Flavor, Thy Name is Manju

The blog is long overdue for a pastry review.  I like to think it's because I've been eating so well.  I've even been eating a lot of spinach (Cost-Co jumbo bags- a future blog subject), albeit occasionally deep-fried.  In fact, I haven't eaten a Zippy's donut in months!  But when I considered which delectable dessert to feature, I realized I have not been suffering from lack of bakery goods.  No, if there's one thing I know, it's sweets. And one delicious morsel stands above the rest; a little guy I like to call "taro manju."  I call it that because that's how the label at the bakery identifies it.
Now, legend tells that the taro manju was invented by Shaolin monks in the twelfth century AD, after two score years of meditation and opium smoking.  However, it featured such explosively delicious sweetness and irresistible flakiness, that it was not refined until the Kung Fu master Bruce Lee used taro manju as his sole source of nourishment.  In fact, young Bruce worked as a corporate accountant, where he was paid mainly in manju, and it is from this culinary treasure that he derived his kung fu power.
Just what is this edible vault of wisdom and virtue, you ask?  The taro manju is about the size of a ping-pong ball, yet weighs about the same amount as an official PBA bowling ball.  And as for the scent, well, the scent is unlike any balls that I know of.  It is also noteworthy that the taro manju is, in fact, purple.  Purple foods, the royalty of them all, the upper echelon of edible products.  The finest grape, the red grape... purple.  Blueberries... antioxidants, tartness, and according to Wikipedia a diverse range of micronutrients... in a purple package.  Grape nerds... the blue blood of all nerds... purple.  And so, too, is the taro manju.
Bite into a taro manju and let the flaky texture of the outer layer satisfy your pallette.  Feel your ability to scissor kick increase as you reach the soft center, gooey enough to rival any candy bar Hershey has ever made.  Restrain yourself from throwing out a mantis-style chop to the jugular as you imbibe in flavor filling you with a martial aura.  Or better yet, don't resist.  You could have chosen an azuki manju, or even the lowly custard, but chop away soldier of sundries, battler of the baked goods, for from this day forward you are one with the fourth dimension of taro manju.
So it sounds good, right?  You're probably wondering how you can get one yourself.  You're probably thinking it's going to be one of those deals where you have to snatch it out of the hand of your dojo master. You could do that, but he'd probably send your eye-socket through the back of your skull with a blazing-tiger-fist-crescent-punch.  So it's best just to go to that bakery on the Diamond Head side of Maunakea Street in Chinatown.  There, you can unlock the secret of the manju, provided that you bring 90 cents.  It's buy 2 get 1 free there, so maybe grab a macaroon and pizza roll while you're at it.  That's what Chuck Norris does.

Opening Day

I discreetly listened as the two men behind me hatched their plan.  They spoke only in short, choppy sentences.  One rummaged through a dossier of sorts, until locating his target and commenting, "Yep, Pat Bailey, it says.  He was having a real nice day until we showed up."

Though they spoke in fragments only because they were shoveling fries and dumping beer down their throat, and their dossier was a roster printed off the internet, not the files of a secret agent, they still heckled that first-base coach like trained mercenaries.  Assassins in line with the many that came before them at Les Murakami Stadium.  Yep, Opening Day for 'Bows Baseball.  Spring is in the air... and so are the batted balls of our opponents.  Oregon State won 10-6, smashing a couple homers along the way.

But there were bright spots (in addition to the professional heckling you can expect from the first base lower level) from the team.  They did put up 6 runs, four of which came on a Kevin "Big Mac" McDonald grand-slam with two outs in the fourth.  Even the pitching staff, a real source of worry, had flashes of greatness.  Nate "The Great" Klein wore out the umpires right arm early on, hurling strike after strike past Beaver batters.  But eventually he wore down, which is actually the good news.  The bad news is, none of the 4 pitchers to follow would last long enough to wear down.

Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks

Superman, I Feel Ya Brother

It's not easy being Superman. I would know; I'm pretty much just like him. Sure, I can't fly, I've never thwarted a single villain (let alone Supervillain), and I definitely don't know anything about wearing tights. But more important, what we do share is the same quintessence.

