May 2017 - Welcoming the Stranger

Several months ago, Wayne and I decided that it might be fun to rent out the downstairs studio apartment in the home where we live as an Air B&B. The place has its own lanai, looking directly at the Pacific Ocean, and out the back window, guests can gaze at the stunning Koolau mountain chain immediately behind the house. We are situated on the eastern shore of Oahu, half way up the Kamehameha Highway between the bustling touristy beaches at Waikiki and the equally busy North Shore, surfing capital of the World.
 

​​Sunday bikers cruise
Up the highway by the sea
Past golden plovers.

​Kaaawa, where we live, is not only the only town in America whose name contains three consecutive letters. It is also an ancient Hawaiian village and an oasis of calm between the frenetic south and north shores of Oahu. Our little B&B, as we have discovered, attracts a variety of people for diverse and interesting reasons, and all of our guests, we are pleased to say, have been good company.
 

​Among our first visitors was a Hawaiian couple from Maui who came with their little daughter to attend the traditional memorial service for his uncle at Kaaawa beach. A military couple who had not seen each other for many months because of his deployment overseas, came for a romantic reunion in our quiet and very private hideaway. We have also welcomed several Mormon couples from Utah and Idaho who like our location because of its proximity to the Mormon Temple and the surrounding L.D.S. community in the town of Laie, just north of us.
 

​Then there have been the Canadians and the Minnesotans who have come to escape the sub-zero temperatures in their homelands. One of these refugees from the land-locked cold actually broke out in tears of joy when she arrived at our studio in soft afternoon sunlight, the balmy trade winds wafting in from the sea, just steps away, and the coconut palms swaying gently above the pink hibiscus blossoms in our front yard.
 

​​In the soft twilight
At low tide, pink hibiscus
Flowers glow and sway.

​It is our goal to offer our guests the kind of hospitality that Kathleen and I describe in our website: myteaplanner.com. And we want our Air B&B to be a living example of the Philosophy of Tea: a refuge of peace, tranquility and mutual respect between guests and hosts. Wayne and I have tried to think of everything our visitors might need to help them feel welcome, relaxed and at peace. On arrival, all of our guests will discover a loaf of Hawaiian Banana Bread which I have baked for them from the Hawaiian Tea Menu on myteaplanner.com. We also offer almond croissants from the local farmers’ market, chocolate covered macadamia nuts made on the island and a refrigerator stocked with bottles of water, juice and milk for the Hawaiian granola we provide for them.
 

​Our studio also contains a cappuccino machine and a massage chair, very popular with guests who arrive exhausted from months of over-work and hours on a cramped airplane. Before our guests leave, Wayne always asks them if there were anything further we could have done to make them even more comfortable. Their answers have been very interesting, and we have implemented all of their suggestions: a night light, more hangers in the closet, hair conditioner as well as shampoo and body wash, an extra set of fluffy pillows, a luggage rack for a guest who wanted to live out of his suitcase rather than unpacking, and a bulletin board on the wall outside the entrance where guests can leave behind pamphlets and brochures for the activities they have especially enjoyed as suggestions for future visitors.
 

​We also ask our guests what made them choose our B&B over the many others available on Oahu. Several of them said they liked Wayne’s photos on our website, and to our surprise, two guests mentioned the photo of our very cute little dog, Declan, standing on the lanai.
 

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​The curly little
Dog naps on the lanai, the
Trade winds in his hair.

​When our guests arrive in their rental cars, Declan always comes downstairs with us to greet them, and we have discovered that many of our visitors are already missing their pets back home when they get to our B&B. On two occasions, our guests have asked if they could baby-sit Declan, and he was happy to come down and keep them company in the studio. Ultimately, we have learned that hospitality is really a form of healing, and it is our vocation as hosts, to discern what kind of healing our guests need and offer it to them.
 

A recent experience with Jenn and Anna, two delightful women from Minnesota, provides an example of how we celebrated with them the joy of hospitality and the Philosophy of Tea. Like many of our guests, Anna and Jenn came to Hawaii to escape the cold and to relax and refresh their spirits in nature after years of hard work. They own The Coffee Hag, a coffee house and community hub in Mankato, Minnesota. We discovered that both Jenn and Anna are creative artists as well as business women. Anna had just finished several commissions before leaving on vacation, and Jenn is a musician who does vocals and guitar in her own band. When I mentioned that baking and hosting tea parties is my creative outlet, Anna exclaimed, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to have a tea party while we’re here in Hawaii?”

