NEWS:

Tasting Kauai

Gaylord’s Mai Tai made with Koloa Rum. Click the picture for recipe. Daniel Lane photo

If things look a little different to you, it’s because our website is getting an update. Besides a slightly different look, we are adding a payment option so tours can be booked online. Marta is writing a series of e-books which will be compiled into one book called A Culinary Romp Through Paradise: The Foodie’s Guidebook to Kauai. The book will have detailed listings of farmers markets, farmers, seasonality and descriptions of exotic produce, restaurants and food trucks, products made on Kauai with ingredients grown on Kauai, food related events, grocery stores that carry local products and more.

A series of e-books will be released as they are completed, which will be chapters in the final book. Since we are frequently asked, by locals and visitors alike, “Where are the best paces to eat?” we have compiled a list of our Top 20 Restaurants. We also support the Kauai artisans who hand-craft their products with passion, honesty and quality ingredients. Our Top 20 Artisans list features our favorite farm-fresh goodies.

Details can be read under the “Books” tab, which will be completed early next week. For now, you can check out what’s coming. Later, you’ll be able to download our Top 20. Part One: Restaurants, the first in our e-book series, is due to be released in November 2012. We have a lot of tasty information to share, and want to serve it like a multiple course dinner. Each e-book can be consumed and digested at you’re leisure, and just when you’re hungry for more, the next e-book should be fresh out of the oven!

Kauai Community College

Join Kauai Community College instructor Bobby Burns every weekday at 10 a.m. at the KCC aquaponics garden for an hour long Aquaponics gardening and worm composting tour. The cost is $10 per person, or pay as you will donation. All teachers and students receive half off. For a private tour, call Bobby at 808-634-9366 to make an appointment. Chefs, restaurant owners, hotel general managers, vegans and food lovers are welcome.

EVENTS:

Saturday, October 6

Merriman’s Fish House, Poipu

3 Year Anniversary Benefit, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Merriman’s Downstairs Cafe is celebrating their third anniversary with live entertainment, and 25 percent of proceeds from food sales go to the Kauai United Way.

Makana Terrace

5:30 p.m., St. Regis Princeville, $95

Makana Terrace is hosting a four-course dinner paired with Ferrari Carano wine. The California winery grows white and red grapes on 19 estate vineyards in four appellations totaling over 1,400 acres.

The dinner will feature a 2011 Fume Blanc 2011, 2010 Chardonnay 2010, 2010 “Siena” Sangiovese Malbec Red Blend and a 2008 “Tresor” Cabernet Sauvignon 2008. Look for this Sunday’s post which will outline the menu and wine parings.

For reservations call the concierge at 808-826-9644.

Friday, October 12

Princeville Wine Market

3 to 6 p.m., free

Join Princeville Wine Market for a free wine tasting featuring premium California Chardonnay in that oaky, buttery style that is so popular these days. “We have picked five fine samples of this style of wine that are rich, yet still elegant and balanced,” says owner Daniel Braun. You must be 21-years or older to attend. Princeville Wine Market is located near the South entrance of Princeville Center near First Hawaiian Bank. For more information call 808-826-0040, or e-mail daniel@princevillewinemarket.com.

Friday, October 19

Kauai Culinary Tour

8 a.m. to 3 p.m., $130

We have so much fun on our day-long culinary tours. We get to share the best of Kauai with people who care about good food, and where it comes from. We visit chef’s gardens, fruit farms, sit in on an outside cooking demonstration at the Marriott, and enjoy a four-course lunch made with Kauai Grown ingredients. And because we believe good food should be served with good beverages, we end the day with artesian beverages made on Kauai.

Stephanie Krieger, owner of Nani Moon Mead, is featured in this month’s culinary tour. She’ll close the meadery and give us an exclusive tour and tasting, and once you’ve sampled them all, you get to take a bottle of your favorite home.

Stephanie makes her mead with local fruit, honey and spices in small batches they day the fruit arrives. Each variety is lush, and tastes of Kauai! For more information, visit our Culinary Tours page.

ONGOING:

RumFire

For the month of October, RumFire will donate all food and beverage proceeds from RumFire’s sunset view Table #53 to the Kauai United Way.

“We warmly welcome this opportunity to serve our community and invite our RumFire guests to support this worthy Kauai charity,” says Sheraton Kauai General Manager Chip Bahouth. “Through the participation of our diners, our goal is to raise $3,000.”

Basic Orientation to Aquaponics and Worm Composting

$35, October 6 through December 1, Saturdays, 8 a.m. to noon, Kauai Community College

The Kauai Community College is offering a Basic Orientation to Aquaponics and Worm Composting workshops. Nine, 3-hour sessions will be held on Saturdays. The course introduces ecosystem methods in sustainable agriculture, the practice of farming using principals of ecology, and the relationships between organisms and their environment. Crops that require high levels of soil nutrients can be cultivated in a more sustainable manner with the use of environmentally friendly fertilizer and management practices.

Learn:

• How to build and operate a worm composting farm
• Seedling propagation
• Aquaponics infrastructure, system building and operational care
• Aquaponics water quality and management
• Direct and indirect benefits of aquaponics and worm composting from the economic, social and environmental perspectives

To enroll, call 808-245-8318