Hawai'i Cuisine: Wrapping Up

Quite unexpectedly, I find myself out of options in Hawai'i Cuisine. It's a fairly small book to begin with, containing only five or six recipes per chapter, and when I omit the recipes for raw fish (I don't trust what's available here), and the recipes that include ingredients that are not easily accessible (ti leaves, entire ducks, veal shank) I seem to have covered most of it. There is a beef stew recipe, but I can't bring myself to make it in this heat. I'm generally not wild about stews anyway, so I'm not itching to make this one. Looking back, I realize that none of the recipes in the book involve Spam. Bummer.

This book was fun, despite its technical problems. Many recipes had little (and sometimes big) glitches that make me think the book was not well tested. Despite the problems, most of the food was good, and the dishes that I loved, I REALLY loved. Standouts were the Sweet and Sour Pork, the Moloka'i Shrimp Spinach Salad, and the Oriental Lamb Chops. The only thing I couldn't eat was that crusted ono. If I were ever in Chef Choy's restaurant, I would order this, just to see what it's supposed to taste like. I have a hunch that the epic failure I served was the result of a poorly written recipe, not a bad concept.

I say this book is a keeper. I don't see it as a book I'll cook from frequently, but there are a few recipes that I'll happily make again when I'm tired of the same old flavors. The Chinese food is awful where I live, so that Sweet and Sour Pork alone earns Hawai'i Cuisine a permanent spot on my shelf. Huzzah!