The theme of today was most definitely 'Mork on a Mission'. We awake to the reality of several coconut halves in ziploc bags occupying our guesthouse host's refrigerator while awaiting further processing in the eventual quest for home made Tahitian vanilla sauce, so a quick breakfast and we were off. Conveniently, this was also our shopping day, so we were already headed into town in pursuit of whatever rudimentary handful of fruits and/or veggies we might be able to find...
As we exited the car down near the market, we met a very nice local lady selling just what we needed - fruits and vegetables. Soon, the three of us chatted away while trading greenery for greenbacks and of course we managed to casually work a little line about coconuts and graters into our 'story-talking' (i.e. Hawaiian for 'conversation').
Well, lo and behold, the stars must have aligned perfectly on this day, because our lovely veggie lady, by the name of Sally, came to our rescue almost right away! As it turned out, she had a grater that she wasn't using at all, and suggested we might as well take it to our guesthouse and keep it for the whole month. We suggested renting it might be a reasonable solution, so, a visit to Sally's house, a full tour of her lovely garden, and $5 later, we were the temporary owners of the perfect traditional coconut grater, just like the ones we have used out in Tahiti! Yay!
[HELP: IF YOUR VIDEO STOPS INTERMITTENTLY AS YOU TRY TO PLAY IT:
For those without super fast internet connections (including us, at the moment) your videos will probably not play continuously without some advance buffering. It is easy to buffer, however, so all is not lost. Simply click 'play' to start it playing, then just click the pause button (II) on the lower left side of the video screen until you see it has buffered 1/4-1/1 past the right side of the dot (there is a red 'play' line to the left of the dot and a faded red 'buffer' line to the right of the dot). Once buffered, simply hit the red play (>) arrow in the lower left corner again and the video should play through without interruption. If it does not, it is most likely because you did not let it buffer long enough. Slow connections may require you to buffer the entire video before you begin to play it - fine so long as you know what to do!!?? Now you know. Enjoy the show!]
'Collecting the Coconut Grater':
As you can imagine, once back at the guesthouse, our Dutch friends were immensely thrilled to learn that we now had a real authentic coconut grater in the house. Willem willingly went to work right away - first filming Steve and then getting down to the business of grating coconuts, as you will see in the laborious footage below:
And now, time to squeeze the milk out of the grated coconut:
Once we had enough coconut milk for the immediate purpose, we proceeded with the sauce making. Here you see the delectable result of several persons' concentrated multi-day effort:
(R-L: Hostess Ilima, Nanda, Willem, and Camilla)And for dessert, Marty and Kelly had kindly shared their 'Ice Cream Fruit' harvested on their guided journey through the Halawa Valley earlier in the day (Mahalo nui loa)
And then our Dutch friends were off to Honolulu and we gradually proceeded toward the new year one hour at a time....as is customary...
The intention had been to head into town and have a look at whatever local festivities may be taking place on this special eve, but after witnessing a couple of neighboring hours of quasi-legal fireworks (interspersed by what sounded unmistakably like gun/rifle shots to the resident army veteran here) our plans swiftly continued along a far more home bound path. Once all house dogs had been calmed down successfully (thank goodness for 'green butter'), we proceeded with our reporting.
Here, our home-spun war correspondent brings you a snippet of the 'Dueling Pyromaniacs':
And finally, the new year became a reality - 'hauoli makahiki hou' - Happy New Year!
(D'ya know Costco's own Kirkland got a 90 from Wine Spectator - it was actually very good stuff)
Hauoli makahiki hou!
Tetefano and Camilla
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