Blog
Scrumptious Scones
One of our guests’ consistently asked-for recipes is the following for cream scones, lifted from the Joy of Cooking. Our scone-loving guests unanimously love this recipe, citing these scones as being unusually moist and flavorful, without being overly sweet. Scones are actually incredibly easy to make at home, and the final product is superior to the consistently dry, day-old (or at least hours-old) scones most people are used to eating. Please try making them at home – they are fabulous!Here’s the JOC basic cream scone recipe plus tips I’ve refined over the years to complete the recipe:
Preheat oven to 425 F with a rack in the middle.
Mix dry ingredients:
2 cups AP flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Add 1 ¼ cups cream and any other ingredients (fruit, nuts, citrus zest) and mix gently with cool, damp hands. Our guests especially love these scones with the addition of fresh cranberries, but you can include any dried or fresh fruit, nuts, or citrus zests you enjoy. As with all biscuit batters or doughs, don’t over-mix the ingredients, just make sure wet and dry are blended – using your hands is best – and stop. Create a mound of dough, rolling along the interior of the mixing bowl to pick up all the bits of batter.
Place the mound of dough on a prepared baking sheet and flatten it out with your hands until it’s about eight inches across each way and even. (Use damp hands, the dough is sticky.) I use Silpat on my baking sheets rather than butter or oil. It’s brilliant at keeping baked goods from sticking.
Here’s another trick to getting them perfect inside and looking even and tidy: go ahead and cut the round into eight scones using a pastry cutter, but don’t pull them apart.
Brush with cream, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar (mix in your palm, then dust on from above so it spreads evenly).
Place in the oven at 425 F for approximately twelve minutes (ovens vary, so trust your nose and watch them – once they begin to turn gold around the edge and smell fragrant, you’re ready for the next step).
Pull them out of the oven, cut them again with a clean pastry knife and move them apart just so they’re no longer touching. Check the inside, they will probably need about another minute at this point.
Return them to the oven for no more than one or two additional minutes to finish off the inside.
Remove from oven, lift the scones off the tray gently with a pie slice-server or your fingers, and place them on a wire rack to cool. They are delicate, so be careful.
Enjoy straight away with butter and jam and fresh black coffee or espresso.
South Kona Eats
In addition to wonderful Mi’s, there are several other excellent eateries in South Kona to look forward to during your stay. Here are a couple of our other favorites. Prepare to eat well here!
Just up the hill on the highway heading south (again about a ten-minute drive from the Inn) there’s an excellent pizzeria called Patz Pies that offers high-quality pizza with a home-made hand-tossed crust (which clearly has some whole wheat in it because it has an excellent chew), pasta dishes, and delicious salads. Bring it home to enjoy with local beer on the lanai at sunset, or pay a little extra to have it delivered (a novelty in South Kona). Our favorite pizza is "Da Works" with pepperoni, sausage, olives, spinach, onions, and peppers, which comes with a lovely salad of fresh local greens, onion, pepper, feta and homemade balsamic vinaigrette.
Next to Patz Pies is the new Up Country Cafe which specializes in chewy delicious bagels, and also offers espresso drinks, smoothies, juices, and other baked treats.
About a fifteen minute drive north from the Inn on highway 11 is Annie’s Burgers and Brew, a wonderful newer restaurant featuring gorgeous local burgers made with delicious local beef. Annie’s is one of those rare places that is open from lunch through dinner, so it’s an excellent choice for a late lunch or early dinner. The burgers are delicious and the portions generous, and there are even fish and vegetarian options. Our favorite burger features local mushrooms, local arugula, and blue cheese. The dining room is airy, open, cool and relaxing, and the service friendly. Make sure to save room for their homemade chocolate pudding for dessert – it’s cold, smooth, and very rich - a dark-chocolate lover’s heaven. http://www.anniesislandfreshburgers.com/index.html
We love Mi's
We are very fortunate on the Big Island to have access to so much fantastic fresh food. Unlike the other islands, the Big Island is still a farming island and most of our produce is local. Because of the microclimates, we have access to a variety of amazing produce year round: from delicate lettuces, cucumbers, tomatoes, leafy greens, juicy beets, and heirloom carrots from higher elevations with more rainfall and less sun, to exotic fruits like jaboticaba and Surinam cherry from dry, lower elevations – in addition to coffee, avocadoes, citrus, and bananas. There is plenty of fresh local fish and delicious grass-fed island beef. Everyone grows something on their property here, and we’re surrounded by small farms. In our neighborhood, there’s a queen bee farm, a plumeria farm, a coffee farm, and tons of citrus. We grow white pineapples, coconuts, green figs, mangoes, herbs, sweet potatoes, and some greens on our own land.
