25 May Vacation on Kaua’i day 10

Saturday Apr 17

We slept well at Salt Pond Beach and woke up early, ready for breakfast somewhere on the south shore. I spent a few minutes researching breakfast spots — wanting something quick for takeout but substantial enough we could skip lunch — and COFFEE. We definitely needed good coffee to kick off our Saturday of south side socializing with locals. I put in our takeout order at Kalaheo Cafe and we took off, eventually parking at Kukuila small boat harbor. Our friends Lindsay and Carlissa (both Colorado transplants to Kaua’i) were on a paddling team, and that morning they had a blessing ceremony for one of their new outrigger canoes. We sat in the sunshine with our giant garden omelette, hashbrowns and lattes while the team surrounded the giant canoe, placing leis from bow to stern, and the master of the ceremony spoke at length about blessing the canoe with nods to Hawaiian and Polynesian history.

After the sun-filled, oceanside breakfast, we headed to Lindsay’s house to regroup for the day. The paddling team was celebrating a birthday by renting a room at the Point at Poipu and grilling by the pool all day – and amazingly we were invited to join! We were overjoyed to be invited to hang out with local Hawaiians and do some real bbq-ing! We grabbed some groceries, loaded some of our beers into a tote bag with our towels and hit the pool!

After several hours lounging in the sun, the water, the hot tub… the grilling began! We joked with some of the group about their choice of light beer beverage: Coors Light — but also learned about a local bbq favorite: bat wings. We’d heard and eaten the most of BBQ pork so learning about grilled bat??? Bat wings are the colloquial term for grilled fish collars, usually cod / butterfish. They are marinated, grilled and slathered with bbq sauce and under the critical gaze of our hosts, we were given the first two bat wings off the grill. Aaron and I readily bit into the savory, tender meat that fell right off the small bones of the collar. We smiled and reassured everyone we LOVED the bat wings and couldn’t wait for seconds!

After the grilling finished, we carried all our food and supplies across the lawn to the hotel suite. As much food came off the grill: bat wings, chicken wings, pork ribs… there was twice as much food inside. Four kinds of fresh poke, brussel sprouts salad, sliced beef tenderloin, Thai shrimp noodles, sliced pork tenderloin, pulled pork, freshly baked mussels, and hot dogs.

The party was fun and full of laughter and good people. We stayed well after we had ran out of beer and could not possibly eat any more food. After some rehashing of the events back at Lindsay’s place, we crashed for the night – grateful and so happy for our local Hawaiian cookout FINALLY!