Julie and Julia - a Cinematic Feast

So after I had that sumptuous feast at the Loveless Cafe in Nashville (did I mention that the fried chicken and biscuits were divine?), I went to see the film "Julie & Julia," starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as the 30 year old Julie Powell, looking for meaning in life and finds it by cooking - in one year - all 524 recipes in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Let me say that I almost always fall asleep in films, no matter how good they are. Not this time. I was charmed, tickled, and heartwarmed throughout "Julie & Julia." It is an utterly captivating film, seamlessly moving back and forth between Julie's and Julia's lives. Streep's performance channels Child in a way that is astonishing. At times you mix up the real Julia with Meryl. You would expect Adams to be blown away by Streep, but she holds her own quite nicely, as does the underrated but always outstanding Stanley Tucci as Julia's husband, Paul Child.

The only minor flaw was that it became a bit too obvious at times that Streep was assisted by platforms, booster seats, and super high heels to appear as tall as the real Julia Child.

The film's main point is the need in life to have passion and meaning in whatever you are doing, and to pursue it relentlessly.

Of course, this film now takes its place at the very top of the pantheon of great movies about food, right up there with Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman," the two remakes in different cultures, "Soul Food," and "Tortilla Soup," with all three using food as a metaphor for love.

"Babette's Feast" deserves mention, because of its wonderful theme of food as metaphor for God's grace: wonderful, without cost, and transformational for the receiver; costly, daunting, and a labor of love on the part of the giver.

Some would probably name "My Dinner Andre," but I haven't seen it, and I am no longer as much into arthouse films as before. Maybe others can give their opinion.

To go from the sublime to the ridiculous, perhaps the two most memorable food preparation scenes to me are Clemenza making spaghetti for the mafia soldiers in "The Godfather," and Paulie in "Goodfellas" shaving garlic slices with a razor blade so the garlic would liquefy in a pan with a little olive oil, and the other mafiosi making spaghetti sauce (beef, pork, and veal for the meatballs, but you've got to have the pork because that's the flavor), and steak ("Medium rare...ah...an aristocrat!").

Grace and aloha,

Tom

P. S. This season's semifinal show of The Next Food Network Star featured the three semifinalists watching an advance screening of "Julie & Julia," and creating a gourmet meal for chefs.

Melissa D'Arabian, the eventual winner, uttered some of the most profound words I've heard in a long time, let alone from a reality food show. She came out in front of the chefs and said that she had heard recently that one should not be afraid of failure; that one should be afraid of success in the wrong thing. After sharing that she had achieved corporate-world success, her mind was full, but her soul was undernourished. This led her to her passion for cooking and seeking the position with the Food Network. She quoted Julia Child's now famous "Don't be afraid!" And then she said, "So I'm standing before you, not afraid. I may fail, but I'm failing at the right thing."

I have to admit that as a pastor, I have long feared failure. Every Sunday has the possibility of failure. The task of bringing a message of faith in God through Christ grows more daunting in a world that seems to regard faith matters with greater and increasing disinterest. But yet I continue. Why? What Melissa said really hit a chord (I admit that I shed a few tears for one of the rare times in my life). I may fail, but I realize I will be failing at the right thing. The grace of God in Christ is an amazing thing - not what you mostly see in the media - and is even more satisfying than any food I've ever blogged about, and still worth talking about.

The Best Fried Chicken - The Loveless Cafe, Nashville, TN

For my last full day in Nashville, after my meeting was over, I went down to the legendary Loveless Cafe. Now, one of the standard meals in these parts is Meat and Three, one meat, three vegetables. It seems that I've been more like Three Meats and Three. At Jack's, I had ribs, pulled pork, and brisket plus Beans, Mac and Cheese, and cornbread.

At Loveless, I had another three meats: fried chicken, fried catfish, and country ham plus fried okra, grits, and turnip greens. I also had some of Loveless's famous biscuits.

