Every year for the past five years, Hilo has been my temporary home for a week in the spring as I cover the Merrie Monarch Festival hula competition. It's far from a vacation; my days are filled with work-related activities.

But I do manage to have some fun, and as is typical of Islanders, those good times usually involve food — starting about, oh, 15 minutes after I wrestle my luggage into the rental car.

First stop after my Saturday arrival: Big Island Candies, where I walk all around the pristine showroom, examining all the beautifully wrapped boxes and sampling the new products, then buying my omiyage, thus avoiding the Sunday-after-Merrie Monarch craziness. (Also, assuring a ready supply of sugar to fuel my late-night blogging sessions.)

Feeling smug, I hele up the road to the Puainako KTA store, where I buy a cooler and stock up on bread, cheese, fruit, snacks and interesting takeout items for my hotel room.

These safely stowed, it's time for a leisurely lunch at Cafe Pesto, often with my hanai brother, a lei maker who is generally there for a day or two of relaxation before he goes into pua-kenikeni production mode. That night, it's become a tradition to meet my friends, Randall and Clarysse Nunokawa, Hilo foodies, for another leisurely meal, often at Hilo Bay Cafe.

Sunday morning early, my hula and food friend Marylene Chun likes to drive up the hill to Volcano where the rustic Cooper Center hosts the Volcano Community Farmers Market, as much a place for trading news as for trading dollars. You can buy pickled hapu'u ferns, local honey, homemade jams, old books and rummage items, organically grown vegetables with dirt still clinging to their roots, inexpensive flowers, a hearty buffet breakfast and baked goods and breads not to be missed.

Stop at the Mountain View Bakery for stone cookies on the way back (get some coffee to dip them in so you don't dent your teeth, and don't bother asking for the recipe — it's a family secret).

My workweek begins the Sunday before the hula festivals as I wrap a shawl around myself and find a seat in the chilly breeze sweeping through the Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium, where rehearsals take place every hour on the hour from early morning until late night. (Of course, my tote is stuffed with snacks like Maebo One-Ton Chips, smokemeat from Koji's Bento Korner and mui and sour lemon from Kawate Seed Shop — all to be munched discreetly as I watch and take notes.)

More dining adventures follow: gravy burgers at Itsu's, dinaguaan (pork blood stew) from Hiro's, whole grilled reef fish eaten with the fingers at Nori's Saimin and Snacks (with chocolate mochi to go), whole pond-raised moi or mullet eaten with fork and knife at Seaside Restaurant & Aquaculture Farm, laulau plate from Kuhio Grille, sweet bread from Punalu'u Bake Shop, moco from Cafe 100, larb gai chicken salad from Sombat's Fresh Thai, sesame chicken and tempura at Miyo's and okazu raids to Hilo

Lunch Shop.

Last year, photographer Rebecca Breyer and I slowed down a bit to spend some time at two exceptional Hilo eats and omiyage spots, businesses that illustrate the respect for tradition that seems to be a Hilo calling card, at least to the glazed eyes of this city dweller, who has watched the disappearance of one Mom and Pop icon after another here on O'ahu.

• Kawamoto Store.

Sixty-year-old Kawamoto Store is one of those places that someone has to tell you about; they have no need to advertise.

The old-style glass-and-wood-case okazuya founded by the Kawamotos is now owned by the Kualii family, who arrive at 3 a.m. to start preparing the steady stream of pay-by-the-piece or by-the-pound Japanese and local deli specialties that fill the trays.

Cone sushi, batter-fried Okinawan sweet potatoes, shirataki noodle salad, nori chicken, Korean chicken, tempura, shoyu pork and chicken, nishime, fishcake, hash, hot dogs, barbecue meat, meatballs, mac salad, pre-made bentos and more flow through the Kilauea Avenue shop from 6:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.

"It's the real old style, no steam tables," said Cheryl Kualii. "This is the only place in town that you can get hot shrimp tempura at 6 in the morning. It's all fresh. Whatever is left over goes home with the employees, but mostly, we sell out." And everything is just 35 cents to 80 cents apiece. Last year, I went there every day they were open and never got tired of it.

• Two Ladies Kitchen.

At about a dozen years old, Two Ladies isn't quite as venerable as Kawamoto Store, but equally rooted in tradition. Owner Nori Uchida named it as a sign of respect to her mother's youngest sister, Tomi Tokeshi, who taught Uchida how to make old-style cooked rice flour cakes. "She knew how to do it the right away. It was such a beautiful art that I had to ask her to please teach me," recalled Uchida.

Now the whole 'ohana — Uchida's mom and dad, siblings, children, friends — help out, especially at busy times, such as New Year's, when mochi cakes are a traditional part of the celebration, and during Merrie Monarch week, when they can barely keep up with the orders and the white boxes take wing and travel around the Islands with gift-givers.

Uchida buys mochi flour in 50-pound sacks and each Wednesday through Saturday makes vast quantities of water-mochiko-sugar batter that can be flavored as desired and delicately tinted with liquid food coloring, then filled with a plethora of confections. It is here that Two Ladies departs from tradition, straying far beyond the usual stuffing of tsubushian (chunky sweet bean paste), koshian (smooth beans) or shiro-an (lima bean). Her signature is the girlish pink mochi stuffed with whole strawberries, air-freighted from California. She also makes peanut-butter, sweet potato mochi, coconut, rocky road, chocolate and brownie mochi. "I listen to the kids and I try their ideas," she said.

The rice flour batter is cooked in an immense pot, presided over by whoever's got the strongest arms; it takes some heft to lift and stir the thick paste with a tool nearly the size of a canoe paddle. Once it's properly cooked, the batter cools briefly, until it's just touchable.

Uchida explains that temperature is the key when it comes to making properly tender and pillowy mochi cakes. She shudders if you mention microwave mochi; the microwave, she says, heats the batter too rapidly, then allows it to cool too swiftly, so that the cakes are dry and rubbery.

When the temperature is just right, helpers crowd around, forming round, flattish cakes and filling them by hand with deft twists and tuckings. The dough is as smooth as an infant's skin and as warm as a puppy's tummy. "We try to keep them uniform as possible but sometimes the size isn't all the same," said Uchida modestly.

The finished cakes, ready for packing into boxes, look lovely, like a row of soft, featureless bosoms (chichi dango is the name for a particularly soft form of mochi cake and chichi, though it has a number of meanings, is Japanese slang for breasts). Some are colored, some are marked with a hot brand both for decorative purposes and to indicate what kind of filling is inside and some are formed like marzipan into the shapes of fruit and flowers.

"Mochi has become something different in Hawai'i," said Uchida. "It opened up a new market for me when I succeeded in making it appeal to people who don't like the sweet beans."

Here, there's nothing not to like.