Finally, we get to to the good part!

When I was a child in Catholic school I heard an awful lot about Paradise and really had nothing to compare it to. Was it like Disneyland? I visited Disney at age three and it wasn't all that.... Okay, then Paradise is like the garden of Eden, right? Which to a little kid is like Gran'ma's garden with the birdbath, the flamingo statues, the gazing globe, and a couple of naked people running around wearing fig leaves. As I grew older, I somehow kept getting exposed to some Hollywood version of Paradise which was nothing more than some great on-location filming in Hawaii. Hawaii=Paradise? Maybe so. Though I keep getting told paradise does not exist on Earth, I'm willing, for now, to imagine the closest thing to it must be Hawaii or some nearly unspoiled tropical island somewhere in the Pacific Ring Of Fire.

There was a fancy restaurant in the town I grew up in called Diamondhead (the restaurant was called Diamondhead, not the small town). It was well favored for its Chinese and Polynesian dishes. I think it was the first real Chinese restaurant I ever really ate in and became familiar with, and every birthday of mine for years was celebrated there with a chorus of strangers singing "Harpy Bursday" to me while I enjoyed my standard fare of chicken with cashewnuts. I never ordered anything different. It was the only dish they made where I was familiar with all of the ingredients (although they always served it with cubed broccoli stem, and I never knew for years that I'd been eating broccoli all along!) The decor was pure Hawaii kitsch, with black-painted walls featuring designs of flowers and volcanoes and parrots carved out with colored tissure paper secured behind and then hidden lights making the artwork seem to mimic neon. There was a huge aquarium, a lot of bamboo and candles, a fountain near the entrance with a waterfall and fake orchids, Don Ho hits playing softly in the background. To me, it was Paradise. Exotic foods, strange music, freaky tiki decor, ceramic mugs shaped like idols and skeletons, and the occasional tidbit served flambe! So, as I grew older, I was determined that some day I would visit this land of beautiful women in grass skirts, eat flaming food, hang out with Gilligan and Skipper, ride in a solar powered car made of coconuts, and learn how to surf.

Some decades later, the closest I've come to realizing this fantasy is living in this little cabin made of palm trees and coral in Florida (Oh, God, Eddie! Enough about your freaking palm tree cabin already! Get to the cooking bit! Sheesh!) surrounded by koi ponds, pineapple plants, sugar cane, Hibiscus and Plumeria, with my oft' spoke of (bragged about!) outdoor kitchen, the indoor tiki bar, a wife who sunbathes in the backyard in a thong and wears sarongs for fun, a talking macaw in a tiki-hut cage, an iguana, Jimmy Buffet tunes, and a bit of safari-theme to the place (mixed with a bit of Addams Family). So, it's not quite Paradise, but it more closely resembles the weird idea of it I got wedged in my head as a child...along with a love of cooking in the Mandarin, Szechuan, Cantonese, and Polynesian styles (with hints of Japanese and Thai tossed in for fun!).

Most of my knowledge of cooking comes from the Chinese, so while I may call my recipes Polynesian, there may be little or no cooking tradition to support it. Generally, any of us from mainland USA will add pineapple in some form to virtually any dish and refer to it as Polynesian. The sole Polynesian cookbook I own is tiny and filled with more recipes for canned veggies and water chestnuts than coconut or fish or taro root, so I do hope you will forgive me for not submitting to you any authentic Pacific Rim dishes here. I promised pork, and you will get it, pork being a staple of many impoverished regions along with chicken, fish, and goat.

So let's get on with it already, yes?

RUMAKI is a favorite treat of mine, though I've only ever had it here at home since few people know what it is or how easy it is to make. Buy yourself some bacon. I prefer the thick-sliced myself (better yet is smoking my own slab bacon with maple syrup and cracked black pepper, but we won't be getting into that here today!) Grab yourself some scallops. I prefer the bite-sized bay scallops, but you can use whole or halved or quartered sea scallops if you like--just don't use fake scallops! Yechh! Now go chop a fresh pineapple into bite-sized chunks or let pineapple rings drain somewhat before ripping them into said chunks, but don't use canned pineapple chunks! Too small! And for an added bonus, cube some boneless raw chicken into bits about an inch square. Rumaki can be made in an oven or on a grill. The last time I made it, I used an electric indoor grill because the grate was perfect for smaller foods which can otherwise fall down into your fire. Okay, now cut your bacon slices in half and wrap a scallop with a piece, wrap a pineapple chunk with a piece, wrap a chunk of chicken with a piece...you get the idea. Keep going 'til every morsel is hugged by that beautiful bacon, then use toothpicks or toothpick halves to secure them. Wanna get extra-creative? Soak bamboo skewers in water for half an hour, then thread the rumaki on them instead, alternating bits or presenting them however you like as Polynesian shish-ke-babs. Your choice. Mix and match for all I care. Set the rumaki on your grill, in a grilling basket, or on a flat bake sheet you plan to use in the oven instead. Now all you have to do is turn everything occasionally as you grill or broil under high heat, making certain the bacon cooks up nice and crispy but not too fast. You want time enough for the seafood and chicken to cook throroughly, too. If you like, you can season or marinade your scallops or chicken ahead of time, then serve them basted in teriyaki sauce or with some on the side for dipping. Many people like them just as they are, hot from the grill or oven. Another fun thing to do with this great appetizer is provide a tabletop grill or lit Sterno for guests to cook their own over. Use the long bamboo skewers or fondue forks for this deal, and please don't ever light charcoal in the house!

Okay, so playing with fire was cool. Enough of that. Let's move on to something a little more meaty.