Often, when a restaurant has a great recommendation and reviews, I find it somewhat disappointing. Not in this case. So far, this is the best fried chicken I have ever had. Yes, Hawaii people, Zippy's fried chicken is very good, but the chicken at Loveless is ethereal: a thin, light but crispy crust, perfectly seasoned; underneath is plump, tender, juicy meat that is simply amazing.

The country ham was good, especially when I cut a piece and put it between one of the fabulous biscuits. The fried catfish was excellent.

As for the sides: the grits made me realize why Pastor Mike and his wife Cris didn't say much when I said I liked the grits at Denny's in Kaneohe. The grits at Loveless were so much better: stone ground and impeccably cooked. Fried okra is something that many people outside of the South haven't eaten. It is a wonderful vegetable when cooked properly, as these were: batter fried, crispy on the outside and tender and flavorful on the inside. The turnip greens were good, although they are my least favorite type of greens: I would rate collard greens and kale above them, and mustard greens are my favorite of all. Somehow, mustard greens remind me of Korean kim chee jigae, which is cabbage kim chee that is long simmered with "side meat," just like greens.

A bit of amusement and proof that there is a connection between the South and Hawaii (the most southen state in the Union): I looked at the middle of my plate and thought I was back home. There was something that looked just like andagi, the Okinawan deep fried doughnut (more like a doughnut hole). After a few seconds, I realized that this was a hush puppy, which are morsels of cornmeal that are deep friend. Hush puppies are savory (andagi are sweet), with a bit of onion inside - deee-licious! The name supposedly comes from the aroma of hush puppies frying, which drove pet dogs crazy. The cook would toss one to a dog, and say, "Hush, puppy!"

The other connection was when I thought the turnip greens were a little bland. I poured on them a condiment called Bruce's Tabasco Peppers in Vinegar, which was a bottle jammed with peppers and vinegar. It reminded me very much of Hawaiian chili pepper water.

I was too full to order dessert, but I did go to the Loveless Country Store, and sampled something called Piggy Popcorn: popcorn glazed with maple syrup and tossed with - yes, indeed - bacon! Extraordinary!

An incredible meal that ended a great week in Nashville.

Grace and aloha,

Tom

P. S. My reason for being in Nashville was for the Study on Ministry for the United Methodist Church. One of the highlights was a meditation given by one of our study members, Holger Eschmann. He shared from Isaiah 49:16 - "See, I [God] have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me." Inscribed is a word that is not used so much anymore. Holger explained that in studying the word, an alternate meaning is "tattooed." This means that God has tattooed us on the palms of His hands. There is a sense of permanence to a tattoo - it's always there. That speaks volumes about the love God has for us. We may forget, but God never forgets.

Barbecue!

I just came back from Jack's Bar-B-Cue in Nashville, Tennessee, said by many to be the best barbecue in this city. I had the Three Meats Combo, and chose Tennessee Pork Shoulder, Texas Beef Brisket, and St. Louis Ribs. I also had three kinds of sauce: a Tennessee vinegar based sauce, a Texas tomato based sauce, and a Kansas City Sweet and Hot. It was all very good, especially the ribs, which had a deep, to the bone smokiness. On this day, the Kansas City Sweet and Hot was the best. The aroma of the smoke is still on my fingers. So as long as I have it on the mind, the nose, and fingers, let's talk barbecue:

1. Away from the South, many people think that barbecuing is preparing charcoal briquettes, putting down a grill and quick cooking cuts of meat like steak and burgers for several minutes. That's actually more properly known as grilling. True barbecue is to cook large pieces of meat for several hours by indirect heat using hardwood.

2. Many types of meat can be barbecued, such as pork, beef, or chicken. Most places famous for barbecue specialize in pork, such as spareribs. The Tennessee Pork Shoulder was a "pulled pork," meaning the cooked and tender pork is pulled apart and often chopped. When you say "barbecue" in North Carolina, you are also talking about pulled pork, chopped up and served on a bun with some cool, fresh coleslaw.