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​Tea on the lanai:
Pink ginger flowers, scones with
Marmalade, trade winds.

Of course I said, “Yes,” and eagerly offered to host the event. This was on a Saturday afternoon, and we set the date for our tea party for Tuesday at 2:00 PM, the final day of their Hawaiian vacation. While Jenn and Anna spent the next three days relaxing on the beach and experiencing a shark adventure (the humans are in an underwater cage while the sharks swim freely in the ocean), I set about planning a Hawaiian Afternoon Tea that I hoped would express the spirit of Aloha for our guests to take home with them.

My first task was to check my cupboards to see what I already had on hand and develop the menu based on these staples plus fresh ingredients I could pick up at the Sunday farmers’ market. A search of my kitchen revealed the following treasures: two gifts from Kathleen, a tin of Twining’s Black Tea Blend in honor of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II’s ninetieth birthday and a jar of Lady Wolf Marmalade Supreme, an orange, grapefruit and lemon marmalade made by Kathleen and her friend Ellen from fruit growing on Ellen’s property in Fresno. In the freezer I found a piece of salmon we bought from a fisherman at the farmers’ market and a large round of home-made Czech-style jalapeño sausage which we bought, also at the farmers’ market from the man who makes the sausage himself. Digging around in the refrigerator, I discovered, sour cream, cream cheese, a cucumber, some cheese slices, a very ripe papaya (a gift from a friend,) and a large jar of assorted Greek olives, both black and green, combined with strips of brined red peppers, tiny onions and cornichons.

A further exploration of my cupboards unearthed a package of Haupia (Hawaiian coconut pudding) mix, some candied ginger and a tiny jar of rare Ohelo Berry Jam, which we had bought from the woman who sells her home-made jams at the farmers’ market. And fortunately, I had some very ripe bananas in my fruit bowl, ready to be baked into a fresh batch of Hawaiian Banana Bread. We also had some chocolate covered macadamia nuts and a pretty fresh baguette laying around that we had been eating with olive oil to accompany a recent pot of Borscht.

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Based on these available ingredients, I devised the following menu for:
 
​                                                    A Hawaiian Spring Tea

 Savories:
Greek Olive Assortment
Smoked Marlin
Sausage and Cheese Canapes on Baguette
 
Tea Sandwiches:
Roasted Salmon on Taro Rolls with Sour Cream and Chives
Cream Cheese and Ohelo Berry Jam on Guava Bread
Cucumber and Waimanalo Watercress on Sprouted Multi-Grain Bread
 
Scones:
Ginger Scones with Mock Devonshire Cream and
Lady Wolf Marmalade Supreme
 
Sweets:
Hawaiian Banana Bread
Haupia (Coconut Pudding) with Fresh Papaya Puree
Chocolate Covered Macadamia Nuts
 
Tea:
Twining’s Black Tea Blend in Honor of Her Majesty,
Queen Elizabeth II’s Ninetieth Birthday

Now all I had to do was create my list for the Sunday farmers’ market in nearby Kaneohe to obtain the missing local ingredients, including smoked marlin from the guys who go out on their boat and catch the fish themselves, fresh chives and watercress from Waimanalo and the lovely taro rolls, guava bread and sprouted multi-grain bread sold at the French-Vietnamese bakery’s booth.

As I was visualizing the menu while sorting through the larder, I began to conceptualize the setting for our tea. It would be on our upstairs lanai, facing the Pacific Ocean; thus, Anna and Jenn would be guests in our home. And since I knew that they were dog lovers, Declan would also be invited. Our color scheme would be a casual mix of pink and green with a bouquet of pink ginger flowers augmented with greenery from our garden as a visual focal point. These colors would harmonize with my inherited collection of pink Depression Glass and my “good” china, the Lennox Charleston pattern, a soft blend of cream, pink and celadon green. I polished my silver tea pot and tray to serve the tea and used our Hawaiian koa wood tray for the sweets.

