Tropical bounty

Friends 1992, pastel on paper, ~22 x 30 inches

Someone in the neighborhood is roasting coffee.  The deep, burnt, delicious smell competes with the sweet aroma of the flowering coffee trees growing down below the lanai where I write this.  These are our last days in Holualoa and I seek to hold on to the sights and fragrance of this paradise to lighten the cold snowy days awaiting us back home.

And I want a last taste of the bounty of this place, the avocados, papayas, tangerines, coffee, bananas, limes and lemons and the fish.

The old lemon tree growing in front of the studio fell down last week.  I hadn’t been able to pick the lemons growing  high up in the thorned branches until the tree lay on its side, the Kona lemons now within my reach.  A sad sight indeed.

The lemons are large and lumpy, and very juicy.  I squeezed a few to make the base for lemonade lightly sweetened with a sugar syrup.

For some reason, I hadn’t yet baked banana muffins, a favorite made with apple bananas, small and delicately tart.  With our imminent departure, I quickly whipped up a batch to accompany our lunchtime salad.

This recipe makes a good loaf of banana bread too.

Cream together 6 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar.  Stir in 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 3 mashed apple bananas (or 2 regular). Add 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir in 1 cup macadamia nuts (or walnuts). Bake at 400° for 25 minutes. Makes 10 muffins.

Ka Lae 2001, oil on canvas, ~40 x 72 inches

Over the years, Hawaii has provided me with many images from which to make paintings and drawings.  The drawing of Bud and Hiroki, at the top of this post, hangs in the Morinoue dining room in Holualoa.  We had dinner there a few days ago and I took great pleasure in seeing it.  One of the guests, not knowing I was the artist, commented that she had been admiring the piece. What more acknowledgement can I ask?

Fishing 1993, oil on canvas, about 60 x 40 inches

We’ve eaten a lot of fish while here, ahi, mahimahi, marlin.  Grilled at Lava Java by the sea wall down in Kona, sushi up north in Hawi at Sushi Rock and at Shiona in Kona for my birthday.  I like to sear a hunk of ahi to top a salad.

So, as we visit our favorite beach and seaside walk, bid goodbye to dear friends, and eat the last papaya for breakfast, we say aloha and mahalo to this lovely place.

Leaving Hawaii 2001, charcoal on paper, ~30 x 64 inches