Our Local Food Bank

The Hawaii Island Food Basket, serves all the main charity and food organizations throughout Hawaii Island and is always in need of donations and hands on volunteer help. Thats why our international cooking group decided to spend the day in two shifts to help out with sorting, packaging and cleaning the warehouse to prepare for the deluge of food needs from the various charities.

One of the main group projects was to put together ten pound bags of proteins to be used by the various charities for meals. These bags included appetizing canned foods including beans, spam, vienna sausages, tuna fish and imitation meat spreads as the typical contributions and needed items. Unfortunately, we found out that there were alot of shortages included the beans, spam and other canned meats to include in the protein bags. Sad to think that this qualifies for protein meals, but for these charities in need it is sufficient.

 

Our group was very happy to see that the regular food contributions have made some impact and seeing the need for additional protein, made each of us realize what is necessary and lacking from these contributions.

Aaah its break time and enjoying some time with friends.

We do hope as a group to participate in more of these group eventsand help out our food bank. Its such a small thing but makes a big difference. If you are on the island and would like more information on helping our local food bank, please visit or make a contribution to this wonderful organization. Here is the webside for more information http://www.foodbaskethi.org/



Happy Thanksgiving holidays to all my family friends and viewers and thank you for following my blog.

noel

Photo Hunt = Juicy

I always enjoy some of the photo hunt weekly challenges because it stretches one's imagination and I enjoy seeing other interpretations of these themes, they can be quite inspiring, funny or totally off the wall. This week's challenge calls for something Juicy.


Well that to me is very simple and quite easy, breakfast tends to be my juiciest meal starting off with a fresh and ripe papaya, some delicious and yes juicy rambutans (red fruit in photo, tastes like a lychee fruit), yogart and toast with sweet jam . The papayas I harvest from my trees, and if I don't have any ripe ones, they are readily available at any farmers market - six or seven for a dollar, how can you beat that?

This always starts off my day right and I'm so addicted to this meal, I never seem to want to change this from my morning routines along with a nice browse on the internet :)

To view other photohunt Juicy themes go to http://tnchick.com/

A Different Sunset

It took me a long time to process these pictures of my trip to Yosemite, I was still working out the kinks to a new computer which can be very time consuming. But, when I finally got around to getting the pictures completed, I was completely captivated by what I saw the first time seeing my first sunset at Glacier Point, it felt like reliving a treasured moment and one that you would love to see again and again.

 

It truly is a spiritual experience watching the canyon slowly darken with the shadows of high granite peaks and the last rays of the sun creating a golden light on Half Dome and then later blanketing the skies with orange and pink hues that remind you of fake California sunsets over famous monuments. But this time its real and I'm witnessing this magic scene it for the first time.....just amazing to see.




To see other gorgeous skies for friday go visit http://skyley.blogspot.com/

Day of the Dead

Our international cooking group through our host Atma really educated our cooking group a few nights ago with a Day of the Dead celebration showing everyone how important family and tradition is. Remembering beloved deceased members by visiting their graves and creating special dishes that they loved is what many cultures do to celebrate this occasion and enjoy this joyous event.

We usually do not celebrate this festive event in Hawaii compared to Halloween. But this event was a wonderful experience to really celebrate the origins of Halloween and understand both the pagan and christian beliefs that have lead to the actual events we know today as the Day of the Dead, the end of summer solstice, All Saints Day and our well celebrated Halloween all wrapped up into these various celebrations.

Our version included dishes we made in honor of some special in our lives and each made a tribute to that person and what this dish signified. It was a very symbolic and wonderful evening, something really experienced to the best intent of what this holiday signified and that is our Ohana or family.

Toss in the odd ball but fun mummy wrapping contest and it really brought out the crazy...talk about a strange tribute to our ancestors.  You can tell this was not a very serious event most of the time.

 Whats a celebration with out loud drumming and a wonderful bonfire to do some wild dancing and burning out the rubbish.

Atma made a special alter so we can bring photos of our relatives or friends and do a nice tribute to them, typical of what latin based celebrants do in their respective cultures in honoring the dead.

A more A-typical celebration to end our evening is the fire spinning display from one of our hosts, its was truly exciting to see in the dark!

This is my contribution to My World Tuesdays, to visit other views of the world go to http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/