3. Texas is a place of its own when it comes to barbecue and almost everything else (perhaps it's for a good reason that it is nicknamed the Lone Star State). Texas is not really considered to be part of the South. Texans are, well, Texans. Texas is most famous for beef barbecue, usually brisket, instead of pork.

4. So who has the best barbecue? In my experience, I'd have to say that all around, Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City is the best, although Jack Stack, also in Kansas City, is right up there. For chopped barbecue, I loved Ted Hill's in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Believe it or not, Los Angeles has some excellent barbecue. The best is Phillips in Leimert Park, in the Crenshaw District, far away from the glitz of Hollywood. The pork ribs are very tender and the sauce is great. There are actually two types: mild and hot. The hot is very hot, so I have usually opted for mild and hot mixed. Worth mentioning for the slogan alone is Mr. Jim's, on Vermont Ave., with fall off the bone tender barbecue: "You don't 'teef" to eat Mr. Jim's beef."

5. Hawaii doesn't have great barbecue in the Southern style, but kalua pig, cooked in an underground oven known as the imu is in the same spirit of slow cooking. Kalua pig is somewhat similar to pulled pork. In fact, I know of a few restaurants who put Kansas City style barbecue sauce on kalua pork.

Deb Hopkins used to have a retail outlet known as Deb's Soul Food in Kailua. It was actually excellent Soul food, if a bit pricey. She still markets a very good barbecue sauce especially for ribs: http://debsribs.com.

So...what's the best 'cue to you?

Grace and aloha,

Tom

P. S. Barbecue is the descendent of the primitive open fire cooking first done by our ancestors. In a podcast, I heard that food writer Michael Pollan decided to go back to the basics of eating and hunted animals, butchered, and cooked them to see if he could still eat meat when he had to go through the entire process, instead of just picking up a cellophane wrapped cut at the market. He found that not only could he continue to eat meat, but that the whole process made him much more grateful for the sacrifice the animal was making to feed him. He said that he understands much more clearly why people say grace over meals, because of the gratitude of being able to eat and the gratitude for the animals that made their meals. I hope that we always are grateful for the food that we are blessed to have, and to thank God for ultimately being the one who has provided it for us.

Rice

The other evening at our Thursday Bible study, Doug, one of our members and host of the study, made a delicious dish with the retro name of Shrimp Diable, from a cookbook that looked to be from the 1960's: Shrimp sauteed in a brown sauce with brandy, shallots, chervil, parsley.

Doug requested rice. What kind to bring? Well, let's break them down:

1. Rice comes in many forms with three basic sizes: short grain, medium grain, long grain. Rice is also differentiated based on stickiness.

White rice has been processed to remove the bran, which gives brown rice its color. In an earlier time, the disease beriberi became widespread among people who began to eat white rice. It was discovered that the bran that was polished off contained much needed thiamin, and when brown rice was re-introduced, the disease was controlled.

2. In the 1980's, the late actor Jim Varney (Jed Clampett in the film version of the "Beverly Hillbillies") portrayed a character in commercials named Ernest P. Worrell ("Hey Vern...know whut ah mean?"). Based in Nashville, Varney did a string of commercials for a local Hawaii bank. One of them had Ernest telling his unseen pal Vern about the items at his casual luau. I remember reading a newspaper article which revealed that the script originally called for Ernest saying, "I've got your sticky rice," until the Mainland based director cut the word "sticky." The Hawaii representatives insisted that the word be restored, saying that "sticky rice is something we like."

Sticky rice is most often associated with short grain and most medium grain rice. Short grain rice is used to make sushi or Korean kimbab (kim is Korean style seaweed sheets like Japanese nori, bab is the Korean word for cooked rice - sal is the word for uncooked rice) because it has the right amount of stickiness to hold together the shapes the rice is molded into but it isn't so sticky as to distract from the other ingredients. Japanese and Korean cuisines tend to use stickier, shorter grain rice.

