Today we headed toward Hilo to check out the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Farm & Factory.
In addition to a gift shop (with samples!), there's a self-guided tour that takes you along the outside of the factory and lets you peer in big windows that overlook the facory floor. Each window has a monitor above it that shows a short video (in the language of your choosing) about a portion of the nut processing. My favorite video was above the cookie room, where the animated macadamia nut character depicted in all the videos gets crushed into pieces, then baked into a cookie, dipped in chocolate, and then his little cartoon eyes pop open on the finished cookie. Creepy.
They normally also have a 'nature walk', but it was roped off with caution tape, and signs were posted warning of wild pigs in the area.
After we finished the tour, we headed into Hilo for some lunch and shopping. We hit Basically Books one last time to get some reading material for the flight home, then walked over to Cronies, since Dan was craving a Caesar salad.
Despite the apparent stigma of a man ordering a pina colada, I realized I hadn't had one on this trip and went for it.
Dan, of course, went for the salad, and I decided to try the fresh catch burger - mahi mahi, today - which was very good. And for 50 cents extra, I got the half fries, half onion rings option (which were thankfully a reasonable portion).
After lunch we wandered around, checking out a furniture store and then claiming our rain check at the Lyman Museum so we could take some more time there, before heading back home.
As a relaxing afternoon drink, I mixed up some Kava (known as ʻawa in Hawaiian) and juice. Kava is a root that is ground up, then soaked in water or juice. I has a mild relaxing effect, as well as causing the tongue and throat to go a little numb, but only briefly. It's generally chugged down quickly, due to the taste, but making it at home I don't put a lot of kava in my juice, so I don't mind the flavor and prefer to sip it. Traditionally, kava has been drank out of coconut cups... so I figured I'd use my homemade coconut cup for the occasion.
We got the kava at the farmers market in Pahoa, and had originally planned to bring it home, but I think we'll forgo any potential hassle with the agriculture scans of our bags and just leave it here for future guests of the house to enjoy. We can always order more via the internet.
For dinner we just made up some fresh calrose rice, and heated up our leftovers from L&L. And we had our leftover Island Naturals treats for dessert.
(Dan's writing all about our trip over at our other blog, The Dans In Hawai`i, so I'll just stick to writing what I know: food.)
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