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I rolled my three-tiered tea cart onto the lanai to serve the scones. The scones were on the top tier, the Devonshire cream, marmalade and butter on the second, and a photograph of Queen Liliuokalani rested on the third tier. We invited Hawaii’s last monarch to join us as we enjoyed our Queen Elizabeth II commemorative tea. I was also grateful for the opportunity to dig around in the linen closet for vintage napkins and tablecloths, waiting to be used.

Our guests had revealed themselves to be generous hearted, grateful and non-judgmental people, and their attitude made it easy for me to create the food and the setting with a relaxed and happy heart, knowing that my efforts would be appreciated. The guests’ participation at the tea party is crucial to the success of the event. If you are not quite familiar with tea party etiquette, I encourage you to read “Guidelines for the Host or Hostess” and “Guidelines for the Guest” in myteaplanner.com. I can honestly say that Jenn and Anna were perfect guests.

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I hope there is a lesson here, as the celebration of Afternoon Tea is really a mini celebration of life itself. To be happy in life, one must be trusting and fearless, grateful for both friends and strangers, willing to be spontaneous and creative and also respectful of one’s own culture and surroundings. Can you see how the Hawaiian Spring Tea menu emerged from the ordinary staples and food items that are part of everyday life in rural Hawaii? Nothing on the menu was especially fancy or unusual, but I trusted my guests to enjoy these simple preparations that were unique to Hawaii.

I urge you to look around at your own environment with grateful eyes. What is unique about the foods you eat or the plants and flowers that surround you in Mankato, Minnesota, in Houston, in Utah, in Calgary? Idaho is known for its huckleberries, California for garlic and artichokes, Vermont for maple syrup and Kansas for its glorious corn. In its own environment, each of these items is ordinary, but it is the elevation of the ordinary into art that makes a tea party a memorable occasion. I hope you will support the farmers’ markets in your own community and take the time to welcome the produce that becomes available with each season as it arrives. Most of all, I wish for you a healthy enjoyment of the world in which you happen to live.

And finally, since May is the month in which we celebrate Mother’s Day, why not skip the over-crowded restaurant brunch this Mother’s Day and invite your mother or another older woman friend to tea in your own home? You can look at the Mother’s Day Tea menu in the Year of Tea Parties calendar section of myteaplanner.com for ideas. Kathleen’s Pink Champagne Cake is spectacular. Or, you can look in your own cupboards and refrigerator for inspiration and fill in the blanks with fresh May produce from the farmers’ market in your own neighborhood. Just to get you started, I leave you with the simple and very ordinary recipe for Hawaiian Banana Bread which the guests at our Air B&B seem to enjoy.

Hawaiian Banana Bread

Hawaiian Banana Bread is often sold from trucks or roadside stands by women who have whipped up a batch using the bananas growing in their back yards. Hawaiian Banana Bread is not fancied up with the addition of nuts, chocolate chips, raisins or coconut. However, you can make a special tea party treat by slicing the loaf lengthwise and then into thin matching slices which you can sandwich together with cream cheese or peanut butter to create little banana bread tea sandwiches. The secret to perfect banana bread is to make sure that the bananas are very, very ripe, black and drippy preferred. 

• 1 ¾ cups flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (2-3 bananas)
• ¾ cup vegetable oil
• cooking spray for the pans

 
Preheat oven to 350° F
 
Special equipment: electric mixer, large mixing bowl, sieve or flour sifter, two 8” x 4” aluminum baking pans (or three 5 ¾” x 3 ½”,) sharp knife or wooden skewer
 
Makes: two 8” x 4” loaves (or three 5 ¾” x 3 ½” loaves)

1. Bring the eggs to room temperature. Spray 2 loaf pans with cooking spray. Beat the eggs, sugar, oil and bananas well in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Make sure that the bananas are thoroughly mashed. Place the flour, soda and salt in a sifter or sieve and sift the flour mixture into the banana mixture. Beat just until incorporated.
2. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 50 minutes for two loaves or 45 minutes for three loaves. Test for doneness by inserting a sharp knife or a wooden skewer into the center of one of the loaves. The bread is done when the knife comes out with no crumbs attached.
3. Serve warm or cool in the pans, remove, wrap tightly in plastic wrap or foil and store at room temperature for up to three days. Banana bread can also be frozen.