Hawaii

By now you’ve probably pilfered all the really good Halloween candy from your kids, and are getting down to the lame stuff like pulverized taco chips.

Time to get out of here and head someplace with really good food.

How about Hawaii?

The first thing people notice about Hawaii is that it has an abundance of vowels. For example, the simple word ‘To’ becomes ‘WakalakaHubbahubba’ in Hawaiian.

In certain dialects, “Achoo!” means “That’s a nice set of pineapples you’ve got there”. It can be challenging.

Now, the main thing about Hawaii is that when you get there they put flower rings around your neck. Made from Highbiscuits and other fragrant flowers, they do this to hide the fact that all the volcanoes smell like flatulence.

I’m not kidding.

On all the National Geographic shows I’ve seen about volcanoes, not one of them ever tells you the volcano ate burritos the night before. The result is eerily similar to what happens when we eat burritos, except in the volcano’s case the hot lava, or ‘Magnum’, shoots out of a tube at high velocity and hits the water in a great steaming splash.

Yeah. So apart from that it’s a pretty neat place.

My wife and I spent our honeymoon there you know.

We spent a week on a big island called Kona, named after a famous bicycle manufacturer, where we did some marvelous baking.

Here is our favourite Hawaiian recipe: rub exposed skin with fragrant oils (do not cover), fry until bright red in a hot (35° Celsius, 100° Calvin Klein) oven environment, turning frequently. Baste with more fragrant oils, apply beer, and serve cooked and mellow with fresh fruits and vegetables. Just cut off the burnt bits. Yum!

We also visited the Mona Lisa volcano, which was nice.

Then it was off to Kiauuyeehawkaaii or Malahuinahaha or some other consonant-challenged place for another week, where I was attacked by some tuna.

Ahi-type tuna fish is a local delicacy, caught fresh in the local Carol reefs by large fishing boats from Taiwan which freeze the fish in huge holds, take it back to Asia where it is packed in boxes and flown daily to New York, then to Hawaii, where you can eat it as a fresh local delicacy while looking out over the reefs where it was caught.

Isn’t the global economy swell?

Anyway, there was a ‘Seafood Palace’ which had just opened next to our hotel, and was already World Famous according to its sign. Word must have spread rapidly on the interwebs or something.

My first bite of their specialty, Ahi tuna, proved interesting, and by ‘interesting’ I mean ‘caused most of my face to fall off’.

“Oh now this is different” I thought. “Subtle, delicate flavours, coupled with poisonous toxins that cause your lips and tongue to swell to several times their normal size. This IS a special!”

I wondered if ‘Ahi’ in Hawaiian meant ‘deadly fish that kills people every so often in Japan’ that I had seen once on Discovery channel.

I wasn’t sure if I was having an allergic reaction, or if my new bride had learned about my real past and had decided to bump me off without the bother of kids or years of tender happiness and joy.

I looked into her eyes and said romantically “Thish mish ins magging my mouf go numb!”

Turns out tuna does that when it goes bad. The restaurant actually confessed that it was their fault – it was an old piece of fish and not the ‘fresh off the boat bit of aquarian heaven’ their world famous menu had so obsequiously promised.

My threat of sicking an army of pasty white Canadian lawyers on them paid off handsomely when they offered me a free dessert for my trouble and puffy lips.

Lest you think I’m a wimpy negotiator, let me just inform you: I held out for two.

Cook ‘em Dano.