Sweet rice is the stickiest, usually short grain and is often made into Japanese mochi or Korean duk. The one exception is Thai sticky rice, which is long grain rice that is very sticky (and very prized).

3. Long grain rice tends to be less sticky, and in the case of Jasmine rice, can be highly aromatic. Chinese and Indochinese (Vietnamese, Thai, etc.) cuisines often use long grain rice.

Europeans and Americans tend to use long grain rice as well, so when Doug asked for rice, I made a pot of long grain rice.

4. One of the most unusual weddings I ever did was for a couple named Brian (who was Chinese) and Rika (who was Japanese). They actually wrote in their vows that each would love the other despite the fact that each ate the wrong kind of rice (long grain versus short grain).

Here in Hawaii, shorter grain, sticky rice dominates. I have found an interesting compromise: at New Mui Kwai Chop Suey Restaurant in Kailua, I always thought that the rice was different there than anywhere else (my daughters just gobble it up). I learned that they use a combination of short grain and long grain rice, perhaps to keep somewhat true to the Chinese standard, and yielding to the local Hawaii preference.

In my house, brown rice is mixed in with white rice, because I don't care for the taste and texture of brown rice (yes, I know it's good for you, but if God wanted human beings to eat bird seed, we would have been created to be birds). There is a new process that improves the taste and texture of brown rice, but I suspect that the nutritional value is stripped away just like white rice.

5. Jook, or Chinese rice porridge, is a great winter dish or breakfast meal. It's also terrific when you are feeling sick. Here's a super easy recipe (it's not fancy at all, but you can dress it up with cilantro, more ginger, peanuts, etc.). My kids love it.

To make jook, remember to use about ten times as much liquid as rice (must be short grain or medium grain white rice). I do about a 1 to 1 ratio of water to chicken broth. I usually empty the contents of a 46 ounce can of chicken broth and add about 8 cups of water (I prefer to use an enameled cast iron Dutch oven). Add a few slices of fresh ginger. Bring it to a boil and then add a cup and a half of rice. Lower heat and simmer until the consistency of porridge. Add shoyu to taste. My daughter and I prefer it plain, but you can add the ingredients mentioned above along with a drizzle of sesame oil.

Enjoy....

Grace and aloha,

Tom

P. S. Japanese Theologian Masao Takenaka wrote a book called "God Is Rice." In it, he shares a poem by Korean poet Kim Chi Ha. It speaks eloquently to rice as a metaphor for God: heavenly, nourishing, and important for community:

Heaven is rice
As we cannot go to heaven alone
We should share rice with one another
As all share the light of the heavenly stars
We should share and eat rice together
Heaven is rice
When we eat and swallow rice
Heaven dwells in our body
Rice is heaven
Yes rice is the matter
We should all eat together

Loco Moco, Clarified

Albert Lau, Becky's uncle, saw my post on Loco Moco in Hawaiian Food, Part 2 - Local Style. He told me that he and his friends used to help out at a restaurant in Hilo. They got to asking for the combination of rice, hamburger, eggs, and brown gravy. This is what he wrote:

"It started at the old Kinoole Drive In. The word loco was named by the waitress who used to call us loco for ordering that dish. My friend, [the late] Herbert 'Shange' Asakura, asked her, 'Why don't you put it on the menu?' The waitress asked what we should call that dish. We all thought and Shange came up with the name moco since it sounded good. That how loco moco got its name."

The dish caught on, including, presumably, the Lincoln Grill, credited by Wikipedia for inventing the dish. According to Uncle Albert. Cafe 100 apparently trademarked the name, which is why loco moco is identified with that restaurant.

There you have it. Authentic oral (in every sense of the word) history! Thanks, Uncle Albert: I definitely think yours is the genuine story.

The Best Shave Ice?

Okay...my longtime friend Doug Sakurai asked me to mention a particular shave ice stand. So it's time to run down the best shave ice places on Oahu.

