Voodoo and other Dieting Dilemmas

I get angry when I am on a diet. I’ll tell you why. When I’m dieting:

1) Nabisco comes out with three new flavors of Oreos. WTH, Nabisco. I want to punch your face.

2) Foodland’s weekly reward is a box of Love’s doughnuts. I am canceling my Maika’i membership immediately in retaliatory disgust.

3) My kids start eating tons of crap food, so much so that Amaya actually groans when Jake pulls out a box of Mac and Cheese. I just want to dive into that Mac and Cheese so I feel like she is being the whiniest girl on the planet.

4) I am eating tons of lettuce. When I am rich I am going to go buy up the salad industry and put it in a trash can.

5) I am not cooking. It’s barely called cooking when you’re eating 300 calorie meals and weighing chicken breasts. Poor girls, they’re only 4 oz.

6) I have not lost one pound while being on this diet for 15 days, 6 hours, and 18 minutes (and doing Insanity). I hate my scale so much but I also feel completely co-dependent.

7) I hate food blogging and all the people I follow on Instagram that take pictures of their food. You people suck.

8) I hate other people eating food. Don’t eat food around me. Even if you are eating salad I will hate you.

9) Editing these pictures was torture.

10) I never have fun.

It’s true. People who eat have more fun.

When we were in Oregon (Before Dieting: B.D.), I was standing in line at Voo doo Doughnuts, experimenting with stuffed burgers, enjoying my mother’s gourmet Japanese cooking, tasting salted caramel ice cream from the Salt and Straw cart, and having lunch at the food truck pod near my dad’s office. I don’t care if Voo Doo Doughnuts’ actual doughnut isn’t the best there is—the toppings save them. Yes, that is a fried fritter topped with chocolate and peanut butter and chocolate chips. Yes, that is a Easy Peasy Lemon Keesey. Yes, that is an Old Dirty Bastard with Oreos. Yes, that is a maple bacon doughnut. I got a little lazy with the photos because I was trying to stuff my face in doughnut orgy. 

Portland has a lot of good sandwiches, which is probably my favorite meal. And that sandwich in the bottom right corner is, actually, a Big A** sandwich. Fries in a sandwich. Tell me that is not the best sandwich you have ever tasted through a screen.

Except the one just on the left of that might beat it. The Schnitzelwich is the European Katsu sandwich, and I appreciate the Horseradish sauce. If I was near this food truck pod I would be in big trouble. My dad and I had a cook off of burger recipes for our July 4th BBQ. I’m not sure which I liked better, but I really like blue cheese in burgers, and American cheese on burgers is much better than cheddar, despite my preferences for real food over colored cheese gelatin. Real pineapple beats out canned pineapple, though.

I’m really lucky my family likes food as much as I do. We even took the kids to two fancy restaurants and ate pork belly dishes at both places. I was much too busy eating to take pictures, so you’ll have to settle for my Instagram (yes! I hate myself!). Mom wanted to try this watermelon popsicles recipe she got off a food blog. It was super cute. I would like to try to make more of a sherbet style one. Lime sherbet, by the way, is highly underrated. Jake and I also ate all through our anniversary, and hiked to a few waterfalls in between.   I have been married to this man for 11 years. I really don’t get tired of him at all, which is the wonder of being married to someone this awesome. He’s been good about picking up the slack since being on a diet makes me completely lazy and pissy. Kind of like what I would be like if I actually had PMS.

Amaya said a couple of days ago, “I want some chocolate, because I’m on a diet. That’s what you eat when you’re on a diet.”

I looked at Jake with my most evil stare and said, “Not. One. Word.”

Tita’s Grill

Tita’s Grill is directly across from the school I work at. As you can imagine, many of the teachers (and students) eat their breakfast and lunch here. I’m not sure if the name is supposed to be pronounced “Tee-ta”, or “Titta” because the implication of the meaning is very different. The signs out front are pretty classic and have that local charm, so I like to think it’s the latter. I’d like to think that a strong, sassy woman is making that bread. So I will.

I can be loyal to good bread. This is the kind of bread that has absolutely no nutritional value and exists only to be absolutely delicious.

You can buy a slice, but c’mon. You gotta just go all in and get the loaf. $5. If you can possibly force yourself to save some, you can make an amazing french toast.

Sweet, a bit of that white bread chew, this hits that absolutely raving carb addict that lives inside all of us.

The bread is awesome. They spread the slice with margarine, but you forgive them the second you sink your teeth into it. All day you can see people walking away with a brown bagged loaf.