HOISIN RIBS
rack of ribs
sliced onion
5 garlic cloves
red or green or orange pepper, julienned
pineapple rings
jar of hoisin sauce

Hoisin sauce is known as "the ketchup of the Orient", and if you're like me, then you're already highly addicted to the stuff. Most grocery stores carry it, but if you can't find it teriyaki sauce will do. If you can't find that, mix orange or pineapple juice with soy sauce instead. If you can't do that...just make freakin' barbecue ribs or somethin' then!

Slice your onion into rings as thick or thin as you like. Slice the garlic thin. Set half your onion, garlic, bell pepper, and pineapple on a length of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Set your washed rack of ribs atop that. Top with remaining veggies and fruit. Seal up tight in foil. Cook over medium for half an hour (about 350F). Turn and cook another half hour. Tear open the foil and lift the rack free. Grill over open flame for fifteen to twenty minutes, basting liberally with hoisin sauce and turning every five minutes. Serve with the sauteed veggies or strain them from the fat and puree them into a paste for dipping. For ease of serving, cut rack into segments containing three or four ribs apiece, pile onto a platter and pour any extra sauce over top.

And finally, something I threw together on a whim last weekend and which does not contain ANY pineapple...

SAVORY STUFFED LOIN OF PORK
5 lb. pork loin
1 small onion
5 garlic cloves
1 orange
teriyaki sauce

The loin should look a lot like a slender, deboned human thigh (yeah, kinda disturbing, but it helps me describe how to prepare it, sorry!). Let it lay pointing away from you and using a long, very sharp, non-serrated knife (mine's about a foot and a half long with a blade an inch deep and so sharp I refer to it as the Lightsaber), cut straight down along the left edge about an inch away from it and to within an inch or so of the cutting board. Go slow so you don't make this look like an autopsy gone wrong! Now turn the blade to your right and cut along the width of the loin to within about an inch of the right side. Basically, you want the entire slab of meat unrolled like a rug about an inch thick. Keep cutting your spiral inward until there's nowhere left to go, then unroll and flatten the loin. Set this sheet of meat on a length of heavy-duty foil. Top with sliced onion, sliced garlic, and sliced chunks of orange. I basically just French-fry cut the onion and orange. Do not peel the orange! Most of the flavor and most of the fruit's vitamins are in the peel! Scatter the chunks over the meat starting at the innermost part of the spiral you unrolled. Do not spread all the way to the edges nor to the last few inches of the outermost bit of the original spiral. Beginning with that spiral center, start rolling the meat back up lengthwise (like a rug or
thigh--ew!), not trying to wrap it too tightly, but without losing any of the stuffing while still being able to seal that outermost edge meat to meat with no stuffing protruding out through it. To secure your pork rug, wrap it snugly with foil and seal securely. Set on a hot grill (about 400F) half an hour, then turn and grill another half hour with the lid closed. Rip open the foil and lift free the roast. It should stay rolled and no stuffing should leak out. Set directly over the heat source and cook another 45 minutes at medium, basting with teriyaki sauce and turning the meat every ten minutes or so. While the outside may char, the inside will remain so tender and juicy you should be able to break inch thick slices with a fork. Allow guests to discard seeds and either eat or discard the orange peel.

I served my pork loin sliced down amidst a bed of butter-glazed steamed vegetables. It's not a Polynesian dish, but I'll give it to ya anyhow if yer interested.

STEAMED AUTUMN VEGGIES
several whole carrots
1 small onion
1 sliced squash
5 garlic cloves
1 sliced orange
butter

I don't peel my carrots--just wash 'em, but you'll do what you want. Halve them and pile them on heavy duty foil with sliced onion, sliced garlic cloves, the sliced squash and the orange. Seal them all up into a foil pouch. While the meat is grilling, keep the veggie pouch as close to the heat as possible, without setting them directly over it. When you check the meat, turn the pouch so it heats evenly on all sides, but don't turn the pouch seam-side down! If you're making the pork loin, then place the veggies over direct heat once you've freed the loin from the foil. You're aiming for soft veggies with some caramelization, but not burnt! I set the cooked meat on its platter, then burst the veggie pouch and used tongs to lift the contents out and surround the meat with it. Melt butter in a microwave or just dot liberally and let it glaze everything. The steamed veggies will turn out with their natural flavors enhanced, but if that's not enough for you, top with salt and pepper or any other favored dried or fresh herbs.

Now that wasn't so bad was it? The most expensive ingredients were probably the bacon and scallops, but everything else I get for less than two dollars per pound. The rib recipe is a basic one taught me by a great guy from South Carolina who's known for his fantastic fall-off-the-bone barbecue. He cooks his ribs plain in foil for the first hour (no onions, garlic or nothin'!), finishes them over flame, then simmers them in sauce if they're not going to be eaten immediately. One way you can tell Florida is not Paradise is the fact that in the four years I've been here, I've only ever eaten great juicy, fall-off-the-bones ribs once outside of ones I cooked myself! What's with the dried-up flavorless meat and cold sauce squirted on top I keep finding everywhere? How nasty! I figured great ribs are found in the South...can't much farther south than Florida...nah. Like I keep getting told, there's the South, then there's the Tropics. They don't know how to make ribs in the Tropics, I'm afraid, but the grouper is to die for!

So Aloha, my fine gourmand friends. Everybody huki-lau! One of these days I'll go dig a pit in the back yard, line it with hot stones, place a whole pig in it wrapped securely in banana leaves, bury it, go dance naked for three days, then come back and enjoy my very first authentic luau! Roasted bananas for everyone! Ew, there's a hair in my poi! Eh, just chug some more grog and you'll be flossing with it later...

Paradise one recipe at a time....