Shave Ice (yes, grammar mavens, I am aware that in proper standard English, I should use the adjective "shaved," but if you're complaining, you don't live in Hawaii, and you probably have never had shave ice) is the perfect treat for the warm weather in Hawaii. It probably came to Hawaii courtesy of Japanese immigrants, who likely brought over the practice of shaving ice with sweetened azuki beans. This evolved to flavored syrups, with azuki beans, ice cream, mochi balls, and taro chunks added to the bottom of the cone. Shave ice is often topped with condensed milk, snowcap (a sweet creamy topping), or even li hing mui (a tart/spicy powder).

The quality of shave ice is mostly in the fineness of the ice shavings. The crunchy, coarse kind is favored by some, but it's not for me...you might as well have a sno cone (which just doesn't compare). Flavors help some, but is not the deal maker.

President Obama stopped by Island Snow in Kailua (Kailua Road near the beach) for shave ice. I would rate Island Snow as making a solid, good quality shave ice cone: pretty fine texture, and pretty good flavors.

Matsumoto's in Haleiwa is the best known shave ice place in Hawaii, and I have to admit they probably have the best tasting flavors, but I find the ice to be the coarser, crunchy kind. Baldwin's Sweet Shop is kind of like that as well. I've been told that Aoki's and H. Miura's are in that category.

Tat's Shave Ice truck is really great - good, fine ice texture - but I don't know where he is anymore, since I rarely see his truck parked at the Kokokahi YWCA in Kaneohe. He should be on Twitter. His vanilla ice cream is probably the best: he uses real vanilla beans in his ice cream.

Shimazu's is without a doubt the biggest shave ice ever as well as being one of the best. The "Big Larry" is as big your head, if you have a big head! The ice texture is very good and the flavors are as well. Shimazu's is hard to find and it's harder to find parking: it's at 330 School Street near the H-1 onramp Ewa bound near Liliha Street. If you've never been there, you should endure the endless search for parking and the long line at least once.

But I still have to say that the best shave ice on Oahu is at the Waiola Store, 2135 Waiola Ave (near King and McCully) and another location on Kapahulu Street near Waikiki. Hands down the best ice texture...I don't know how they do it...so soft that it's almost like pudding. They have ice cream, azuki beans, mochi balls, snowcap, li hing powder, condensed milk, the works. They also have a traditional Japanese style azuki bowl. To be honest, I think that some other places have better tasting flavors, but that is trumped by the otherworldly ice texture.

Grace and aloha,

Tom

P. S. My friend Doug always teases me about a sermon I delivered when I was a student pastor at Christ UMC in Honolulu over a quarter century ago. He and his friends were visiting and we went to Waiola Store for shave ice several times. When he and his friends came to church, I decided, on a whim, to shoe horn an illustration in the sermon and said "God is not like shave ice." They all thought it was the worst sermon they had ever heard.

P. P. S. Many years later: our church has been making shave ice for a decade to benefit the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. We're at the annual Kailua Fourth of July parade and other events. We are proud and blessed to have been able to raise thousands of dollars to benefit the effort to battle cancer....with shave ice. Something as innocuous as shave ice has been used to be a blessing in surprising ways.

Hawaiian Food, Part 2: Local Style

Now we get into what is confusing for many people about food in Hawaii. Saying simply "Hawaiian food" should refer to what I described in the last post: food traditionally prepared by indigenous Hawaiian people. Local style food from Hawaii refers to the following:

1. Food that has been adopted or adapted from other places. A lot of this originated in the ethnic mix that resulted from the workers from many places to work the plantations, the largest and most common being those plantations owned by sugar companies. I would highly recommend a visit to the Hawaii Plantation Village, which preserves buildings and history from that bygone era of Hawaii's history. http://www.hawaiiplantationvillage.org/

The different groups (Hawaiians, Japanese, Okinawans, Portuguese, Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, and others) lived among each other and both preserved their culture and also shared it. Food became a common denominator.