You can get a slice for breakfast but you can also get a sandwich for lunch. A melt. There’s pastrami, tuna, and occasionally roast beef. Maybe the Pastrami doesn’t match up to Carnegie Deli, but it is one million times better than what I can buy at the store here. Paired with this perfect bread, I’m happy. The bread is buttered and sauteed, so the cheese is melted too. You won’t even want to give your crusts away.

There are more local style foods here: plate lunches, loco moco, beef stew, sometimes lau lau, and always some great cocoa rice, but I like the sandwich the best. I eat a lot of sandwiches (I mean, every place around here serves killer sandwiches). This one is the decadent version.

As a kid, there were months in a row that I tried everything I could to spend as little time as possible outside. Between the rain, cold, and windstorms, the purpose of existence was about getting in, and getting warm. I do remember many mornings walking to school, violin case in hand, in the rain, my feet hurting from the cold (uphill both ways)….

Now I hardly ever feel like I’m even indoors. In Hawaii we never close the windows. My classroom door opens to the outside (hallways are nonexistent). You can go to the beach even if it’s raining. My pores are basically always open. A/C is a luxury and central air is rare. You can dry your clothes on the line all year long. Winter, if you can call it that, just means that you’re not on the verge of sweat.

I realized, when I was preparing these reviews, that every establishment I went to on the North Shore has outdoor seating (maybe “seating” is a strong word for a few chairs to the side, but that’s what I’m calling it). Some don’t have any indoor area. There’s something to be said for eating in the sun and in a breeze. I’m thinking it enhances the flavor. Plus no dress code and you don’t have to worry about the sand on your feet. It may not be the best place for a first romantic date, but it gets the job done. Hawaii’s pretty good at the whole “no frills” thing. Sometimes it works against you to be too dressed up around here.

And we eat outside. There’s a bit of wildness to it. Like lions on the plain after the hunt. Maybe that explains why I have such a crazy 5 year old. She gets to eat outside whenever she darn well pleases. Maybe she’ll be a tita too.

Tita’s Grill

56-505 Kam Hwy, Kahuku, HI (approximately) Google Maps

Directly across from Kahuku High School and on the right of Kahuku Superette

Open 7am-7pm Monday through Saturday

Favorite Eats: sandwiches, cocoa rice, specials

Expenses: $5-$10 (cheap $1-$2 bread slice, cocoa rice, panipopo, and bread pudding)

Little Foodie? Whole family friendly

FYI: Outdoor seating only, no bathrooms, right by the highway. This is a very local, small establishment, food may take several minutes. Take out style.

This is part of a series of posts about North Shore Food.

Waialua Bakery

Waialua Bakery is one of my happy places on this planet. Waialua is a town that’s one more stop over, but this bakery is smack dab in the middle of Haleiwa. I’m not sure what the origin is on the name, and I’ve never asked because I’m just way too busy eating when I’m there to worry about any such details.

Luckily enough, this happy place is a 25 minute drive away from my house, because otherwise Waialua Bakery would have all my money and I would have all of their food. Every morning. For the rest of my life.

If I ever figure out how to make their Passion Pleasure smoothie, I will be set. The smoothie has just the right touch of papaya and some creaminess from frozen yogurt. I get serious cravings for this smoothie, and I like to think I can make a pretty good smoothie myself. There is no other smoothie that can make me drive half an hour and plop down $4 with a smile on my face. Really.

Every time I come here, I get that smoothie, a sandwich, and a cookie. I don’t care if it’s breakfast. That’s what I’m getting.

The sandwiches are packed with lovely veggies and the sprouts runneth over. I always get the home made bread and spread with hummus. The sandwich is a crunchy, moist mess that I inhale as quickly as possible.

Amaya eats more than her fair share of my sandwiches. Even stuffed with all those vegetables, this is a flavor that cannot be denied.

(but I do recommend asking them to leave off the mustard and vinegar. Just in case.)

This has to be followed up with a cookie. Or two. Our favorites are the monster (peanut butter oatmeal with m&m’s) and the Wonder bar which is a cookie addict’s dream: cookie crumbs are combined with chocolate and coconut and more butter and probably something else gooey and gorgeous, all pressed into a bar. It’s hard to describe. It’s a Wonder bar. With good cause. I like to wolf this down before anyone asks me to share.

Amaya got lucky and had two Monster cookies. With ice cream in between. I jealously eyed her dessert while she ate every last bite.

Oh, if it could be summer every day.

Oh, it is. In Hawaii.

Waialua Bakery

Google Maps

66-200 Kamehameha Highway, Haleiwa, HI

On the right corner of the Malama Market parking lot, tucked behind Spaghettini

Open 9am-4pm Monday-Saturday

Good for: breakfast, lunch, snack

Favorite Eats: passion pleasure smoothie, Wonder bar, roasted veggie sandwich

Little Foodie? Baby, toddler, kid, teenager, and adult friendly.