Like Clark Kent, no one knows my most astounding talent. Just as he gets no credit for safeguarding humanity from evil-doers, I never get my props for catching things falling from an overstuffed freezer.

With regularity, left-over lasagna comes shooting out of our Kenmore like a comestible RPG. And with equal regularity, I make one-handed diving grabs sliding across kitchen linoleum that make Jerry Rice look like a Pop Warner flag-football player. I mean, I'm really good at it. Guaranteed, if you set up a video camera in front of my fridge, I would churn out a SportsCenter Top 10 play ever week. It's wizardry, really.

Just this morning I made a save on a bowl of tuna salad coming off the top shelf that would have dropped your jaw and made your head spin. The grab I made combined the most athletic feats from all the major sports. I picked up a finely aged specimen of turkey and rye, not knowing it was the foundation of a structure crowned with an economy-sized bowl of tuna salad. Propelled by refrigerated food's innate desire to careen across the kitchen tile, the bowl of tuna shot from the top shelf and quickly accelerated past the sound barrier. In a Matrix-esque moment of time, silence was heavy as I began my defense of the floor against the bowl with enough tuna salad to resurface the Madison Square Gardens. Still holding the turkey sandwich in my left hand, I made a block with my forearm, causing the flying saucer to skid along it like a track. It was really nothing short of the artistry you might see from the Harlem Globetrotters, but with the added danger of tuna salad. The bowl launched from my arm and hurtled to the ground like a meteor bearing down on Earth. I dropped to a knee, my other leg sprawled improbably forward like a hockey goalie. Maybe even like a hockey goalie mixed with a puma. Yeah, like if a puma was playing hockey goalie, I made the acrobatic move to head off what was going to become a tuna bomb in a matter of milliseconds. With the sweep of a hand that you would swear was that of Willy Mays circa 1957 I swiped the bowl from the air, averting impact by the closest of margins.

Then I put it back on the top shelf and wandered off to eat the sandwich. Someday someone will eat that tuna salad (or throw it away sometime this fall) and assume it has just sat there on that shelf, never blazing through the calm confines of the kitchen at Mach 1, threatening to erupt in what would no doubt become Vesuvius all over again. Never will they know this mild-mannered blogger was receiver of the refrigerator, keeper of the kitchen, All-Star-puma-goalie-fleet-footed-swift-fielding-superhero.

Lessons Learned from Great Fishermen

I've been privileged to learn the art and skill of fishing from some of the best. Most recently, I learned a lot from Joseba Kerejeta, 2008 World Champion Spearfisherman, who is as much magician as fisherman; he landed fish that most people would never find, let alone catch. I've been at the apprenticeship of fishermen who need a truck not so much to tow their boat, but to haul their tackle boxes; guys with plugs, poppers, prince nymphs, jigs with and without weed-guards, buzzbaits, crankbaits, jerkbaits, softbaits, spoons, spinners, and streamers, each in colors from fire tiger to pumpkinseed with a chartreuse tail. I've been educated by fishermen who ply the Pacific with no less fervor than Ahab himself; although their excursions are certainly more dangerous due to the amount of beer imbibed and the size and sharpness of the teeth on their prehistoric-looking prey. I owe a lot of gratitude to these guys for teaching me so many ways to catch so many types of fish. But never have I learned more about fishing, really fishing, than from the greatest fisherman I ever knew, Frank Orndorff.

Frank Orndorff is my mom's dad, my grandpa. He always told me he never caught a fish in his life, and to the best of my knowledge this was true. In fact, it doesn't surprise me at all, given his methods. Though he certainly never strained to load his tackle onto the boat, it's not that he lacked gear. Looking back on it, the problem is actually that he had a little too much gear for his way of thinking. Which is not to say he wasn't a smart man, but give Orville and Wilbur a Boeing 747 and I doubt they would have the success they had with the Wright Flyer. Had Grandpa stuck with a cane pole and a worm he might have caught a fish, but instead he took his mold-injected, wide-lipped, treble-hooked, #4 crankbait made for cunning sport fishermen with Polarized glasses and breathable jackets bedazzled with sponsor's logos, and suspended it below a bobber, a virtual guarantee not to catch fish. And it's a good thing a fish never bit this little morsel, because the knots binding up his reel were probably twice as strong as the half-hitches he used to secure his lure.

