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It's entertaining and somewhat educational to watch TV chefs whip up towering plates of cuisine, but that's fantasy food. Let's get real.
What's in the shopping cart
for dinner tonight?Story by Cynthia Oi
Star-BulletinWho's got veal demiglace or two types of aioli in their fridge? Who has the time or the money to prepare a meal that involves 25 ingredients, including white truffle oil?
Not any of the busy island people shopping recently in Foodland supermarkets. Canvassing customers in Foodland stores revealed that most prepare simple, no-fuss fare.
Diane Burgevin, for example. In less than 20 minutes late on a weekday afternoon, Burgevin skimmed the aisles of the Market City store. She filled her cart methodically with chicken, tortillas, peppers, prepared salsa, sour cream and spinach. Chicken enchiladas, evidently, were on the menu. The spinach was for an accompanying salad.
Burgevin, 35, general manager for a retail store, eats out more often than she takes meals at home, but that night she had a guest and wanted to make dinner.She says she's a good cook, but takes advantage of prepared products such as the salsa to cut time in the kitchen.
That was also the goal of Candy Lozano and Angela Kilakalua. The friends were looking for a quick meal that would satisfy the cravings of their kids -- Lozano's 4-year-old Keanu and Kilakalua's daughters, Anakela, 17, and Aleka, 7. Then the two women could go shopping later in the evening.
Poke and poi, and pork with cabbage fit the bill. Poi and poke involved no cooking. The pork and cabbage would be stir fried with salt, pepper, garlic and oyster sauce, said Kilakalua. "Easy."
The women don't shop for more than three days of food at a time because of uncertain schedules and because "the kids change their minds about what they like eat."
Simple dishes are a priority because neither has the time nor the motivation to make fancy meals.John Taitano really wanted to cook. The IBM representative from Guam had been vacationing with his family on Kauai for a few days and all of them were tired of restaurant food.
"I want to cook me a steak, a Chamorro steak or chicken," Taitano said with conviction. The Waikiki hotel they were staying in had a full kitchen, which allowed them to make their own meals, way cheaper than eating out.
Taitano is the chef in his family, but everyone has their duties. Wife Maria cooks the rice, John Ray, 12, creates a salad, Maria, 10, sets the table and Joseph, 8, gets the drinks ready.
In their cart was bread for sandwiches, sushi ("Just to eat, snack.") and eggs, cereal and Spam for breakfast.
"You know people in Guam like Spam as much as Hawaii -- maybe more," Taitano laughed. Maria will make extra rice tonight so they'll have enough for fried rice in the morning, he said.
Next to the Taitanos' brimming cart, the basket of groceries John Stockton was carrying looked meager. The single, 35-year-old stock trader doesn't buy a lot of food because he only has himself to feed.
This day, however, he allowed as how he's picked up a lot more than usual, having just met Saori Yajima. Fluent in Japanese, he struck up a conversation with the student from Tokyo when he saw her in the aisles. He planned to make teriyaki steak, something he'd never made before, to share with her for dinner.His original menu, he said, was grilled cheese sandwiches.
Overhearing this, another shopper piped in. "Grilled cheese?" she said.
"Good idea. I was just thinking what to have for dinner. Grilled cheese -- good."
James Hall was certain of his dinner plans as he wound his way through Foodland Beretania earlier in the day.
"I'm making chicken long rice tonight," he said, pointing to the bundle of white threads nestled among the two large bags of Lay's salt and vinegar potato chips, two Redondo's Portuguese sausage logs, dog food and Cheer liquid detergent.
Hall, 21, an undercover "loss prevention officer," already had the chicken at home. He buys meats and staples when they're on sale, "then I figure out what I want to eat and I feel like eating chicken long rice."
An "all right cook," the divorced father of two girls works nights and makes meals to take with him to the job.
His best dish is his own creation: baked mahi casserole. He makes it twice a month, usually on Fridays so he doesn't have to cook during the weekend when his daughters visit.
"They like that. My oldest, Kayla, really likes it," he said.
His recipe is an easy one.
"Get ginger, garlic and chop 'em all up. Mix imitation crab with mayonnaise, green onion, salt, pepper. Get the frozen mahi -- cheaper. Spread the crab and mayonnaise over the mahi. Turn the oven on to 350. Bake for 45 minutes. When comes out, you get baked mahi casserole."
Although he loves the dish, Hall said he's "gotta cut down on the casserole. ... Gotta get back in shape and that mayonnaise not good for that."
Health-conscious Riki Saks is lucky. The sales representative for a wholesale fish market gets a lot of her seafood from her workplace; this day she had uku.
Her near-empty shopping basket attested to Saks' uncomplicated dinner plans:
The uku would be broiled with seasonings and Chinese parsley and served with white-stemmed cabbage.
"I cook low cal most of the time -- when I can cook," Saks said. Long hours on the job keeps her busy. "And I love to cook. I think I'm pretty good. My boyfriend will vouch for that," she said.
Saks taught herself to cook. "When I moved out of (her parents') house I didn't know anything about cooking. I had to learn on my own. I had no experience in my life," she said.
Marlene Hao has been cooking since she was a little older than her 5-year-old Sabrecia. Hao was choosing salmon steaks to go with the bean sprouts and string beans Sabrecia favors.
"This girl likes vegetables," Hao said. "She doesn't eat a lot of meat."
She fixes salmon with a seasoned mayonnaise similar to Hall's mahi casserole. Her potato side dish also is a zip to prepare, she said.
Hao slices peeled potatoes, spreads them in a pan, sprinkles them with Lipton onion soup mix and drizzles on with a little oil. Microwave on high for about 7 minutes and dinner's ready.
Dean and Jima Pestano will spend a little more time making a beef stew dinner for their girls, ages 4, 5 and 8.
Jima, 26, is creative in the kitchen, Dean said, as he pushed a heavily laden cart through the Beretania store.
"I tell my family she going cook, they get all happy' cuz going get good stuff for eat," he said. Jima shyly bumped his arm in protest, but beamed with the compliment.
For another meal, she will layer two types of cheese over chicken breast patties to duplicate a dish Dean loved at a restaurant.
Married for 10 years, the Pestanos maintain the glow of newlyweds, teasing and laughing with each other. Jima's a teaching assistant at Likelike Elementary. Dean, 28, has gone back to school to earn his high school diploma and hopes to go to college for an engineering degree.
Meanwhile, they live as frugally as they can, shopping for bargains and stretching their dollars. Still, they can't help but succumb to their daughters' request for Kona coffee ice cream.
"The kids wanted that for their treat," he said. "Money is tight, but sometimes you have to just get what you want. You don't know when you going to drop dead. You have to live for today, too. Be happy. Live life."
Robert Nam, retired and in his 70s, learned to cook just recently by reading some books and watching other people.
He said making meals became a necessity because his wife has Alzheimer's disease. "She was a good, good cook," Nam said softly. "But now ..."
He was buying prepared laulau and lomi salmon for a Hawaiian dinner.
"Quick, easy," he said.
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