franchise and for her long list of high-profile man-friends and who include Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Jack White, Kenny Chesney–to whom she was married for about 8 minutes–Luke Perry, John Krasinski, André Balazs, Dan Abrams and, for about 2 years until their March 2011 bust up, Bradley Cooper who People magazine named as “The Sexiest Man Alive” for 2011. Anyhoo, property records show the sinewy and squinty-eyed movie star procured her pastoral Pomfret property in November 2004 for $1,320,000. The press release we received reveals Miz Zellweger acquired the 39 acre farmlette, located in the northeastern corner of Connecticut about 3.5 hours by car from Midtown Manhattan, as a “vacation retreat.” She renovated, updated and upgraded the property’s primary structures, which include a vintage main house, separate guest house, and fully detached recreation barn while retaining respect and admiration for the age and integrity of the antique structures. The actress also spent handsomely on extensive landscaping improvement that include various gardens, terraces and dry-stone walls that look as if they pre-date the late-18th century spread. The main house, a quirky and humble but dignified Federal-style Colonial built around 1770, measures around 3,400 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms that include a commodious (if casual) master suite with vaulted ceiling with heavy, exposed rough-hewn beams, private en suite facility on a dressing area with, as per press release, “an extensive suite of closets.” Visibly aged and pleasantly worn wide plank wood floors–either original or reclaimed–spread throughout the main lounging and entertaining areas that spoke off around the center stair hall and include a cozy formal living room with fireplace and an army of 9-over-9 pane sash windows, a formal dining room with fireplace and antique crystal chandelier, and a ebony-paneled library also with fireplace plus floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases. A fourth fireplace–this one with brick fireplace original built-in bread oven–warms the family room/media room and the well-equipped (and surprisingly over-sized) and natural light bright kitchen has custom white-painted cabinetry, butcher-block counter tops, high-grade commercial-style appliances, a massive center island lorded over by a heavy-duty pot rack laden with a cacophony of pots and pans that could easy ensnare a bouffant hair do and/or mentally incapacitate an elderly person if it were to fall unexpectedly from the white-painted wood-paneled ceiling. A sunny sun porch with pitched ceiling and original (or antique reclaimed) wide-plank wood floors looks out past the mature tree branches, through a mossy split-rail fence, down a gentle planted slope to a tree- and lawn-ringed amorphous swimming pool with wide flagstone coping. A separate guest house has a living room, bedroom, kitchenette and full bath while an antique barn located across the large gravel motor court from the main house has been re-purposed into an airy entertainment pavilion with soaring exposed wood vaulted ceiling, hardwood floors, a old-timey (but probably new-fanged) wood stove and hefty, rough-hewn posts that anchor the massive antique timbers that cross the interior of the capacious space. The high-profile but low-key Miz Zellweger has owned a number of other prominent properties that include a secluded ranch-style residence in the Hollywood Hills she bought in March 2000 for $1,875,000 from The Wallflowers front man Jakob Dylan and sold a few years later when she snatched up a 6,410 square foot mansion in a plum section of Los Angeles’ hoity toity Bel Air ‘hood that she owned only briefly and sold in July 2003 for $7,000,000 to Will & Grace alum Debra Messing. Most recently she sold a pair of rambling apartments–or a trio of contiguous units, depending on how one counts, that comprise about 5,000 square feet in a grand Beaux Arts townhouse building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for a combined $7,950,000. As far as we know Miz Zellweger still owns a charming farmhouse in East Hampton, NY she acquired in April 2003 for $2,150,000. In early 2010 there were scads of rumors and reports Miz Zellweger and her then man-beau Bradley Cooper picked up a contemporary house in the Rustic Canyon area of Pacific Palisades but to be honest children, we don’t know anything about this house at this point…meaning it’s not clear if it was purchased by Miz Zellweger, Mister Cooper or if they bought it together, which we sort of doubt. We have no inside intel about whether or not Miz Zellweger plans to continue to lighten her real estate load or if she’ll hang on to her house in the Hamptons. listing photos: Coldwell Banker Previews International Read the original: Renée Zellweger Lists Connecticut Country Crib
Sandra Thomas: PHOTOS: A Taste Of The Islands At A Hawaiian Food Festival