Luckily for us, the closest restaurant to the Inn is Mi’s Italian Bistro, about a ten minute drive away, up on Highway 11. Mi’s is all about treating local produce with restraint and respect. It is so spectacular that most of our long-stay guests go there for dinner more than once. Mi’s is about four years old, and continues to improve and gain popularity, refining the menu as they go, which is very exciting to see. It is owned and operated by a young couple who are dedicated to both fantastic food and a wonderful dining experience. We’ve been there many times over the years ourselves and have tried just about everything on the menu. Our favorite dishes include: an arugula and marinated beet and green bean salad with Maytag blue cheese and candied mac-nuts to start, cioppino with local fennel, home-made ravioli in a blue cheese cream sauce, fresh local fish over creamy risotto, or homemade polenta with local mushrooms and greens for mains, and the Meyer lemon cream brulee for dessert. There is an excellent wine selection, service is attentive yet unobtrusive, and the dining room is cozy and romantic. Five stars, all the way. For their current menu, please visit their website: http://misitalianbistro.com/
A place for family
July and August were months for guest family and friends. We have been extremely fortunate to have hosted several wonderful large family groups and one incredible reunion these last two months. In each case, the guests rent the entire house so that each couple has their own private room, but end up spending loads of time together on the pool lanai for communal meals and relaxation.
Ken and I love to see our guests enjoying this beautiful property in this way. Luana Inn is really the perfect property for such gatherings: family reunions, retreats, small weddings and receptions. It’s a fabulous party house! The way the property is designed, each couple can feel they can get away from it all and escape to their own private, quiet space, yet come together on the huge lanai when they wish to. The grounds are spacious enough that guests don’t feel they’re right on top of one another: you can stroll down the driveway to look at our fruit trees, walk through the beautiful yards or simply hang out on the grass.
We’ve had guests do yoga, meditate, and sunbathe on each of the side yards. The Ohana Cottage has its own little patio, and we’ve also got the huge Guest Common Room (Great Room) which all of our large groups have used. The Great Room is a huge space, excellent for relaxing in when it’s raining out, or just for working on the computer or reading. We’ve conducted hula class and massage and a wedding makeup session in this lovely space.
The reunion we hosted threw an amazing luau complete with live band and about forty guests. The wedding we hosted also had about forty guests. The wedding was conducted on the ocean-facing front yard in front of the wedding arch, and the reception was held on the lanai, complete with tables, buffet, and live music under the covered area. For such events, guests have parked on the grass yard in back. There is plenty of convenient parking on this property.
It’s such a pleasure to see these wonderful families and old friends relaxing on the lanai, playing in the pool, and enjoying themselves here. We really love hosting our wonderful guests, and it is deeply satisfying and inspiring to be able to be the backdrop to their well-deserved week or two or relaxation, contemplation, and celebration. That’s what we’re here for.
Erin
Snapshot of our life here: the scent of rain
This morning I was on maid-service duty while Ken did breakfast. This always involves a variety of other tasks in addition to regular maid service, like caring for the koi, light landscaping, pool maintenance, hauling trash and recyclables, laundry, harvesting fruit, working in the garden, etc. It was a sunny, bright morning and I noted as I was out and about that everything seemed extra green and fresh. After a few months of dry weather we’ve had a week of evening showers and the land is turning green and lush again. The lava rock looks extra black, the grass extra green, the ocean and sky a more vibrant blue.
It poured last night and this morning once the clouds had cleared and the bright sun emerged, the land seemed to breath and sigh. The baby coffee plants next door to us seemed taller, our trees—our swaying cocoa palms and baby citrus and plumeria and palms—all seemed extra green and lush. The grass shot up and the honeysuckle sent new creeping tendrils down the hill. Our herbs are spreading, our fruit trees shooting up, our greens pushing out huge new leaves.
But it was the scent on the air that forced me to actually stop what I was doing and stand still. I was in the driveway, which is lined with beautiful colorful plants: spider lilies and hibiscus and croton and Hawaiian ti, to name a few. The sun was shining down hard and the sky was heavenly blue punctuated with fluffy white clouds. The birds and butterflies and bees were tending to business all around me. The air here is humid but not overwhelmingly so, warm but not hot. It feels like a gentle caress, and smells of rain-washed flowers.
I stood there and paused and breathed deeply, detecting the scents of damp earth and honeysuckle and citrus flowers and gardenia and plumeria and wet grass and starfruit riding the sea wind. I breathed and breathed until admittedly, I got a little light headed. But I couldn’t get enough. This is the perfume of our days here, the scent of the island. I feel, and our guests concur, that this special scent is part of what makes you feel so relaxed and loved and peaceful on the Big Island. It’s like the island’s giving you a big hug.
Erin
Pu'uhonua Cultural Festival
It's summer and time for island cultural festivals. The local cultural festival at the City of Refuge, Pu'uhonua O Honaunau is this weekend, June 24, 25, and 26th from nine to three. There is no fee to attend, and this year is extra special because it's the park's 50-year celebration. The theme this year is:
‘O ka Pu‘uhonua – E a‘o ana mai nā kūpuna mai no ke au hou e hiki mai ana. Pu‘uhonua –Learning from the kūpuna and guiding us into a new beginning.
