Post-Christmas Hawaiian Farmer's Market: Pesto Pizza Galore!

   

The Chew		The View
"Fried Green Tomato's" Pesto Pizza		Views from Diamond Head

Ironically, neither of the highlights from this post happened on Christmas Day. That day, instead, was spent surfing. The only personal foodie highlight came with Christmas dinner at Benihana's--yes, I know this is a chain that we've all probably been to, but this was my first time! And the onion volcano was amazing!

Ok, enough of that. The next day was certainly a gastro-journey. It began with a dilemma between my college student side and my foodie side: wake up early for good food or sleep in? In service to you, I rolled out of bed at 8am. And was rewarded with some of the best locally-sourced food I've ever had the pleasure of eating at near sunrise.

The Kapiolani City College Farmers Market is a weekly event that takes place every Sunday, right at the base of Diamond Head. We got there about 9 (it takes a girl a while to get ready, alright?), and the place was swamped, surprisingly, with an equal mixture of tourists and locals. For many, this would have been overwhelming. But I had a game plan that included pesto pizza, chocolate-marshmallow beignets, North Shore corn, and flavored lemonade. I came away with some successes :)

Corn on the cob with fresh shoyu butter + seaweed seasoning: Seriously heaven on a stick. The corn itself was fresh from Kamuku on the North Shore of Oahu. It had serious bite, as evidenced by the bright yellow kernels.

And that shoyu butter is insanely tasty! A mix of sweet and salty, this was like a slightly sweet dessert without any of the guilt. The pièce de résistance was the healthy peppering of seaweed flakes and sesame seeds--just to reinforce the Asian flavors.

 Peanut butter+chocolate-filled beignets: Dear God. Thank you for this meal. Amen.

• Beignet (pronounced "ben-yay"): The French word for fried dough, that's the short explanation. It's a French doughnut covered in powdered sugar, served pipin' hot.
  

There isn't much more to say. The beignet was freshly fried and oozing a literally halved sauce of peanut butter to the left, and rich chocolate to the right. The peanut butter, in my estimation, was a better bite--but you chocoholics probably would be happy to hear of their other option: chocolate-marshmallow. Even as a foodie, I quiver in fear of the richness of that beignet...


But the true glory of the market came in a slice of pizza.

The mozarella-pesto pizza was the heavy-hitter of the day. From the "Fried Green Tomato" stand, it wasn't cheap at a whopping $6.50 a slice. But it was pure perfection.

It begins with the workers spreading a thin pesto sauce on prepared pizza dough. After covering with

fresh, juicy red and yellow tomatoes, they top with slabs of mozzarella--very Italian minimalist. They grill it once, and then put the individual slices back again in a separate grill to maximize the meltiness of the cheese, effectively binding the slice into a perfect package of smooth pesto, tender veggies, and gooey mozarella. All topped with crisp basil.

Such is the meaning of life.

Stomach quite satisfied (and guilty after the beignets), we headed for a hike of Diamond Head Crater. Created by a titanic volcanic explosion 300,000 years ago, this jutting mountain is the backdrop for any photo of Waikiki.

I'm just warning you--it takes at least 172 stairs, and 761 feet of total elevation to reach the top. Thank god I took a weight training class this semester.

Oh yes, and you have to walk a rather claustrophobic tunnel through the mountain to reach these daunting flight of steps. You know Thunder Mountain at Disneyland, and all those fun tunnels with the fake bits of rock that are wiggling to break free? Feels sort of like that.

But the view is incredibly rewarding.

So I leave you with this, a shot of one of the most beautiful stretches of sand from the top of a volcano.









Aloha,
The Chew