One of MY Best Meals Ever!

Cooking, for me, like a good meal, has many layers. Many things considered, I enjoy doing it as a creative outlet and it is fun to be inspired by someone who sparks that creativity and has a good appetite. Yesterday I decided I wanted to do a nice meal for my friend Joy who has spent the last week with me and has been a wonderfully easy person to have visit and to say thanks for her reciprocated hospitality.

I did this based on the meals she has been ordering when we dine out and the meal came together without a hitch... and like magic, afterward, the pots-and-pan and dishes had all been washed!

Macadamia Nut Crusted fillet of Ono and Shrimp on a bed of Gingered Spinach, Roasted Purple Sweet Potato, Lilikoi Butter Sauce, Black Sesame Seed garnish

We could have licked the plates in the privacy of my home but we didn't ;)

Ana'ole - Green Sea Turtle #4: A Turtle Tale

Bittersweet and melancholy were the two words that I though were going to color my mood this past Thursday as I attended the release of six juvenile green sea turtles into the clear blue-green. As you may remember last year I entered a contest sponsored by the Maui Ocean Center (MOC) to name the baby honu (turtle). My name, for turtle number 4, Ana'ole, was chosen and ever since, I have had a special connection with the flippered-and-hard-shelled hatchling.

Green sea turtles can live in excess of one-hundred-years old, so Ana'ole, pictured below, is no more than a mere infant: 46 pounds and about 18 inches long, from top to tip of the shell. Microchips imbedded in the back flippers were scanned and recorded, measurements taken, identifying markings retouched and Dremelled into the shell all in preparation for the  return home to the sea from whence her ancestors came.

The tail measurement seems an odd piece of data to record but quite vital (I discovered) when I asked of Ana'ole, "Male or female?"

They didn't know. The sex of the turtles is not apparent until they are about twenty to twenty-five years of age, and is determined by the length of the tail: females having shorter tails and males longer ones.

After a chanted blessing in Hawaiian to sanction the event, each honu was taken down one of two lanes leading to the water and set free.

I watched Ana'ole disappear quickly as if becoming one with the ocean to begin a new life in the waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. Aloha, Ana'ole. A hui hou kakou (Aloha, Ana'ole. Until we meet again).