DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

We took a day trip to the northwest coast of Maui, to the “most beautiful beach in the world,” according to no less trustworthy a source than the free guidebook we’d found in the back of the rental car. The beach is called Kapalua Bay, and it’s hard to find unless you know the sekrit sign to watch for, and no I don’t mean the common blue “public beach access” sign because that one was hidden behind a shrub.

It is a nice beach. It was under-crowded, as are most Hawaiian beaches. It’s family-friendly, too; the beach slopes so gradually into the water that kids can ride boogie boards 20 feet into the bay and back simply by laying at the edge of the surf. Also there’s a large shady area at the south end of the beach, perfect for pale-skinned Midwesterners less familiar with SPF ratings than with the ABCD’s of melanoma.

Continuing north, we found lots of amazing scenery, about which I’d write moving and passionate descriptions if I had the time and if this document hadn’t been sitting open on my laptop for about 10 days, inspiring not much scintillating prose but a whole ocean full of writer’s block.

So, just look at the pictures: Northwest Coast of Maui

In case you missed the good news: SUV market slows to a crawl

• GM’s sales are off 7.6% in November.
• Ford’s sales fell 15%.
• Toyota’s U.S. sales rose 13%.
• Honda’s sales rose 8%.

The failure of a U.S. industry is not something I normally celebrate, but I’m making an exception here. U.S. automakers claim they’ve been producing huge luxury trucks because “that’s what Americans want to buy,” ignoring that they’ve manufactured that market. The reality, as documented in High and Mighty, is that SUVs were designed to reduce costs by exploiting loopholes in federal safety and emissions laws, yet be enormously profitable, e.g. $12k for each a Ford Expedition and $15k for each Lincoln Navigator. Whatever pain these duplicitous U.S. SUV makers are feeling has been in 15 years in the making.

If it’s really true that American consumers are recovering from the big-car brainwashing administered by a dozen-plus years of Detroit ad campaigns, maybe the auto makers will begin offering smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, such as Toyota’s Prius or Honda’s Insight.

No, probably not: GM Keeps Its Greener Cars Out of North-America

While GM is in big trouble and ready to do anything to get people to buy its huge SUVs (employee discount, releasing the 2007 models in late 2005, etc), it has many perfectly decent vehicles that it only sells outside of North-America …
Yet GM doesn’t seem interested in importing [the 47 mpg Opel Meriva] or some of its other designs at a time when it’s clearly the direction the market is headed in.

Yes, we ate piles of fruit on Maui. Pictured are five of them: apple-banana, mango, the ubiquitous passionfruit or liliko’i (those things are everywhere, and thank goodness for that), pineapple, and something that may or may not be papaya. Anyone know what color papaya is, or whether it resembles spam from a distance?

Another of the local delicies is a seaweed called ogo or limu loa, depending on whether you’re from Japan on Hawaii respectively, or, failing that, on the nationality of the elderperson who answered your question, “what is that gunk you’re scraping off the beach every morning?”

Our hosts had a half-dozen different recipes for ogo, also collected on the beach in the morning (delivered in a half-dozen different Polynesian accents), including various combinations of garlic, ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, chili oil, tomatoes, onion, etc. We tried two of them and I regret not staying longer, or getting up earlier in the day to harvest more.

If all this raw produce is making you twitch, click the link below to see the best fish tacos in the entire hemisphere.
More Maui Photos

At the recommendation of friends, we reserved a table for dinner at Mama’s Fish House in Paia, on the north shore of Maui. I called several days in advance from the mainland, and even so, prime time seating for the weekend was fully booked. I took a 6:00pm seating on Sunday night.

We arrived an hour early, our day trip truncated by persistent drizzle. The staff graciously accomodated us; they seated us immediately at the best table in the restaurant, at the railing, facing the beach. In retrospect our timing was serendipitous, for we were able to enjoy the view for an hour before the sun set. After dark, the beach is lost to shadow.

The service began with an unexpected amuse-bouche, a shot of tasty crab bisque in an espresso cup. I was delighted to see that they brought one for Raphael as well, and more delighted when he made an icky face after the first taste. More for me.

Mama’s menu takes the high-end dining practice of naming the source of every ingredient, e.g. the French Laundry’s “Cloverdale Farms Rabbit” or “Wolfe Ranch Squab,” to a new and somewhat ridiculous level: naming the fisherman that caught each fish! For my entree I selected the “Mahimahi caught by DeWitt Lickle along the north shore of Maui.” I can tell you that Mr. Lickle catches one hell of a mahimahi; it was as good as the best fish I’ve ever eaten (the Dover Sole at the French Laundry).

The restaurant’s setting and decor are a visual treat — open-air dining a few dozen feet from the surf, decorated inside and out with Polynesian memorabilia. My companions were gaga for the Lotus flower arrangements. I don’t understand flowers, but I was digging the reprinted advertisements from WWII-era weapons makers in the men’s room. Strange but true.

Our server was helpful, offering honest recommendations and guidance, steering us toward his favorites. From beginning to end, the service was excellent, with one exception: the food was slow to arrive. Between the toddler-chasing, the architectural tours, the appetizers and so on, I didn’t notice how much time had passed until someone mentioned it. I doubt this is typical, but our Mama’s dining experience lasted two and a half hours.

The desserts were excellent. I was as stuffed as my mahimahi, but the server talked us into splitting the banana crisp and the chocolate mousse. Four forks flew… two fingerprint-smeared plates remained. I won’t admonish you to “save room,” because it’s senseless. Eat a bunch of fish first, but have dessert anyway. What the hell; you’re on vacation.

One of my dining companions commented that Mama’s serves the best food on Maui. He’s an accomplished chef, and he spends a month on the island every year, so this is saying something. I hope to return frequently to continue my personal comparison of Mama’s to every other fish house on Maui; until I’m finished, I’d be inclined to agree with him. It was truly great.

Here’s a long-exposure, post-sunset panorama of the view from our table.
See all photos from Mama’s Fish House

Writing his own birthday message in the sand was no problem… erasing his own footprints, that was the trick.