FYI: Some vegan options, easy to take out, beach casual, outdoor seating. Even though it’s called a bakery, there are no doughnuts here. Mostly cookies, fresh breads for sandwiches, and a few breakfast baked goods.

Yelp Review

This is a series of posts about food on the North Shore. Stay tuned.

A Readerly Interest in Food

This is an entry for the Kitchen Corner’s “Cook off” wherein I try to capture the moment I fell in love with food.

My love for food started when I started reading. As a child I spent most of my free time reading.

I consumed books late into the night, straining my eyes with a low lamp, and risking the wrath of a parent who wanted me well-rested for the day of school coming.

On Saturdays I threw my hands up with disgust when my mother interrupted me to require some chore—like vacuuming the stairs. I hated vacuuming the stairs. I would grit my teeth and scream, quietly so she couldn’t hear but loud enough to feel rebellious, “You ALWAYS interrupt me at the good part!”

I was always at the good part. Because I was always reading.

I had read every book in my house at least twice,

but, the ones I came back to again and again,

I savored those books.

The White Mountains made my mouth water at coffee and hard biscuits, as Will took refuge on a ship while escaping the Tripods. I had no idea what liverwurst was, but I wanted to reach in and steal that tomato and liverwurst sandwich Meg makes for her mother in the beginning scenes of A Wrinkle in Time. On his journey to pick up the dogs he ordered, Billy roasts a piece of salt pork and an egg to make a cornbread sandwich in Where the Red Fern Grows.

These were all foods I had never eaten or even seen. I only imagined that the hunger that these characters felt had never been better sated.

These dreamed meals were often homey and made in simple kitchens. They appealed to basic tastes of salt, sugar, and fat but they tasted, in my food memory, complex. Bitter coffee was a taboo in my house but in elementary school I breathed deeply when I walked by the teacher’s steaming mug, and have always savored that rich smell. The sweet acidic drip of the tomato slid under my tongue when Meg’s mother eats her sandwich in the kitchen light of night discussion. I felt kinship with Billy when he chews that salty sizzling egg sandwich, and chews the dry and wet layers together. I imagine him thoughtful at a campfire and the smoke adding a savory angle to the plateless meal.

My list of food memory associations in books I had read was longer than the number of foods I had eaten in real life.

Even now, the stroke of taste from a book is never as good as the ones in real life, however incredible the chef. At Nobu, I recently had a sous vide pork belly with a browned edge topped with jalapeno salsa. That bite was just perfect, but it will never match up to fill the hunger created by a thermos’d cream of tomato soup, lobster salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread, celery, carrots, black olives, two plums, a tiny basket of cherries, a cardboard shaker of salt, and vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles that Frances has in Russell Hoban’s classic Bread and Jam for Frances.

As Albert says: “That’s a good lunch.”

A lunch worth three Michelin stars, in my book.

Cornmeal Pancake Monte Cristo

This creation is based on some of the tastes I imagine in Billy’s campfire meal of salt pork, egg, and cornbread. I think the play on sweet/salty/savory created by the “monte cristo” effect is something that stays locked in my hungry memory.

makes about 3 "sandwiches”

For the pancakes

• 2/3 Cup yellow cornmeal
• 1/3 Cup flour
• 2/3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 C buttermilk
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 egg
• extra unsalted butter to grease the pan

1. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and whisk together until combined—but do not over mix.
2. Put a pat of butter into the pan and grease liberally. When the pan is hot, pour in about 1/3 C (maybe a little more) of the batter for each pancake—probably can fit in three at a time. When the top has a few bubbles and the edges look like they are starting to dry, flip and cook on the other side for about 30 more seconds.
3. Repeat with remaining batter.

For the sandwiches

• 9 thin slices of ham
• 3 eggs
• 3 two-oz slices of salty, hard cheese—I used comte
• 2 Tablespoons guava jam (other jams would work here, or even molasses)

1. After cooking the pancakes, butter the pan again and put the ham into the pan and warm on both sides. After removing the ham, cook the 3 eggs as you wish (over easy is good here).
2. Assemble the sandwiches while all your ingredients are still hot. Lay the first pancake on the plate and top with a piece of cheese. Put 3 slices of ham and 1 egg on top of that, and spread some jam on the 2nd pancake for the top (either putting the jam face down or up as desired). Repeat with the rest of the ingredients. Serve while hot.

My favorite fiction books for adults that also happen to have succulent food scenes: (links to Goodreads)

And Never Said a Word by Henrich Boll

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

What’s your favorite food scene from a book?