Nowadays, you see the evidence of that. To name just a few: Japanese teriyaki (a sweet and savory preparation for beef, chicken, and fish) and chicken katsu (breaded chicken deep fried and served with a special sauce), Korean kalbi (short ribs) and kimchee (usually spicy pickled cabbage), Okinawan sweet potatoes (the purple kind, easy to prepare: just boil or bake and slice), Portuguese sausage (the first successful commercial brand was Gouvea's in 1933, and some of the original company's family members attend Kailua UMC - the brand is now owned by a different company), Filipino lumpia (kind of like egg rolls but longer), Chinese gau gee (also like egg rolls, but longer and bigger), saimin (noodles in broth), oxtail soup, etc.

Rice became the dominant starch, and not only because many of the plantation workers were Asian. Rice was and is a staple that is simpler to prepare and has a longer shelf life than potatoes. With potatoes, the quantity of cooked to uncooked product is basically the same; you also have waste water as most of the cooking water is not used. Cooked rice absorbs all of the cooking water and becomes larger in quantity than uncooked rice. Plantations looking for a cheap way to feed the workers soon preferred rice over potatoes.

This led to the widespread development of the ubiquitous macaroni salad, which is the traditional accompaniment to any plate lunch. Potato salad was made, but again with the problems of storage, shelf life, and extra cooking steps (boiling, cooling, chopping). Sometime along the way, someone figured out that macaroni, a dry pasta with a longer shelf life and that also increases in size with cooking, would be cheaper and easier than potato salad.

2. Local style food also evolved from the realities of living on the most remote island chain on earth (the Hawaiian islands are the furthest from any continental land mass) and from the use of Hawaii as military installations. Canned food was prevalent because it could be shipped on boats safely and for long periods.

The best known of these is Spam, Hormel's celebrated and reviled "SPiced hAM," but actually made mostly from pork shoulder.

Spam makes its way to many local dishes, such as an accompaniment to eggs and rice for breakfast, a garnish for saimin, and in Spam musubi, rice formed into an oblong shape with a slice of fried Spam on top, all wrapped in a sheet of nori, which is made from seaweeed.

3. Some local dishes were apparently an invention of necessity. Loco moco is a legendary dish in Hawaii: a bed of rice, a hamburger patty, eggs (for me, over easy), and brown gravy poured all over (absolutely delicious, but yes, heart-stoppingly rich). There are many different theories as to how it was invented. Wikipedia credits the Lincoln Grill for the invention. Loyal to my family, I contend that the idea was conceived by my wife's uncle, who worked at a restaurant until late at night. When work was pau (finished), he wanted something to eat and what was left was rice, hamburger, and eggs. He had the cook put brown gravy over it, and there was the first loco moco, although he didn't name it that.

However the actual origin, there is no debate that it was invented on the Big Island of Hawaii, and most agree that the Cafe 100 in Hilo made loco moco popular. Apparently, the name was invented because the dish was described as crazy, and loco is the Spanish word for crazy. The moco part was added for rhyming reasons, without any idea what that meant.

When I talked about this dish with one of the members of my church who spoke Spanish and was from Texas, he was absolutely mortified. He said, "Do you know what loco moco means? It means "crazy [mucous]!!" Oh well, gross name, great dish.

You can get good loco moco almost anywhere. In Kailua, the best are from Cinnamon's and Times restaurants. If you had to ask me, however, which one is my favorite, it would probably be the one at the Like Like Drive-in on Keeaumoku Street in Honolulu. But it's definitely a personal thing and there are different opinions as to whose is best.

Grace and aloha,

Tom

P. S. Another thing I love about Hawaii is the ethnic diversity. There is no majority group here, and although prejudice is still present in some forms, there is definitely much more understanding and respect for different cultures and ethnicities than just about anywhere else. I think this is on the right track to what God had in mind when all of the languages of earth were understood by the people at the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2). Who knows, maybe it had something to do with the food...just a little later on, the people were all eating and sharing together. Maybe it was a big potluck and eating each other's food was a great way to connect. Thank God for diversity and food!