So he doesn't sound like the best fisherman you've ever heard of? Well, that would be true- if we were a bunch of Paleolithic cave-dwellers that needed to catch fish to survive. But in modern times, if you want a fish to eat you need do no more than step to the counter and say "McFish, please." And Frank Orndorff embodied that. Maybe he never caught fish, but he always had food. The night before a fishing trip, when others were oiling the bearings of their reels or honing hook-points, Grandpa packed Twinkies, cherries, and iced tea. And come the next day, when other anglers were still fiddling with line tangles and backlashes, he would be relaxing, a straw hat atop his head, a cushion under the seat of his pants, the smorgasbord in his lap. For him, it was a veritable Carnival cruise aboard that 15' aluminum skiff. Of course, he still made the perfunctory effort of tying that crawdad crankbait on his line, but even had an unsuspecting fish managed to snag itself on it, would he have known what to do? With his hands full of Hershey's chocolate, would he have even cared?

The best fisherman I ever knew passed away about five years ago. Sometimes, as I dream he lives on, under the shade of his straw hat, warmth from the sun alleviating the pain of his old, arthritic joints. Though he wouldn't hesitate to let you know how he felt about the way the bureau was cutting the grass at the park, he never really did complain about pain. So I feel free to murmur and swat at bugs, but I don't gripe about the lack of fish as I make another cast. Dreaming on, Grandpa would be relishing life's simple pleasures- sons and daughters and a porch swing, grandkids and a goldfish pond, a fresh peach in hand. I snap back to reality as my attention is captured by a bird flying across my field of vision. I reminisce about Grandpa's beloved wrens, and more about the comfort and enjoyment he derived from providing a good home for many generations of the little birds. They're always there in the dream, right by the tool shed inexorably linked to my grandpa. Reality hits, and the sun is sinking low, the food has evaporated from the cooler, and I haven't put a fish in it all day- perfect. I finish the last two cherries in my hand and reel in my line, glad to have learned from the great fisherman.

Holidays

One holiday I always look forward to is Valentine's Day. This may surprise some of you. "But you're single, not romantic, and you never go out," you're thinking. You're thinking, "Why would you like Valentine's Day? You're scrawny, dress, poorly, and your face is repulsive." Woah! Hey! That's crossing the line. Anyway, the reason I like Valentine's Day is the weather is almost always nice. I can think of some great days I've had diving in Waimanalo on Valentine's Day.

There are other holidays that I look forward to also. Memorial Day is a good one. A lot of you don't even know when that is. Unless I tell you it's baitball season, then you think, "Oooohhh, right. I love May." Memorial Day, Cinco de Mayo, ALL of Mayo. May's a good month for diving.

I'll never forget my birthday either. It comes right at the end of summer, when the water's warm, swells are low, and the tradewinds let up. I always have fish to eat on my birthday. My birthday is August 27, so those conditions often hold up right through Labor Day, another great holiday.

New Year's Eve is not necessarily my favorite holiday. It's awfully hard to get to sleep, which is important if you're going to get up New Year's morning to take advantage of the good diving weather. I can't remember how many years in a row I've gone diving Jan. 1. Probably 6 or 7. Some people just dive it every other year to take advantage of the Diamond Head area opening. But it's always a good one for a diver to mark on his or her calendar.

There are a lot more days to mark down, too. Before last week it had been years since I saw a Super Bowl; the weather at that time is just too good. And I hope they never take away Columbus Day! It's a good day for diving. Heck, what am I saying? Kwanza, Yom Kippur, Ramadan... everyday is a good one for diving.

