Taco

While down exploring the Baja Peninsula, just a long chip shot from our beautiful island home of Maui, I found some incredible roadside tortillas. Made fresh daily by the masaria and fried up fresh to order. Time to head back to the kitchen and keep refining my techinque! 

Making Tarte Tatin

A fun little video showing me making a Tarte Tatin for an anniversary dinner in Kapalua.

The drive from Kihei along past Maalaea Harbor and around the Pali always makes me love living in Maui all over again. Yesterday, the skies were blue, the whales were jumping and I was on my way to make a family's evening better with a romantic catered dinner during the Maui sunset. 

Making Porchetta

I made Porchetta for the second time last night during a private chef tasting dinner. I loved how mine turned out last time, but knew I wanted the skin to be completely crisped and the inside to be fork tender. I also planted a new crop of basil in my organic herb garden, which had bloomed well in the past couple of weeks. Growing things easily is such a side benefit to living on Maui and cooking on Maui. To me, garden fresh herbs always remind me of working in the soil alongside my mother when I was younger. The smell of the fresh soil coupled with the pungent aroma of the herbs whose leaves might have been bent or broken in the process really takes me back. I digress. After smoking the bound porchetta on my Texas offset smoker, I let it rest and placed it in the sous vide to hold it at temperature until I oven-finished it. The result was a crackling hot pork skin with a strong herb marinade flavor inside that complimented but didn't overwhelm the flavor of the meat. Bon Appetit!