DIRTY BIRD

The dirt is a flyin'.

I swear you can see him smiling here.

Over the past few weeks I have placed a small pie pan full of dirt in Kekoa's coop so he could take a dirt bath. Until I filled it up today we have never actually seen him "clean" himself in it.
So when I witnessed him doing it, I realized the pan is too small. I came back to the house and got a cardboard box from a flat of water. I then filled it with dry dirt and placed it in the coop. He was in his glory! What he does is sort of just nestle in the dirt, then with his feet he digs himself into a divet, keeping his wings open so the dirt comes up under them then up on his back. He also rolls around in int, rubbing the top of his head and neck in it as seen in the third pic. The reasoning behind this bath of dirt is to help them during their molting process and to rid themselves of mites and other buggy type critters. Although we do not have an actual date, his release into the wild is nearing... Stayed tuned for all the latest Kekoa news right here on CFC.

THEY'RE HERE

My mom, grandma sister and Nick arrived on Tuesday and will be staying in Lahaina for a few weeks then venturing here to the famous house for another week. Mom's bag was lost...found and delivered to the hotel yesterday, the rental car reservation was only in the system for 1 day... got that squared away... let's see what happens next. Fingers crossed it's smooth sailing. Updates to follow.

SOAKING UP THE LOVE

Aloha.... We are again making news and getting lots of love over the internet. Today we have new images of the house featured in the "sneak peek" section on design*sponge. The wonderful Grace and Anne had contacted us back in March about doing a sneak peek, but we needed to wait until the issue of Readymade came out as they had first dibs. Stop by and take a peek.

Mahalo Anne and Grace. 

C&J

WHITE HOT!

Yesterday we plucked our first pineapple of the season from our pineapple patch. Lat year around this same time we got two. We do have another one that looks like it might be ready at the end of summer. The difference this year is that this one was a WHITE PINEAPPLE. It was not all that big, about 6" tall and 4" across and although it was nice and golden on the outside I did not have high hopes for what the inside would hold. When I cut into it and saw that it was pure white my hopes of a tasty afternoon snack vanished. I was sure it was going to be either flavorless or very sour, but to my surprise it was spectacularly sweet. A quick google search provided me with a few answers as to what variety it might be. It could be either what is called a KONA SUGARLOAF or a PERNAMBUCO... and I am guessing it's the Kona Sugarloaf. I will have to do some further investigating. This is one pineapple top that will be placed in the pineapple patch and properly marked as white.

In February

Yesterday

The pineapple patch

White Pineapple and Mango salad.
That's it pineapple and mango... what else do you need?

I cut it up and mixed it with a deliciously sweet mango from one of our trees. The mangos are very abundant this year, unlike last year, but they suffer from a few natural problems. We have 2 trees that have lost very large branches filled with unripe mangos. We have had a bit of a drought and then a few hard rains. I feel that the trees soaked up the rains so fast that the branches became to heavy and broke off. I managed to save a great deal of them by placing them in brown bags to ripen and managed to get a few jars of jam out of those. Even though the trees are quite heavy with fruit, most are either eaten on the tree by birds, bats or cute country rats. We have to keep our eye on them everyday and be quicker than those critters, but they have to eat to... there's plenty to share.

You can see the area where we lost a branch loaded with fruit on this
Mapulehu variety from Molokai.

You can just make out the white flesh of the tree near the top on this "common" mango.
Common or not, it is still delicious.

The victims of the tragedy.
A few hold outs I am keeping my eye on.

MODERN MAIL

Today,  June 17, 2008, in Santa Monica, California, the Postal Service™ will issue 42–cent commemorative stamps of the amazing Charles and Ray Eames. The couple is a long standing favorite in the design world and a staple for inspiration in this house.

To reflect the couple’s rich body of work in furniture and toy design, architecture, and film, Derry Noyes, one of six art directors employed by USPS, has created a colorful pane of 16 different stamps featuring some of their iconic designs, including the Low Chair Wood, or LCW, (1945), House of Cards (1952), Hang-It-All coat rack (1953), Eames Lounge and Ottoman (1956), and Eames Storage Unit (1950). Also included is a photograph of the Eames House in Southern California, one of 25 homes built as part of the Case Study House Program. The couple moved into the house in 1949 and stayed there for the remainder of their lives. Charles died of a brain aneurysm in 1978; Ray passed away in 1988, ten years to the day after her husband’s death.

Visit Eames Office or Eames Foundation or Design Museum or USPS to learn more about the dynamic duo of Charles and Ray Eames.

TASTE SENSATIONS

Over that past few weeks we have had an abundance of fruits and veggies... oh wait... that's nothing new. Except this time we had mangos that I made my first mango jam with. that would be the yellowy-orange jar in the front. And no, I did not add any color to it... That's all real!

With the tomatoes I made salsa (dark jar), and with the Hawai'ian hot chili peppers I just this morning made some hot chili water. The water is sort of like a tabasco sauce, but WAY hot. It's going to be great on rice and noodle dishes.

Here is my own recipe for Chili Water

2 cups water
1/4 cup whole Hawai'ian chilis
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon raw sugar
2 gloves garlic
2 thick slices of fresh ginger

Bring all to a boil in a covered saucepan then reduce heat to low and simmer 20 minutes.
Transfer to a food mill and press through. Repeat 2-3 times, making sure to scrape the pulp from the bottom of the mill.