Mike and Derek's Excellent Adventure... Or Bogus Journey

With my truck intermittently behaving like a mechanical bull, I decided I better go diving one more time before it constantly worked like a mechanical bull and had to go to the mechanic. My longest breath-hold of the day was while pulling my boat back over the H-3. Despite gyrating like a Pentecostal being healed, my truck climbed the mountain and brought us back safely.

I called Lloyd, a mechanic who I had spoken with the day before about getting my truck fixed. At least that's who I tried to call. The garage I actually called said no one by the name of Lloyd worked there. I wasn't sure how I made this mix-up (I could just be prone to them, like allergies), but no big deal. My car needed to be fixed, and not necessarily by Lloyd, so I asked if I could bring it to whoever I was talking to. We were making progress, until I found out he was all the way down at University. As the crow flies that's not too far, but crows don't sit in traffic. And I would have to pass by quite a number, dozens even, pant loads maybe, of mechanics to get there.

So I opted to call a place in Mapunapuna, which is much nearer and also adjacent to a Wendy's in case the need for a Frosty should arise. They said bring it on in, but not until after 1, because they were about to take lunch (darn that Wendy's!). That was fine though, it fit in our schedule perfectly. Mike and I had to go down to Chinatown to hold a Pizza Lover's Club Meeting anyway, so we would just leave his car at the mechanic's place and take my truck to lunch, then we could swap out after 1. In retrospect, we should have left the broken vehicle and taken the working one.

But at the time it seemed like a good idea. We fortuitously found a parking space where he was able to parallel park right in front of the garage. And our club meeting went well too. It was the cheapest one yet, because we went that (fairly) new bakery on Maunakea Street. Good pizza rolls, excellent taro manju (twice again as good as McDonald's taro pie), only the chrysanthemum juice was a mistake. It wasn't until we were around HCC, where Mike was talking about how he heard of someone getting stabbed in the area that my truck really started hurting.

Where it used to shake, it was now tremoring. Where it used to click, it now banged. Where it used to crawl forward, in now sat immobilized. Mike got out and started to push us off the road. I found it a little difficult to steer my F-150 without power steering, but I decided not to complain when I looked in the rearview and saw Mike's red face gasping for oxygen as he pushed my 4,500 pound truck. I even made some perfunctory effort by cracking the door and kicking along with one leg. Kind of like running out a ground ball even though you know you're out.

We made it to the entrance of a parking lot, which looked like a better place to block than Dillingham Street. Across the river was a street with a mechanic my F-150 had patronized before. But to get to that street would require another foray on Dillingham. Either that or ford the river, but I played Oregon Trail enough as a kid to know the risk in that. We planned to push it, but only made it about far enough to block a couple more lanes of traffic before giving up.

We decided we would just have to try to start it, which was not an easy task. Mike had to bang on the solenoid with the end of a socket wrench while I turned the car over in order to get it to work. Finally it started, and off we shook at 4 mph, to the mechanic or bust.

The voyage was as harrowing as anything Magellan or Capt. Cook ever did, but I was able to pilot my F-150 to that mechanic, fueled largely by my love for its customized dashboard cover that says "Candy & Crystal." I'm not making that up, I'll get a photo of that in the morning and my Yosemite Sam floor mats, too.

Anyway, what's important here is that we made it. I then got to try to imitate every noise and symptom my truck was making. I tried my best to remember them all, even though it was hard to get my mind past the obvious problem of it shaking and going only 4 mph, if it will turn on at all. He said we could leave it, which was fortunate, since it was having a hard time moving, but we had to take the cooler in the back, because it stank from fish.

So Mike, the cooler, and I set off on foot toward Mapunapuna. Right around the corner was a Goodwill store, so I thought maybe I could go in, get some cheap Huffy or some kids bike, and ride to the car. They didn't have any bikes, which was fortunate, because I don't know if I would have been comfortable touching anything in that place anyway. It looked a lot like something Mike and I would cross later in our travels- the Keehi Transfer Station. So I wasn't impressed with this Goodwill store, but when I came out of the store a bus stopped; not even Mike, the cooler, and I could fail to see what an opportunity this was.

