Family Vacation Food and Other Natural Disasters

If I thought buying natural groceries was expensive on the mainland, I now know better. I saw a $9 dozen of Organic Valley eggs in the local grocery store on the islands.

As an interesting side note, Whole Foods opened last week (Wednesday 2/24) in Maui. Even little Maui gets a Whole Foods before Boise. I ask you - where is the justice? If we refer to Whole Foods as Whole Paycheck on the mainland, there it's pretty close to Whole Gross State Domestic Product. But I'm extrapolating because I didn't attend the grand opening; when I'm local, I go native.

My first time to Hawaii was filled with good eats, a couple bottles of sunscreen and a naturally, a natural disaster.

And by going native, of course I mean eating ice cream sold to hapless tourists at outrageous prices. Here’s my sugar splurge of the week - I shared a half scoop each of coconut (haupia) and Kona coffee ice cream. Divine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s not bodybuilding style glistening sweat all over me on the Humpback Whale Watch; it’s sunscreen. (Please forgive the cheesy visor. It was free.) Did you know that a humpback can contract its peduncle muscle three times and hoist its entire body out of the water? Yes, I thought that sounded obscene too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m about to bust out cartwheels on the beach here.

Ah family vacations where time is measured not in days, but in bags of Cheetos purchased on the sly. I held my tongue as much as I could. My silence lasted until the cardiac patient ordered the fried fish and chips. Get it grilled for heavens’ sake!

 

Random lady with a spray tan looking off a balcony at the view.

Award winning riceless sushi - crab salad with fresh mango, drizzled with spiced sweet chili sauce. Thoroughly enjoyed by the random lady with the spray tan. You can bet your coconuts that I’m going to try to recreate this at home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After about a day, I started to seriously regret my decision to only take the stairs. But, taking seven flights of stairs multiple times a day paid off. My hamstrings are actually sore!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ate well, brought my own snacks and made several trips to the grocery store. I even tried to “blend in” but ended up with my worst protein shake ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like chunky peanut butter. Not chunky shakes.

Mix flaxseed meal from lugged across the Pacific, a half-serving packet of chocolate protein powder, a scoop of natural PB, ice and water and what do you get? An ocean of chocolate flavored water filled with ice chunk icebergs.  Aaaaaaaaaaargh. I hate wasting good ingredients.

I followed that disaster with a funky snack: a low carb tortilla filled with natural chunky PB, sliced apple and red pepper flakes. When the condo doesn’t have a full kitchen, you make do with what you have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But what’s a leisurely week in Hawaii without waking up to full alarm tsunami sirens and a phone call from your favorite Smoothie Girl telling you to head to higher ground?

Although family vacations often have more artificial drama than the Jersey Shore, this time the drama was real. We awoke at 5:30 am to sirens and our hotel’s emergency broadcast that a tsunami was expected to hit in a few hours. In further evidence that Smoothie Girl and I lead freaky parallel lives, she also happened to be in the islands. (She flunked Stalker 101, as she showed up on the wrong island.) Don’t miss her account of the adventure.

We were stuck in our hotel room, awaiting evacuation orders if they came. My mother paced the floor, finally muttering, “I need cookies for this.”

In case of emergency: Tsunami Oreos

The threat level was soon upgraded from Cookies to Rum but fortunately, the tsunami passed without event. We watched nervously from a 7th floor ocean front balcony waiting for the devastating wave that never came. Although my heart goes out to Chile, I am grateful the islands were spared.

Now safely back home, I still have sand in places that don't meet my sunscreen's external use only criteria. My spray tan has been abraded by chlorine, salt water and sand and I look like I’m suffering from some heinous dermatological condition. But I’m home, safe and sound. Well, mostly sound because I came home with a souvenir: a bad head cold. I fought it off for a week, but the stress of evacuation and two red-eye flights did me in. I have completely lost my sense of taste and and smell. For the next few days, food is purely functional, a strange world where I live off of hot liquids, a can of sardines and my spicy Asian mushroom seaweed soup.

It was an amazing week on the beach and now, I’m due for a nap.

Aloha & Mahalo.

W0uld you even bother eating if you couldn’t taste? What crazy or ultra healthy foods would you eat if you didn’t have to worry about funky or an otherwise unpleasant taste? Sardines? Tofu? Maca? Anchovies?