It's Been A Good Year Thus Far.

By a show of hands, who here watches, "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" on the Travel Channel? It's a good show. You get a taste of different cultures, literally. We also occasionally watch "Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern". Not as good as Anthony Bourdain because Andrew Zimmern has always been more about eating the strange foods in different cultures, where Anthony Bourdain has been about eating the foods OF the different cultures.

I bring both of them up because in the last year, both have done specials about my favorite place in the world, my home state of Hawai'i. Anthony Bourdain did his earlier this year, while last week, I caught Andrew Zimmern. Watching both, I got a little teary eyed. Why? Because I miss the food! That, and they had lots of great scenery shots. There's no where prettier that the island state of Hawai'i.

On that note, I do think both shows missed the mark a little.

They were both dead on with the truly traditional Hawai'ian foods, and had a good laugh about Hawai'i's obession with Spam. But I think both also had a certain amount of prodcution value added which caused them to do non-traditional things in my book. The first example that comes to mind is the "backyard barbecue" That Anthony Bourdain visited. While the food was pretty tradtional, who the heck has hula dancers and ukelele players at the ready? Never seen that.

While all this makes me homesick, what makes me even more so, is the good year it's been for Hawai'i thus far.

It really started last college football season when the University of Hawai'i, for the first time ever, ranked 10th in the nation. Of course when they met up for the Sugar Bowl with #5 Georgia, it was embarrassing. Then a team from Hawai'i won for the second time the Little League World Series. Bryan Clay, from my alma mater, J.B. Castle High School, won the decathlon at the Beijing Olympics.

Okay, all of the above accomplishments are sports related. For a state that consumes 1/3 of all the Spam consumed in the U.S., that's gotta say something? Maybe it says Spam should be on Oprah's list of "Super foods".

But the greatest thing for Hawai'i happened on November 4th. A local boy was elected president of the United States. Sure he made his political mark in Chicago, but he spent the formative years going to school across Wilder Avenue from me. As far as I'm concerned, he's a local boy. As long as he doesn't hold a grudge against the state (And why should he? He vacationed there this year), Hawai'i will embrace him with open arms... And brag a little to I'm sure.

Now let's all stand and sing, "Hawai'i Pono'i" (It's the state song of Hawai'i, you haoles!)

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