It said it was going towards Pearlridge. Mike asked how familiar I was with the bus system. I told him I haven't ridden it in about 6 years. We weren't even sure how much it cost, and by the time I started sorting through my change the bus was already leaving. No problem, we would just get prepared and wait for the next bus.

The next one was Rt. 52- Wahiawa/Circle Island. Mike hurried to get on the bus. I wasn't so sure. We only needed to go a few miles down the Nimitz. A 20-mile trip up the H-2 wasn't really going to aid us in our journey. But Mike just looked at me like he couldn't believe he and the cooler had to travel with someone with so little street smarts as me. "Derek," he instructed, "you can stop wherever you want. Only Express busses use the freeway, this is a regular bus." With that Mike popped his coins into the meter, and I was satisfied with the explanation from the seasoned, street-hardened carrier of the cooler.

We stood on the crowded bus, setting the cooler right in the face of some unfortunate passengers as the bus quickly accelerated. Though we are both too tall to see anything but concrete speeding by out the window, Mike, the prodigy of public transportation, sage of the street, savvily sensed that we were near our street. "Pull the cord," he urged. I wasn't too sure we could stop, it looked like we were on the freeway. "Pull the cord!"

Okay! I reached out and yanked the cord. "Stop requested," informed the automated voice. But the bus driver didn't even flinch, and the concrete kept speeding by faster. "I think we're on the freeway," Mike interposed. Yep, headed non-stop to Wahiawa.

Once we got to Wahiawa, we decided to wait for a hub to maximize our chances of finding a bus back to town. We got our transfers and exited the bus at a Park-And-Ride. A sign showed the routes headed towards Honolulu, and luckily, just then, one of those routes turned the corner.

As we boarded the bus, the driver exclaimed, "Whoa! You can't get on here with that cooler!" We tried to explain that we just got off a bus with the cooler, but he wasn't having it. We sat on the bus stop bench, searching for an idea, when the driver got off the bus and switched with a new driver.

The new driver also was not pleased about the cooler, but after throwing a fit he said we could bring it on, as long as we kept it in our lap. So we sat on a virtually empty bus for 20 miles with a cooler in our lap until we could get off at the first available spot in town, directly across the street from where we got on the first bus.

We decided to quit scheming and just walk. Walk down forgotten bike paths, walk past homeless camps, walk, walk, walk. Until finally we were done walking, finally we could put down the wreaking cooler, finally we could put the key in the ignition of Mike's car, turn it over, and be greeted by... an empty gas light.

Boys Will Be... Menaces

Listening to the two little demons that dwell next door made me realize that if I ever end up with a child, I hope to have a girl. But it's not just the rambunctious noises, violent acts, and general mischief of the neighbor boys that led me to that conclusion. Those factors just led me to reminiscing about the havoc I created for the first, oh, twenty-six years of my life. But especially the first ten or so.

The neighbor boys may be a little troublesome, but I've never seen them climb a fence to throw dirt in the neighbor's pool, which I can remember doing on several occasions. Or there was the time on Mother's Day I climbed a different fence and cut down all the neighbor's roses to give to my mom. I can remember breaking two windows with baseballs and a mirror with a football. I used to go out and collect fish and put them in a jar. All I wanted to do was eat Chex and look at my fish, dead or alive.

Of course, now I'm all grown up. Despite the fact that I collect it by the F-150-full, I'm actually pretty stingy with my dirt, so I would never throw it. And I haven't given anyone a flower in three years. No longer do I hurl around projectiles- they don't like that in the sports bars I have traded in for the fields of yesteryear. The fish? Well, that's still a problem of mine.

But that's fine, never did I say I wanted to change my ways. I still want to chase lizards and not cut my hair. I still want to see how many times I can swim across the pool and not do laundry. I still don't mind being a bit of a disaster area, and I don't hold that against anyone, even the neighbor's kids. But don't think I'm contradicting my original point. Who could tolerate me and an accomplice?

Me and Carrot (who was eaten by a cat on Easter), my sister Lauren, Jessica Webber

I just wrote a couple hundred words explaining my point, so according to the old axiom, this photo is about 5 times more instructive. Which is probably about right. Which one of these do you want?