Feeding the masses

Listen to a random selection of Hawaiian music and certain themes begin to emerge:

• How great it is to live in Hawai`i.
• How much it sucks to leave Hawai`i.
• How good the food is in Hawai`i.

The straight-forward culture of a people who know they live in paradise and celebrate that fact. Life in Hawai`i is good, leaving it is a bummer, pass the rice. When I think about going home I naturally think about surfing but I also think about food.

I think about plate lunch in all its forms; chicken longrice, kalua pig and cabbage, pork adobo, hamburger steak and gravy, tonkatsu. Nestled between two scoops rice, macaroni salad, and maybe a dollop of kim chi.

I also think about how we're going to feed a large house full of people. I'm a damn fine chef when I'm cooking for two but I've discovered that my mad cooking skillz drop off as the number of diners increases. With 6-8 people in the house at any one time, it's going to be like making Thanksgiving dinner every day. So I've started thinking about how to feed the masses without spending too much time at it.

First idea: Smoker! Get da kine pulehu meat smoking on the side. Sue bought me a smoker a few years back and we thought it might get used once or twice in the summertime. Wrong! We use it all the time! Throw on a rack of ribs come back in 6 hours and hoo! Broke da mouth kine grindz. I'm planning to pick one up at Home Depot and give it to one of our local friends when we leave. Our little electric Brinkmann will cook any of these at once:

• 6 racks of baby back ribs
• 4 whole chickens
  
• 4 lbs of salmon

Now I'm all hungry. More later.