Life in the Minors
Brendan Sagara
Longing for
food from homeThe All-Star break means different things to each of the 24 players and three coaches of the Kenosha Mammoths.
Three days off in the middle of July are a welcome break after a first half that saw us claw back from an 8-13 start and a visit to the Frontier League's West Division basement, to finish 25-20 at the break, good for a tie for first place in our circuit. Placing five in the league's all-star game, we had a lot to be proud of before we geared up for the 45-game second half.
For our manager, Greg Tagert, the all-star break meant time with his visiting family -- his wife Mary and all four of his young children.
For our all-stars, it meant the 12-hour round-trip drive to St. Louis.
Some of our guys even braved long drives or not-so-long flights to return home. Right fielder Tomohikio "Tommy" Horiguchi actually flew home to Japan for his grandfather's funeral.
The other guys who chose to just hang out here in Kenosha had a lot of fun in the sun. They got use of a 16-passenger boat and headed to the middle of Lake Michigan, where they worked on their tans and rode personal watercrafts and stuff.
For our two resident Hawaii folks -- myself and shortstop Bryce Uegawachi -- the all-star break meant spending our paychecks at the mall, watching a lot of DVDs and playing nine holes of golf with our host dad, Troy Konz, at the local muni.
But mostly, Bryce and I just talked about how much we missed Hawaii food. It all started one day when we both woke up at about noon, scrounging for food in our host family's home.
Bryce let out a little "Ho Cuz," when he laid eyes on the rice cooker his mom, Mildred, sent him. God bless her soul. Then he started on about how good Portuguese sausage, eggs and rice would be for breakfast. I, of course, concurred.
Throughout the day we went back and forth about all the food we missed from Hawaii. Starting off on our half-hour ride to the shopping mall in Racine I kicked it off with "Ho, brah ... I'm gonna have my friend Rick send us up some dried poke, or maybe some frozen ahi poke and poi."
That's about when I remembered that Bryce doesn't like raw fish. His loss.
About halfway there, Bryce mentioned Zippy's, then I mentioned Sanoya Rahmen on King Street, and it went on and on. And then we talked about sushi and chicken katsu. That night when we went to see a certain chick flick that our host sister Erin treated us to -- something about Red, White and Blonde -- Bryce started joking about how the boxes they give you at the concession stand were all shallow. "I guess people don't need to mix the kaki mochi and popcorn."
So on that note, I decided that it would be pretty neat to do a little "local" food tasting here in Kenosha. So after the movie we went to Woodman's, the biggest grocery store in the area, and lined up a few cheeses made fresh in Wisconsin, a local root beer and even picked up a few items at a local drive-in.
The cheeses we finally picked were four made by creameries here. Bryce and I laid out the cheeses on a couple of plates like in a food tasting. There was cheddar, marble jack, Monterey jack and hot pepper, which all came courtesy of Crystal Farms of Lake Mills, established in 1926. All the other more exotic cheeses were made overseas.
The cheddar, which we were told by a stock girl was one of the signature cheeses of Wisconsin, was quite different from the Kraft-type cheddars that I had eaten back home in Wahiawa with my mom and dad. It was very mild and very creamy. Bryce said it was a little tangy. I had to agree.
The hot pepper cheese was probably the consensus favorite. Spicy of course when you bit into a jalapeno chunk, but otherwise mild. The actual cheese was a combination of American and Swiss. It was the most flavorful of the four. The marble jack and Monterey jack were very similar, as the names would imply.
Our host sister thought we were insane during the whole process, of course. We went the whole nine, complete with wafer crackers, a cheese knife, and soda to cleanse the pallet.
The root beer, made by Sprecher Brewery in Glendale, Wisc., came in 16-ounce glass bottles. The root beer was actually really, really good. Smooth and not too carbonated.
All in all, the food tasting and root beer tasting gave me and Bryce a fun diversion as we neared the end of our all-star break. Along with our host sister, we ate and laughed, and Bryce busted out his guitar as we talked and laughed and ate some more.
As I wrapped up this journal, and me and Bryce started ripping out all the Rap Reiplinger lines we could remember, we decided on one message to send our friends and family back home.
Send poi.
Brendan Sagara, a former University of Hawaii-Hilo pitcher, is in his first season as pitching coach with the Kenosha (Wis.) Mammoths.