by Lehua Parker | Jun 26, 2013 | Mainland Living
For Father’s Day my husband bought himself a meat smoker. In the four days since he set it up, he’s cooked a nine pound brisket, eight ears of corn, three pounds of teriyaki beef jerky, and is now smoking a seven pound pork roast, his attempt at replicating kalua pig without the imu.
Did I mention we’re a family of four?
My spices have been confiscated and combined in secret rubs sealed in tightly lidded jars labeled #1 Kansas, #1 Memphis, and #1 Kalua. Spray bottles with suspicious liquids line the refrigerator door. On the dvr new shows are crowding the playlist like BBQ Pit Masters, Epic BBQ Pits, and Steak & Ribs. Pallets of pellets–yes, pallets–of mesquite, applewood, and cherrywood pellets are on order. There’s talk of expanding the deck, adding an outside fridge, a firepit, a sink, and dutch oven cooking table.
I am starting to be afraid. Very afraid.
But nobody, no matter how dedicated to carnivorous delights, can consume that much meat. What he’s really addicted to is family and friends. We’ve hosted more get-togethers and are planning more since the meat smoker arrived than ever before. We’ve enjoyed the easy company and I gotta admit, I’m enjoying letting someone else do most of the cooking. He even cleans up after himself.
I’m starting to think his Father’s Day present was really a Mother’s Day present in disguise.
by Lehua Parker | Jun 12, 2013 | Island Style
Beach Lessons From My Father
- As you’re packing the cooler, remember a little too much is the perfect amount. The coldest drinks are going to be at the bottom. The beer goes in first.
- Carry meat tenderizer in your beach bag for jelly fish stings. Pat stings with wet sand; don’t rub. Suck it up and get back in the water.
- If you’re caught in a rip current, don’t fight it. Relax. Slowly work your way across the current, usually parallel to the shore until you’re free. Once out, if you continue to swim a little farther parallel, there’s a good chance you’ll hit another current that will take you back to shore. Do not tire yourself out by fighting the current or waving your arms or shouting. I’m busy. You can handle this.
- Ice cold water from the beach showers isn’t cold. Suck it up and get back in that water. No way you’re coming near the car like that.
After washing all the sand off, if you walk correctly—high, flat, carefully placed steps, no flicking your slippahs or dragging your towel, you can make it to the car sand-free. Otherwise you have to start all over.- At volleyball, old and treacherous beats young and enthusiastic every time.
- Spitting into a swim mask keeps it from fogging, but unless you’re a tourist or spear fishing you don’t need a mask. Just open your eyes. It’s good for you.
- If you don’t want someone to pee on your foot, watch out for wana when climbing around the tide pools.
- When the sun sets, get out of the water. Sharks come in and feed at dawn, dusk, and through the night, especially near harbors and the mouths of rivers. Better you don’t swim there. Everybody knows sharks prefer white meat, and you look way too haole to chance ‘em.
- Run to the big wave, not away.
- Nobody ever died from rolling up the beach no matter how much ocean and sand they coughed up. Told you to run to the big wave, not away. Now suck it up and get back in the water.
by Lehua Parker | Jun 5, 2013 | Mainland Living
About once or twice a week I have to go through the fridge and pantry and weed out the limp celery, wizened apples, and suspiciously fuzzy baked goods. With two ravenous teens in the house it’s hard to strike the right balance between having enough fresh things on hand and schedules that often leave us eating out.
However, with six horses, fifteen chickens, two dogs, and three cats also at home few things go to waste. Peels, stale bagels, and nobody’s-gonna-eat-that leftovers get tossed in a bag or a bucket perched on the edge of the kitchen counter. It’s understood that the next time a kid heads out to gather eggs or toss hay to the horses, the bucket goes along, too. They’re supposed to share the wealth.
But sometimes I can’t wait to get things off the counter. It’s no surprise that like Pavlov’s dogs, all I have to do is step out on the back deck and all the chickens, dogs, and cats come running. They know I’m lazy and will huck things over the railing into a planting area instead of walking out to the corrals. The horses come to the fence line and whinny, but they know it’s unlikely I’ll walk out unless I have shoes on.
I rarely have shoes on. But they never give up hope.
Over the years we’ve learned a few things. If I thought I could get away with it I’d have one of my kids keep track and turn it in as a science fair project. Too bad none of their science teachers have caught the vision or seen the value. For the record:
One horse loves red grapes and will do anything to get them. The others don’t care.
All horses love watermelon and corn tortillas, but not even chickens will eat bell peppers, celery, or fresh pineapple.
If you hold out a stale loaf of French bread like a sword, horses will take bites.
Only dogs like peanut butter-flavored anything.
Cats want their own piece of whatever it is, even if they won’t eat it. Just having their own makes them happy.
Dogs will do tricks all day if you give them a little something. It doesn’t matter if it’s dry dog food from their bowl—if it’s coming from a person it’s a treat.
