Making Laulau

Wed , Aug, 29th , 2012

Aloha !

The days are going by faster and faster . Soon, in a matter of weeks, I will be returning home and leaving Hawai'i . The performance at Volcanoes National Park is only two weeks away.  On Monday , when I was coming back from Pahoa with Karen and  Rowela , we saw a double rainbow in the blue sky . The moon was also out , playing hide and seek behind the fluffy white and grey clouds . It will be forever freeze framed in my mind. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me. It would have been such an amazing picture.

Hula practice tonight was intense. The days are counting down to Sept 15th  . The days are also getting shorter. Dawn does not break until around 5:45 a.m. and night falls by the time it is  7:15 p..m.  It is dark when I  get up at 5:30 a.m. for my 6:00 a.m. kitchen shift. There is such a beautiful tranquil peace when I walk to the Lanai at 5 :45. The dawn softly lights up the jungle greenery , and everything is in a gentle brightness , slowly waking  up with the sun. The only sound I hear is the crunch of the rocks beneath my red cowboy work boots , as I walked the trail to work . I too, am slowly waking up with the sun.

Thurs, Aug, 30th, 2012

This morning, a group of us got together and made lau laus !  This was one of Kalani's Ohana Month's many activities for the volunteers, to thank us for all that we do !  It was so much fun and quite the production !

About 15 - 20 of us showed up , ready to make the laulaus . Auntie Dottie was in charge, along with her daughter Nicki and her granddaughter Destiny. Little Destiny is six years old. The  sweetheart was absolutely in charge. She gave us each stacks of taro leaves . The taro leaves are huge , the size of baby elephant ears ! It is a beautiful dark forest green in colour with purple veining on the back of the leaves.  We had to cut the thick veining from the back of the taro leaves . Auntie Dottie said that if  the thick part of the purple veining was not cut off, we would get itchy mouths . Suffice it to say that we were all very thorough and diligent in cutting off the thick purple veins on the backs of the leaves. Once the taro leaves were trimmed from the thick veins , it was washed. In the meantime, some of us were washing the ti leaves and once washed, it was de-boned. There is a centre bone on the ti leaf that has to be removed and it runs from the mid- centre of the leaf right down through to the stem . You can feel where the ' bone ' starts on the leaf. The leaf is flipped over on its back side , a small cut ( or you can bite it )  is made where the bone starts , and you bend the leaf where it is cut ( bitten )  and push the ' bone ' up , lifting and separating it from the leaf , all the way to the end of the stem. Ti leaves are about 2 to 3+ feet long  with the stem .

And, the assembly line begins !   The laulau filling was pork and butter fish combined and the vegetarian one were butternut squash .  Yes, pork and fish together . Sounds not so great but it was actually tasty. Auntie Dottie said that once steamed together with the pork , the butter fish melts in you mouth . ( Guess that's why it is also called butter fish ! )  About 15 of us were lined up on each side of very long tables joined together and covered with plastic. First the fillings , then the taro leaves , then the ti leaves. Several people put fillings on the taro leaves, the taro leaves get passed down to several other people and they in turn wrap the fillings up inside the huge taro leaves . Once this is done, these packages get passed down onto others to be wrapped in a two ti leaves. First, one ti leaf gets wrapped around the taro leaf , then another ti leaf is wrapped around the first ti leaf and tied tightly with the stem of ti leaf into a pretty bright green organic package. Once this is done, it gets placed in a steamer and steamed for at least 5 hours. Auunti Dottie brought a humongous steamer , about six racks high and it was fueled by a huge propane tank. This steamer held about 100 laulaus.All in all, we made about 180 laulaus !

MMMMmmmmm ! They were good. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to try the vegetarian one as I had my dinner saved for me . The steamed taro leaves  melts in your mouth . The ti leaves were not eaten ( nor would you want to eat them ) . As it was, I wasn't at Kalani for dinner as I had hula practice and dinner was saved for me. I shared my laulaus with Po , the resident 14 year old black Lab who is mostly blind and mostly deaf. She sat patiently beside me , and looked at me with her filmy milky eyes.  I wonder how much vision she has. Po almost ran into me in the dark one time. For that matter, I almost ran into her !   I gave her the pork from the laulau . Po would put her head on my lap to remind me that she was still there, waiting.

I love how everything gets used in Hawai'i . It was great that there was no string involved in tying up the laulaus . The ti leaf stem that was attached to the ti leaf used for wrapping was used to tie the laulaus.

So there you have it !   Laulau making ! Endless possibilities with endless fillings !

With much Aloha,
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Molly