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By Request
Betty Shimabukuro
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Give thanks for those who share recipes
TODAY, as a little Thanksgiving reflection, I'm offering a list of the top recipes that have been printed in this space this year.
I'm not going to repeat them all, but if you missed any, I will send them to you, in exchange for a $5 donation to the Star-Bulletin's Good Neighbor Fund. Send your check (made out to the Good Neighbor Fund) to the address below.
If you are on good terms with your computer, all these recipes are available on our Web site, www.starbulletin.com.
Chicken Alice (Feb. 16): These spicy chicken wings have been the Holy Grail for so many recipe requesters for so many years. Alice Yang served the wings at her Kapiolani Boulevard take-out place for 13 years. When she closed in 1995, her customers were bereft.
Yang now manages Club Star Palace on Keeaumoku, just a few blocks from the old Chicken Alice, and she still fries up wings for her best customers. Her recipe secret turns out to be a kim chee base from a local company called Parks.
Moa Ta Haari (Feb. 9): The coconut chicken dish from the old Tahitian Lanai is firmly rooted in the nostalgia lobe of many a brain of a certain generation. But the best thing about finding this recipe was finding Ruby Washington, the widow of chef Anderson Washington.
Mrs. Anderson talked about raising eight kids in Kaneohe, plus the extended family of the restaurant staff. Then she pulled out a stack of his original recipes. What a treasure trove.
The low-fat oatcake (April 6): This pastry is the No. 1 seller among baked goods at Starbucks Coffee shops. People are seriously addicted. The recipe is a secret, but a very determined reader, Margo Lynn, came up with a very respectable facsimile that even reproduced the odd gray color of the Starbucks' version (blueberry purée). It's not an exact duplicate, but any differences are in Margo's favor.
Cafe Laufer's Coconut Chiffon Cake (June 29): Chef Cyrus Goo has always been generous about sharing, probably because he knows even with the recipe we can't do as well as he does at his Kaimuki restaurant. This baking project, for example, is quite ambitious, but the result is a light cake with a cream filling that cannot fail to impress.
First lady's apple cake (Oct. 19): Much simpler to accomplish is Vicky Cayetano's apple-spice cake, full of fresh apples and a really tasty snack. It's unusual, too, flat like a bar cookie, but soft like a cake. Cayetano loves to bake, but told me her husband does all the cooking now. That would be the ex-governor, Ben.
Send queries along with name and phone number to:
"By Request," Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
500 Ala Moana, No. 7-210, Honolulu 96813.
Or send e-mail to
bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com