Remembering Diamond Head Cookbook - Hawaii

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Description: I was seven years old when my folks got this crazy idea to open a restaurant. That may not sound so crazy but they were both in graduate school at the time and they had four kids!" Coauthor Lisa Gaynier explains her love of food and her reason, years later, for dropping out of graduate school to become a restaurateur. In so doing, she continued her family's odyssey into the culinary world. Leaving their beloved Hawai'i for school and career, the Parola family brought their foods with them, and broadened the palates of scores of mainlanders. From a makeshift counter in front of a summer theater in the heart of the Midwest, to an upscale Pacific Rim inspired cafe in Ann Arbor, Michigan, mother and daughter explored their roots and their creativity. 

Remembering Diamond Head, Remembering Hawai'i, featuring 250 Island recipes, many of them "heart-friendly," traces the evolution of Hawaiian food from the "fish and poi" of Polynesian natives to the multicultural hybrids that make up the best of today's Island cooking. 

To the authors, Hawai'i's food is a metaphor for Hawai'i itself. Not a Melting Pot as it has often been called, but a vibrant "tossed salad" or "savory stew," where each ingredient contributes to the whole, yet distinctly maintains its identity. Throughout the years of the Diamond Head Cafe's operation, Lisa and Shirley developed new dishes based on the old familiar ones. Each was tested and tweaked until a new ingredient, a new taste, a new texture, a new flavor, finally a new dish, was perfected. 

Each chapter of the book, from pii-pu to haitpia -- appetizers to desserts -- and interesting sidebars on every page, instruct the cook on everything from locating and selecting ingredients to the preparation and preservation of them: "When is a mango ripe and how do you peel and present it?" "Ginger in gin?" And answers to other provocative questions that you didn't know you needed answers to. Plus, a complete luau menu, written with good humor and clear instructions, this cookbook weaves memoir, family history, and restaurant anecdotes to celebrate the rich Hawaiian-American experience. 

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Condition: Good condition.