Chickens get excited over cherry tomatoes until they take a peck. They probably confuse them with strawberries. I’d be sad, too.
Horses really like granola bars unless they’re coated in chocolate. In fact, none of the animals really like chocolate, which proves they’re not as evolved as we thought.
What are some of the memorable things you’ve fed your pets?
by Lehua Parker | May 29, 2013 | Mainland Living
The Hair Wars are back.
My kitchen and dining room look like a scene from Steel Magnolias. There are four different brands of hot rollers, two curling irons, clamps, pins, and enough abandoned bottles of crap-that’s-not-the-right-shade-either foundation to cover the Golden Gate Bridge. Costco-sized cans of hair spray, curling mousse, and rat-tailed combs litter the counters. My daughter sits on a stool, terrified of the hot wax and tweezers.
It’s rodeo princess pageant season again and neither of us are happy.
In full rodeo regalia, my thirteen year old daughter is stunning. Tall and built for the runways of Paris or Milan, she moves like the athlete she is. Last summer she competed for the first time and served as the first attendant princess in the Mountain Valley Stampede. She and her horses traveled all over Utah performing in parades and rodeos. My shy daughter discovered she loved being a rodeo princess. Her favorite part was helping out at the Special Needs Rodeo where she ran with a stick horse and draped rodeo queen sashes over all of the girls.
A year older and wiser, she’s ready to do it again.
In rodeo grand entries she’s a speed demon on her performance horse Brownie and competes in barrels and poles. On Trigger, her bomb-proof-whatever-happens-I’m-cool horse, she’s all smiles and glitter in parades.
It’s not the horses or hard work or public speaking that gets to her.
It’s the hair.
In the world of rodeo pageantry, it’s got to be big, Dolly Parton big and curly. My daughter’s hair is a shiny mass of blonde—fine, thick, and straight as a stick. It’s all one length, down to the middle of her back. Don’t even think about cutting it.
In her everyday middle school, piano recital, soccer playing world, she wears it in a no-nonsense ponytail with accent braids. If she’s dressing up, it merits a messy, organic flower looking bun. Make-up to her is a little moisturizer or sunscreen. A touch of clear lip balm and bright nail polish is the most she will do.
But in spring her love of horses and performing do battle with her hatred of all things foofy, and she tries to suck it up as we shape eyebrows, apply foundation and mascara, and perform nightly experiments with hot rollers and a pharmacopeia of products—all in search for the elusive combination that gives her long-lasting southern belle curls.
For the record, curling mousse, pink foam rollers slept on overnight, and half a can of light-weight hairspray are the only things that really work. Last year she complained, but now she says she’s mastered the art of sleeping on her face.
A throw-it-in-a-ponytail blonde myself, I’m not like my beauty queen sisters who know all the secrets. As much as she hates curling her hair, I hate curling it. It’s a volatile combination.
Her father and I keep telling her she can compete without all the fuss, but we both know to win that’s not true. Hair and make-up requirements are explicit in the contracts.
And that’s too bad.
Watching her practice, there’s something special in the grace of a young woman bare-faced and natural. It’s easier to admire the teamwork between rider and horse without the complications of rhinestones and belt buckles.
I try to remember these days, storing them against a future when make-up matters, when getting ready takes longer than eating breakfast, when it becomes less about riding and more about looking. According to my mother, those days will come.
But there’s hope, she says. Like you, that could be a just a phase.
by Lehua Parker | May 27, 2013 | Learning ‘Ōlelo
boroz, boroboroz
(BOW-row-z) (BOW-row-BOW-row-z) (n) Pidgin word for the the oldest, most worn-out clothes, one small step above rags. Worn when painting, doing yard work, etc.
Example
“How come you stay wearing your boroz? I thought the new clothes Mom and Lili bought you was sharp.” ~ Jay, One Boy, No Water
Note: ‘Ōlelo is a Hawaiian word meaning language, speech, word, etc. To see the current list of Hawaiian and Pidgin words, definitions, and usage please click on
by Lehua Parker | May 22, 2013 | Island Style
Living in the shadow of a volcano, there were many nights when I imagined lava pouring down Haleakala’s mountain sides and pooling in the hall outside my bedroom door. My sister and I even had a game where the floor was white-hot lava and you had to leap to safety chair by coffee table by couch.
Our mother was not amused.
Like Californians and earthquakes, mid-westerners and tornadoes, Big Island residents know that someday Pele’s fires will dance again, a ticking time bomb on a geological time scale of a minute or millennia.
Developers and bankers want to think a hundred years or more. My grandfather was in the insurance biz when developers in the 1970s and ’80s wanted to build on lava flows. He refused.
“There’s a reason it’s a lava flow, Lehua. Never build on a lava flow or a dry river bed.”
Probably some of the best advice he ever gave me.
