Our twelfth book was entitled The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama. It is a historical novel about a Japanese-American family set against the backdrop of Hawai’i’s sugar plantations. Written in such a fluid descriptive manor, you can almost smell the islands ocean breezes with the scent of plumeria and pineapple in the air. The book takes place in the 1930’s amid an eruption of Mauna Loa.
Our luncheon was a Hawaiian theme and the main dish was a recipe from the author herself. Macanese/Portuguese Chicken. We all wore colorful leis and snacked on Spam Sushi. We had sweet potato dumplings that was a traditional Hawaiian dish then and dried salted plums. We have a plum tree and made some ourselves but that was before our meeting so it was a dry run……pun intended. In the story there are a group of women affectionately known as the Hilo Aunties and they would get together and play Hearts and suck on the dried plums. (These dried plums are also known as Saladitos and are available at Walmart.com.) Word or caution: You Really need to like Salt to enjoy these. For dessert we had Pineapple Upside down cake and a Mango Jam Coconut cake with whipped cream. We also had some delicious Mai Tais.
Here are the links to some of the recipes:
https://cookbuzz.com/recipe/1272?cookie_7322f43f046a00f75ec149fe9a9d99a8=accepted Kiri Kinton
