There's something about Mary('s cooking)

One of my favorite favorite dishes is Eggs and Rice and Soy Sauce.

I've mentioned it before, but it's so good that it needs to be repeated. I love Eggs and Rice and Soy Sauce.

Before I go on with this wonder recipe, I must explain to you how this dish came to be my favorite.

When I was in junior high, my BFF was Dawn. She had a twin and and lots of other brothers and sisters. Whenever I spent the night at her house, which was often because her mom, Mary, let us do more than my mom did, her mom would make two things that I enjoyed. The first thing was Chocolate Bundt Cake. I think it came out of a box, but whatever she did to it made it yummy. The second thing was breakfast. Every morning for breakfast she would make us sit down to a big steaming bowl of Eggs and Rice and Soy Sauce. The first time I had it I thought it was weird, but I liked it. Now, I know that it's a pretty common dish, but for the middle class white girl from Long Beach, this was new stuff.

I never saw her make it, but it looked easy enough to figure out. Over the years I've come up with the perfect recipe for Eggs and Rice and Soy Sauce. I'm sure my version isn't very authentic, and in my younger days I may have enven thought it was a nice stoney treat. Now it's delicious comfort food that I make for my family.

Recipe
Make rice (I like to use basmati)
Put butter in the bottom of your most loved sautee pan. Crack an egg onto the butter just before it's done melting. Crank the fire up and grind some pepper over the cooking egg. (OK, you have to work fast because this only takes a few minutes to make and if you wait too long, you'll overcook the egg and it won't be yummy.) Put the desired amount of rice in a bowl, add your desired amount of soy sauce to the rice. When the white of the egg is almost done, slide the egg out of the pan an onto your rice. Break the yolk and smash the egg into the rice. The heat from the rice will finish cooking the egg. As the yolk and uncooked whites finish cooking, it'll coat the grains of rice with shiny goodness.
Eat.

Oh, and to drink -- I used to say sheaf stout was the best for this meal but ever since they changed the bottle and the pop top to a screw top I think they also changed the recipe and it isn't good anymore, plus I haven't seen it in a long time. I would say a Nut Brown Ale or a Guinness.

There are some variations but I always go back to the original. It can be good with some siracha or some peas. I've had it with green onions.

I think I'll have it tonight for dinner.

Onaona i ka Pot Roast

Oli Aloha - Welcoming Chant

Onaona i ka hala me ka lehua
He hale lehua no ia na ka noe
O ka`u no ia e `ano`i nei
E lia`a nei ho`i o ka hiki mai
A hiki mai no `okou
a Hiki pu no me ke aloha
Aloha e, aloha e

Fragrant with the breath of hala and lehua
This is the sight I long to see
Of this, my present desire
Your coming fills me with eagerness
Now that you have come
Loves comes with you
Greetings, greettings


Welcome to my first blog post. The chant above is something we learned in Hula class many moons ago. It was the first chant that Kumu taught us.

Although I understood what it meant, the chant didn't hold a special meaning to me until I started thinking about the words.

The air is filled with the scent of hala and lehua. This smell conjures up images of feeling welcome, feeling at peace, feeling loved. I'm so excited that you're coming, so pleased to bestow upon you the best welcome I can imagine. I can't wait. You are arriving surrounded by love.

I understood the sentiment, but hala and lehua, although they smelled nice, they didn't make me think of being welcomed, feeling loved, etc. I didn't grow up with these smells. I don't have an attachment to them that some of my hula brothers and sisters have. Then what does? What smells make me feel comforted? Pot Roast. I love the smell of pot roast. Pot Roast and that smell the heater gets the first time it's turned on in the winter.

Onaona i ka Pot Roast me ka the smell the heater gets the first time it's turned on in the winter . . . . .

Welcome to my blog.