Wednesday, July 7, 2004

Recipe of the week --Kona Village Mai Tai I haven't actually tried making this at home yet. I'm just longing for Sid's at the Shipwreck Bar. But when I have my "Hawaii Homesick" brunch in a few weeks (where I'll be serving banana macadamia nut pancakes with coconut syrup, fresh pineapple and papaya, Kona coffee and not much else) this will be the drink of choice. I'd better start practicing. 10:48:03 PM     comment [] trackback []

Aloha, or, as our friend Jack likes to say, Hello-ha I have had a longstanding prejudice against our 50th (or was it the 49th?) state. As with all things (my dead shrink could confirm this, if only she weren't dead) I tend to blame my poor mother (who doesn't deserve the fingers I incessantly point her way...but I digress.) Growing up, I remember my parents kind of dismissing Hawaii as being touristy (no doubt), dirty (not the part I saw) and generally over-hyped. When they, infrequently, took luxurious, tropical vacations (only twice that I remember in my childhood) they headed for the Virgin Islands. I carried this prejudice with me into adulthood, and for the nearly ten years the H and I have known each other, I've resisted his efforts to get me to head out over the Pacific to what he insisted was Paradise. Let's just say that, also for the ten years I've known him, H's favorite four words (other than, say, "Wanna blow job, baby?") have been "You are right, [H]]". You were right, [H]. Hawaii rocks. Our little slice of paradise was a resort called Kona Village. I shouldn't say "was", because although this vacation has moved into the past tense, we have already booked our trip for next year, same time, and may even try to go again this year, since we discovered that rooms at said paradise can be purchased with American Express miles. I knew those corporate card accounts (deep in my past, sadly) had to be good for something other than fights with customer service collectors trying to get me to loan thousands of dollars to my slow-to-reimburse-expenses employers. Ahem. Kona Village is, at least according to the H and the brochures, the only resort of its kind in Hawaii--not a big, Vegas-y hotel, but a scattered collection of thatched "hales" (pron. HAH-lay) along a lovely, natural bay featuring a salt and pepper beach, a healthy coral reef, incredible landscaping and wildlife, and only, at most, 350 guests at a time. It's the kind of place where you spend all day in bathing suit, cover-up and flip flops, and (this is a biggie for me) don't feel self conscious at all. A typical day for us went something like this: awaken with the birds around 6 a.m., make some Kona coffee in the room, don said garb (all three of us) and toddle down to the restaurant (down a path paved in lava stone, along the beach, where we greet the SIX OR SEVEN SLEEPING SEA TURTLES) for breakfast at 7:15. Glance at the TimesFax, decide not to read the news, drink more Kona coffee. Watch Dido scarf down a few bites of eggs and pancakes and then run onto the sand to dip his toes in the water. After last drops of coffee and amazingly indulgent banana macadamia nut pancake with coconut syrup consumed, follow Dido onto the sand, and into the water for a morning "swim" (in quotations because you can't really swim while hanging onto a toddler. Deep water wading is more accurate.) Post swim, wrap up in towels warmed by the sun, provided by Bubba, the beach boy (he calls himself that, I'm not trying to be cute). Go for a ride on the glass bottom boat and watch yellow tangs, a million kinds of surgeon fish, puffers, groupers, trumpet fish and those amazing sea turtles. Maybe see a small reef shark (harmless, but still). Return on the boat, stroll back up the beach toward the hale. Take turns with the H going for a snorkel along the reef to look at more fish, more sea turtles. Rinse the salt off in the pool, go back to the hale for a pre-lunch rest....are you getting the idea? The last time I took a vacation like this, I was seventeen, and I was in Tunisia with friends. We were all in school for a term or a year in France, and North Africa was an exotic, affordable, then-safe place for a seaside vacation. I spent a few days five or six years later during a trip to Kenya sunning on the Indian Ocean near Mombasa. These were a long, long time ago. Somehow, I lost the ability to take a vacation that was purely about downtime. H's big complaint, for years, has been that our only travels are for events, like weddings, or reunions, or visiting friends at their homes/country homes or travelling with groups of friends. Never just us, chilling. (Those trips are great, and an incredible gift, don't get me wrong. But they tend to be movements from one activity to the next, without a lot of spontaneity.) Those magic four words again. He was so right. I had no idea how recharged I could feel. I'm not very good at doing nothing--it drives the H nuts; he's always trying to get me to sit still--but this vacation was like leisure boot camp. Call me a convert. But I agree with my friend Jack--I still feel ridiculous speaking Hawaiian. 12:18:09 AM     comment [] trackback []