Pu'uhonua o Honaunau is a definite must-see for visitors anyway (I ramble on and on about it here on the blog) and the cultural festival is fantastic. You have a chance to see traditional hula, taste Hawaiian foods, and observe/learn about/and often try many traditional Hawaiian crafts. For more information, check out the Pu'uhonua website and press release:
Places we love: South Point
South Point is very famous and shows up in all the tourist literature. The thing is, it’s best to know a little bit about it before you decide to go. It’s not for everyone. We were there recently and as we headed out we ran into a couple who asked us if it was worth it. Chances are, if you have to ask this question, it’s not.
We LOVE South Point. It is one of our favorite places on the island. It is often extremely windy and is known for having extraordinarily clean air. The weather is changeable there, it can be sunny and bright enough to hurt the eyes and burn the skin, and it can also be so stormy you’re likely to be pelted with sideways-flying cold rain. The ocean is rough here, and crashes into the rocky shoreline. The trail to the beach is rough and rocky and runs through cattle pasture. Structures look worn and weather-beaten. It can seem a lonely, barren, isolated place. But I love this about it. It is gorgeous in its wildness.
When you drive south towards the tip of the island from Luana Inn you will pass through several microclimates. There are pockets of rain and green, and there are black desolate stretches of lava rock. The sky can be leaden or brilliant-blue. You reach the turn-off for South Point about forty-five minutes south from here, and then you drive
The hike is not hard, it just takes a little while. The trail is pretty flat and you can sometimes catch a ride with folks who cross it in trucks. There are some huge rocks and it’s rutted and worn so it’s not a good idea to take a rental car down it. You will hear birdsong and wind in the dry grasses, waves crashing, and perhaps the crash of a whale smacking its tail during whale-season. We’ve noticed that they sometimes congregate down here where they’re not harassed by boats. There are no hills nearby so you can see the sky forever. The sun can be so shiny-bright it can hurt. Everything feels clean and extra-bright down here, fresh and raw.
The Green Sand beach glints and shines in the sun. It looks like the result of a huge back hoe coming in and scooping a chunk out of the shore. You have to walk around behind the beach and climb down the back to get to it. (There used to be a ladder.) The water is rough here. You may see local kids playing here, but I don’t think I’d give it a try unless I was extremely comfortable in rough ocean water.
The thing about South Point and the Green Sand beach is that it is so gosh-darned gorgeous. It’s so clean and rough and raw and lots of our guests love this kind of thing. This describes so much of the
Healing Hands
Yesterday afternoon I treated myself to a massage. I thought I’d recap the experience to encourage guests to take part, because it was wonderful.
First, there’s a huge advantage to doing the massage at home, in your room. You don’t have to drive afterwards when you’re all relaxed, you can roll into bed or lie out in the grass or slip back into the pool or hot tub. I swam in the pool and took a dip in the hot tub first, then had a nice shower and relaxed outside with a glass of wine and some chocolate until the therapist arrived. Last night we choose to do it in the Alaula Suite. But guests can have – and have had – massages in each guest room, as well as outside on lanai and in the common room. Sitting on the porch while watching the wind in the trees and sipping my wine was a pretty nice prelude to the massage.
It was late afternoon on a humid, overcast day. I was hoping it would rain so I could hear it as I lay there. The therapist set the table up inside but we left the doors open. She didn’t play any music which was fine, I listened to the birds. There are a million birds here, and the birdsong ramps up at dusk. I heard doves cooing and juvenile mynas chattering, the nervous chirping of a Japanese white eye, and the rhythmic call of the red cardinal. A cool wind breezed in through the doors, and I could smell our flowers: honeysuckle, gardenia, plumeria. I was so relaxed I nearly fell asleep on the table.
When I was done I walked back to our suite to play with my boys and get ready for dinner. If I was a guest at the
Happy Birthday Luana
To celebrate Luana Inn's fifth birthday we are offering discounts on all reservations taken through the month of June (reservations can be for anytime this year, they just have to be made in June).
Summer is a fab time to visit the island because it's sunny and warm as usual, but the water is a little calmer and warmer as well, and things usually aren't quite as busy as during the winter/spring months. Good deals on tickets can also often be found during the school-transition months of June and September.
City of Refuge Walk
The City of Refuge, or Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, National Park, has also recovered from the tsunami and is now open as usual. In fact, Saturday, June 4 is National Trails day and there will be a guided walk along the gorgeous 1871 Trail. It will start at 9:30 from the visitor's center. Please wear good shoes and sunscreen.
The 1871 trail runs along the back or south side of the park and is one of my absolute favorite places to walk nearby. It is a short trail, taking only about twenty minutes each way, but extraordinarily beautiful. You are basically walking along a cliff which allows you amazing views down into the water and down the shoreline. It is very quiet and has a heavy, sacred feel. There's lots of lava rock and little shade so it is quite hot, but a definite to-do when staying here.
