Not so at home on the range

I was both excited and apprehensive about working alongside professional chefs and about how super-duper sizing a home recipe would work. Would they think I was a poser? Would the dish work when expanded out of all proportion?

In the Hilton Waikoloa Village kitchen, host chef Willie Pirngruber turned me over to banquet chef Clayton "Clayt" Ohta, who was pretty busy anticipating 1,500 grazers, not to mention more than 30 other guest chefs. He assured me he would put his crew on my recipe — a Portuguese pupu called torresmos (tray-moozh), made by marinating chunks of pork with paprika, peppers and garlic, and oven-frying it in olive oil.

I worried that the dish was too simple and folksy, but that concern was mitigated when I ran into chef George "Mavro" Mavrothalassitis of Chef Mavro restaurant, who also was in the kitchen, obsessing about tripe stew. Tripe stew? From the James Beard Award-winning chef known for creations so refined you feel as though you shouldn't sit down in their presence?

The next day, I got my chance to observe the workings of a professional kitchen. Chef Ohta hauled out the kitchen-sink-size tub of marinated pork and left me to it while he rolled and cut trays of makizushi.

You'd not know it from the hot-line dramatics on trendy chef shows, but cheffing dayside in a resort with almost a dozen food outlets is rather quiet, unglamorous hard labor. Prep cooks and garde-manger (cold food) chefs strap on their aprons, sharpen their knives, then check clipboards that outline the tasks for the day: Carve so many portions of meat, make so many gallons of dressing or sauce, toss bathtubs of salad, cut oceans of fruit.

They never sit down, never stop except for lunch break, never sneak a bite. Between tasks, they wipe down their stations, deliver dirty utensils to the dishwashers — whose work, too, never ends — and move on to the next job. They might flash a smile at a stranger in the kitchen, but they stay on task.

It was easy to slip into their deliberate rhythm, frying up a few pieces of pork to check flavors, adding more garlic and salt, mincing parsley for garnish.

But I'm admitting it in print: I flubbed the dish — let the kitchen use wrong cooking technique because I was too timid to speak up, spiced the dish too lightly. (Note to self: Next time, say "no" to guest-chef invitations.)

The key to torresmos is to oven-fry it in a deep, heavy vessel with at least a half an inch of oil in the bottom. The pork roasts slowly in a bath of oil, turned from time to time, until it's golden-brown. Baking it in shallow trays, as we did, caused the meat to be soggy rather than tender-crisp, bland rather than salty-spicy. Sigh.

I just made like Julia Child, who preached that a confident smile and a sprinkling of parsley rescues any kitchen failure. So, along with my two assistants, culinary students at Konawaena High School, I smiled and served the dish that night, throwing parsley about with abandon.

Contestants go way over the top in presenting entries in the annual Aloha Festival Poke Contest. This entry used rambutan shells as serving cups. Aloha Festivals Poke Contest photos

Chester Sims' Aloha-Style Poke, an award winner, was simple and to the point, both in presentation and in ingredients.

Another booth that rated a lot of surprise and interest was that of Volcano-based Yamashiro Farms, where they were grating fresh wasabi right from the stalk. The flavor is surprising if you've not experienced it before: vegetal, with relatively mild heat. As with a great hot sauce, there are layers of flavor, not merely tasteless fire. Lance Yamashiro likens fresh wasabi to vintage wine, and the powdered stuff to jug wine: Both give you a buzz, but the good stuff is complex and complements other flavors. All evening, chefs — Alan Wong, Josh Ketner of Hilo Bay Café and others — dropped by to taste and look over the odd, almost primeval wasabi plant, with its thick, nubby single stalk sprouting gingko-like leaves. I'm predicting fresh wasabi dishes on local menus soon.

Working these events, you never eat until the end. At a display of Waimea-grown vegetables from Best Farms, we crunched into cobs of raw corn so sweet and packed with juice that they were the perfect answer to why buy fresh and local.

Events like this suggest what Hawai'i could — and I think should — be: A place where farming, ranching, fishing and artisanal food production reach high art, supported both by local residents and the tourism industry.

Poke for breakfast

"It takes a special kind of person to want poke for breakfast," said poke contest emcee Rodney Villanueva during the judges' 8 a.m. orientation on Sept. 26. "But remember now, your job is to taste the poke, not sit down and have lunch!"

There was little chance of that: The 49 judges had barely more than a half-hour to taste their assigned entries. Most of us had a dozen dishes to consider; some divisions included as many as 16 entries. There were 57 entries, judged in different, often overlapping categories: professional and amateur, traditional and contemporary, and by ingredients used. Two special awards are the Aloha Festivals honor, selected by Gloriann Akau, Aloha Festivals Big Island manager, and the Ali'i Award, selected by Kaha Kai Souza, 18, mo'i (king) of the Big Island Aloha Festivals Court.

The poke was evaluated on the basis of taste and appearance. Some contestants outdid themselves in the latter area, one creating an entire Japanese garden; another presenting poke in cocktail glasses with elaborate garnish. One chef stuffed savory creampuffs with poke. Another entrant made a lobster poke pizza, presented in pizza boxes: a creamy topping of lobster and crunchy tobiko (flying-fish roe) and a scattering of baby greens atop oven-crisped tortilla chips. Yet another made a poke Wellington, wrapping puff pastry around poke and foie gras.

Simplest is often best, however. Plain poke in a koa bowl was the standout for a number of judges, including New York Times Syndicate writer and food historian Edythe Preet, who swears she could eat poke every day. The bright red sashimi-grade 'ahi, evenly cut in bite-size chunks, glistened in its coat of sesame oil flecked with kukui nuts, sesame seed, chili, green onion and ogo. Superb "purist poke." I cheered loudly when when its creator, Chester Sims of Laupahoehoe, a Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel cook, received the Aloha Festivals award. "I just got inspired from a friend (to enter the competition)," he said modestly.

Before the awards, there was a brief "Ready, Set, Cook" competition pairing celebrities and professional chefs, made hilarious by Villanueva's antics and judged by members of the audience.

I was paired with past poke contest winner Hideo Kurihara of Hakone, the Hapuna steak and sushi restaurant. Because of him, our moi poke was the winner. All I did was chop, chop, chop. I can't share the recipe because we didn't measure, just tossed together well-cleaned raw moi, minced ginger and green onion, sesame oil and lemon juice, laced with sesame seeds. Delicate and delicious.