Staring down at the roasted pig’s head adorning a kiosk at the Mealani’s Taste of the Hawaiian Range and Agricultural Festival at the Hilton Waikoloa on the Island of Hawaii, I had no idea the wild bore I had just happily sampled would mark the start of a weekend I can only describe as the ultimate foodie fantasy. After flying in from Seattle, we checked into our room at the neighboring Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort with just enough time to shower and change before heading to the Taste event. The rush was worth it. The event showcases everything that’s great about the local Hawaiian food/agriculture scene, including luscious organic produce and top chefs who bring the best out of locally raised (or wild) pig, beef and lamb. The event has a nose-to-tail philosophy which, depending on the luck of the draw, sees chefs creating delicacies from not only the most popular cuts of meat, but also the least appetizing including tripe and the now infamous mountain oyster, aka bull calf testicles. Each year participating local chefs draw to see which meat they’ll prepare for Taste about a month prior to the event in order to come up with a concept designed to wow the large crowd of foodies who attend annually. This year the mountain oyster challenge was presented to chef Jayson Kanekoa and his chef de cuisine Raylynn Kanehailua from the Waikoloa Beach Marriott, who came up with a kind of bull testicle tamale, which I wasn’t brave enough to try — but fed to my more adventurous partner who gave it a big thumbs up. I did indulge in a taste of heart sausage created by the chefs from Roy’s Waikoloa and it opened my eyes as to how the less-noble cuts of meat can be transformed into something delicious. The next morning I was scheduled to take part in the Chef Shuttle tour offered as part of a package at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott and was surprised to see my personal guide for the day was Chef Jayson Kanekoa of mountain oyster fame whom I’d spoken to briefly the night before. Chef Jayson and I embarked on our foodie travels at 7 am and headed for two farmers markets in Waimea. On the way, we stopped for breakfast at a local institution called Hawaiian Style Café, where particularly large Hawaiian men cooked up pancakes the size of hubcaps and where you can order the Internet Loco Moco featuring Spam, Spam and more Spam. (My partner and I ended up driving to Waimea twice more to the café for breakfast in the all too-short week we spent on Hawaii.) Fortified with breakfast, Chef Jayson and I headed for the Hawaiian Homesteaders Farmers Market and Town Market where together we sourced out ingredients for what would later become dinner for a group of us back at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott. Market-goers and vendors alike greeted Chef Jayson with alohas, handshakes and hugs. Maybe it was being in the company of a celebrity chef, but I found the vendors exceptionally friendly and knowledgeable about the organic produce, fish, meat, flowers, treats and coffee they were selling. I met a coffee grower who had a photo album on display detailing the history of his family’s plantation from its start two decades earlier, as well as Mike Hodson, a retired vice cop who now owns and operates one of the most successful organic farms on the island, Wow Farm. Hodson told me that after surviving two decades on the force, there was no way he was going die from spraying chemicals on his tomatoes. The end result? Juicy, delicious, pesticide-free tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes. By the end of our tours of the farmers markets, Chef Jayson and I had chosen the main ingredients for a four-course meal I will never forget. Our dinner, a deliciously divine example of the farm-to-table philosophy driving the agricultural tourism industry in Hawaii, began with seared ahi tuna accompanied by roasted garlic, Kamuela tomato gazpacho, followed by some of those Wow tomatoes served with the macadamia nut, basil-infused goat cheese I had earlier chosen at the farmers market. Our entrée was a veal chop with poha berry jam, local mushrooms and purple sweet potatoes from the neighboring island of Molokai. Dessert was coffee crème brulee with a cup of brew hand-pressed at our table — both made from beans purchased earlier from that same grower. Even more delightful was the line printed at the bottom of our menu, “Prepared for Ms. Sandra Thomas…” This personalized touch is part of the Chef Shuttle package. Completing our foodie fantasy weekend was Sunday night’s Sunset Luau at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott during which we indulged in Kalua pig, which had slow roasted in an underground oven all day, Lau Lau chicken and numerous mai tais. Sure there was talented fire knife dancers, beautiful hula dancers and traditional Hawaiian music, but on this foodie weekend, it was all about that sumptuous buffet. And here’s a brief look at Chef Jayson during one of his Chef Shuttle Tours: More: Sandra Thomas: PHOTOS: A Taste Of The Islands At A Hawaiian Food Festival