"Cooking Is a Pleasant Diversion"

(Quote by Fawn M. Brodie)

Unrelated to any of this, when I was looking for the quote for the title and came across this one from Harriet Van Horne:

"Cooking is like love.  It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."

I'm not certain I agree, but more on this later, maybe.

At any rate, I've decided that if I can like nothing else about Hawaii, I can come to appreciate the cuisine, and as I don't do well with private lists as they are usually tiny pieces of paper that get lost somewhere with nobody to follow up on my progress, I'm making this blog post my "to-cook" list.  Here are the Hawaiian things I'm going to learn to make while I'm here (with pictures from the internet):

• Chocolate Haupia Pie:  Imagine a coconut cream pie with chocolate mousse topped in whipped cream.  So good.

This is one from a place called Ted's.  It's really good, but if I can make it for less than $12, I will.

• Poi Malasadas:  When I first saw this purple starchy thing, I thought of another purple starchy thing--Chicha Morada, this disgusting South American purple corn drink that tastes like bubblegum.  Malasadas, however, are not like that.  Instead, they're like a perfectly soft taro doughnut.

Okay, so my "to-cook" list is more of a "to-bake" list and it's not so much of a list as me writing down two things I want to bake, but I will learn to bake them and update with pictures and the recipes!