Store in clean jars and refrigerate. Should last a few months.

The Hawai'ian chili pepper

BIG BIRD

The face only two fathers could love!

It's been awhile since we updated you on the raising of Kekoa. RAISING being the operative word. It really is like having a needy infant around. He's not so bad as long as John and I are in the room with him at the same time... but let one of us leave and the crying game begins. He does the disco freak-out dance at the sliding door or living room window until one of us comes back.

So now that he is... we think... 7 weeks old, it's time he started sleeping outside at at night. We have planned on putting him out there the last few nights, but it's been pouring and I could not bear to leave him in the rain his first night out. Yes he is a wild bird and will have to deal with it sooner or later, but he's led a posh life the last few weeks and I couldn't just kick him to the wet curb.

Last night was the little, er uh BIG birds night to sleep outside. We brought him in this morning so he could hop around and flap his wings and do a bit of flying here and there. In a few weeks time we hope to turn him loose, but already have fears he will show up at the sliding door wanting a handout... or worse to come in and hang out. If he stays around much longer he needs to learn how to work on a computer... or at the least cook.

Here are some pics from the last 2 weeks.

Above: The morning after his first night out. As you can see, his eye area is starting to turn bright red and his breast feathers are beginning to turn an iridescent rust color. And the size of those feet!

Here he is tucked away in his "connmade" nest. There are some dried palm fronds hanging in the front to provide shade protection during the day and wind/rain protection at night. SPOILED!

The other day he needed the comfort of my hoody and this morning he spotted the mac nuts....

He loves the shredded wheat cereal... but we don't enjoy his eat and run behavior.

After being all "cooped" up after a few days, he needs a bath. Here are a few images of bath day.
Believe it or not he actually likes the hair dryer.

Scroll down a few post to see just how big he has gotten in the 6 weeks we have had him.
It's crazy.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

Derek and the folks over at Readymade put together a short video clip, a sort of behind the scenes of the feature they did on us.
Stop by and have a peak at some of the other DIY vids they have online at Readymade Video.

Also, I have realized that we have not done a Kekoa update in a while so look for that in the next day or so.
You won't believe your eyes!

WHAT'S NEWS?

With all of our new found "fame" stemming from our Readymade article, we have met a few new friends thanks to this wonderful thing called the internet. We became acquainted with Leigh from hapa|hale after she saw a post on design*sponge about or kitchen shelf re-do. When we first discovered her blog we were thrilled to find a great wealth of island info. It is now part of our blog crawl.

I also became acquainted with designer Paige Russell through the same d*s piece. Stop by her website and check out her amazing RV vases. We must have one...

And just this morning we discovered that another favorite blog of ours, Apartment Therapy gave us a shout out on their blog as well regarding the Readymade story.

Stop by and visit all of our new makamaka (friends).
MAHALO to all for their amazing coverage of our story.

We have a new feature coming out on design*sponge in the coming weeks as well. Stay tuned for when to expect that piece.

BA, BA, BA, BA, BABAGANOUSH

This is a good recipe for us because it uses things we have in excess right here in the garden. Eggplant, parsley, and lemon.

Babaganoush (or my version of it anyway)

6 small eggplants (roasted, cooled, and skinned)
1 cup lightly chopped parsley
2 cloves garlic
3 tblspn roasted sesame seeds
2 tblspn sesame oil
**in lieu of the sesame seeds and oil you could just use tahini
Juice from 1 lemon
Salt and Pepper
1 cup of plain yogurt or sour cream

Rub eggplants with some olive oil. Place them on a baking sheet. Roast in 325° oven for about 35 mintes...they should be really soft and starting to wrinkle. When they are cool enough to handle, cut them in half and scoop out the flesh into a bowl. You can store this pulp in the fridge if you're not ready to make the babaganoush just yet. Drain any excess liquid.

***As a quicker alternative to oven-roasting you could GRILL the eggplant. I like to slice it into 1/2 inch or greater slices. Coat slices with olive oil, sprinkle some salt. Put them on a preheated, evenly warmed grilled on medium or low depending on the strength of your grill. When they start to get defined grill marks, flip them over. Then, when they are soft to the touch, transfer them to a bow. Some slices may be further along than others so just have a dish cloth over the bowl and drop the slices in as they are ready. You have to watch them so they don't over cook--by that I mean, they shouldn't be dried out and stiff. They need to be mushy inside. When cool, pull the skin off the slices. You might have to run a knife along the skin to scrape of residual flesh.

Then, in a food processor I add the parsley, garlic, sesame seeds, and sesame oil with the eggplant and set that to work--chopping it all up as much as it can. Conn doesn't like to see any vestiges of eggplant so I really let it go town. Plus, I'm trying to chop up the small sesame seeds as much as possible--doesn't always work. Tahini would be the more effective solution but I never have that on hand.

Dump it into a bowl, blend in the lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the yogurt or sour cream and eat it with toasted sesame crackers--yum! More lemon juice can be added to brighten up the flavor.

This makes a lot of baba! I just freeze half of it before adding the yogurt or sour cream.

***The resulting color is different when you grill the eggplant, it's darker green from all the charred bits...and sometimes the grilled version is harsh if I burnt a few of the slices so I add a teaspoon of honey and more lemon juice to mellow it out.