It's Saturday! An Award, a Meme and a Foodie Scenario

Oh Saturday! I waited all week for you to get here and you didn't disappoint me. I woke up early with rain coming down and a decision; Farmer's Market or no Farmer's Market? I decided to brave the rain because in Hawaii you are usually about 3 miles or 10 minutes from a change in weather. By the time I pulled into the parking lot for the market, the rain was over and bonus, not everyone was as brave as I was and it was much less crowded when the opening bell rang. Today seemed to be exotic fruit day and I gathered a lot of fun fruits, some I am familiar with and others I have not seen or tried before to share with you over the next week or so. Since it was a hard, long week, I also treated myself to these:

Beignets with some lilikoi (passion fruit) sauce. I don't do it often but they are so good and I deserved it! (OK my soul deserved it, my hips not so much!) A few assorted veggies and some herbs and I was done and out of there as the crowds started showing up. The same was true with my other errands, in and out of Costco, Post Office, Safeway and my neighborhood natural foods store and home by 10:00 AM. A plan in place to spend the rest of the day being lazy and catching up on reading and the Netflix movies sitting on my TV console. My Post Office visit was to pick up my Blogging By Mail Box--what a treat to come home last night and find the package pick up receipt and see: Australia! My BBM box came from the wonderful Barbara at Winos & Foodies and while I love everything in there and I am sure that you want to see all the goodies, you must wait until Monday because I have some slightly delinquent "business" to take care of today: First off, about a week ago the fabulous and funny Cathy from The Tortefeasor bestowed the Kreativ Blogger award on me with the attached "7s" meme. If you have not read Cathy's blog she is incredibly smart, talented and hilarious (I can never look at fennel in the store again without visions of Whitesnake because of this post) so getting an award from her is an honor. That being said, I guess I have to do the meme too, so here goes: ----- 7 things I did before 1. A 3 month stint at McDonald's until I turned 16 2. Worked at a pharmacy through high school, into college 3. Manager trainee at Mervyn's in the Children's Dept. (Note: Summer Super Sale + hundreds of children's swimsuits piled on dressing room floors = 7th Circle of Hell) 4. Training & development manager for department store 5. Office manager for Insurance office (may have been another circle of hell) 6. Store manager and training manager for retail coffee giant 7. Training & HR director for International department of retail coffee giant, opening markets around the world to help them achieve world-wide domination. ;-) ------ 7 things I do now 1. Head up HR for two restaurant brands in Hawaii 2. Partner in our company 3. Try to figure out what I want to do/be when I grow up 4. Cook and eat too much 5. Late night blogging = not enough sleep 6. Am owned and bossed around by a grumpy, very vocal, but still pretty lovable cat 7. Seriously, try to figure out what I want to do/be when I grow up! ----- 7 things I want to do 1. Plant an herb garden 2. Reduce my carbon footprint 3. Study nutrition and natural foods 4. Travel more 5. Do all the little crafty projects and organizing tasks I have saved up 6. Cook more things that intimidate me to challenge myself 7. Figure out what I want to do/be when I grow up! ----- 7 things that attract me about the opposite sex 1. Funny / sense of humor 2. Intelligent and interested in learning new things 3. Height (hey, I am almost 5'10") 4. Self-sufficient 5. Kind to others 6. Nice smile and eyes 7. Good manners ----- 7 favorite foods 1. Chocolate 2. Curry 3. Cheese 4. Fish and seafood 5. Potatoes 6. Mangos 7. Black pepper ----- 7 things I say most often: 1. Bugger! 2. Oy Vey! 3. Not printable 4. Not printable 5. Not printable 6. What do you think is in this sauce? 7. I bet I could make that (OK, at this point I am supposed to tag 7 people for the award and meme but I'll do that at the end of the post). Next up, two more great bloggers Gloria of Cookbook Cuisine (incredible, talented foodie & food writer) and Arlene of The Food of Love (fantastic foodie who lives in a log home--I have always wanted to do that!) both tagged me with the very interesting and difficult Desert Island Scenario: "You are stranded on a desert island for an indefinite amount of time. You can bring along five food items and are allowed one sentence to justify your decision. It is an island, so assume plentiful fish, coconuts, and sea salt. Storage is not an issue, as you also have a large solar powered refrigerator." This is difficult for me because being a Libra, I can never make up my mind about anything and there are so many foods I want to take. I am lucky that I love fish and could eat it daily and am a coconut fan but still I am probably erring on bringing too many spices/condiments and not enough substance. but oh well maybe I can trade / share supplies with the others! ----- 1) Chocolate: Can't live without it and I will need a large selection of both milk and dark chocolate to get by. 2) Curry Powder: With all the coconut milk and fish on the island I will be making and eating a lot of fish curries. 3) Black Pepper: There is salt but I likes me some pepper on just about everything 4) Rice: For the curry--I am bringing a selection; brown, jasmine, wild, etc. 5) Capers: I am going to assume (declare) that this island has lemons and limes on it. I will be making some fish piccata with lemon and capers for some variety. OK now for my 7 wonderful bloggers who get the award for having blogs I find creative, interesting and fun to read. Along with the award, I am giving you a choice of:

1) Take the award and do the "7s" meme 2) Take the award and do the desert island scenario 3) Take the award and do both 4) Just take the award and do nothing (and I won't call you a party pooper I swear!) ;-) 1. Natashya at Living in The Kitchen With Puppies: my good friend who has an incredible blog with lots of wonderful food, beautiful photography and cute puppies. (I know she will share her desert island rations with me--I hope she brings pasta and some kind of meat!) 2. Nate-n-Annie from House of Annie: I got to meet these two at a FoodBuzz sponsored dinner they organized a few months ago. A great team with delicious recipes and incredible photos. I want to see what they bring to the island! 3. Suzie from Munch+Nibble: A fellow Barefoot Blogger from Down Under, I have been really enjoying the recipes, writing and photos on her blog lately. 4. Michelle from Accidental Scientist: I can't leave out my local foodie friend Michelle, excellent writer and adventure companion, who has been bravely taking the Eat Local Challenge this month and is moving to a cool new island pad this week. (No worries about getting the meme or challenge done until you settle down Michelle!) 5. Brenda of Webbie's World: Another Barefoot Blogger's pal, Brenda is one busy woman who cooks and bakes a lot of great food. (And I am getting pretty good at the hangman game on her blog which I have to play whenever I visit!) 6. Kat of Our Adventures In Japan: I am always visiting her site to see what interesting things Kat is doing, the great things she is making or eating and marveling at all the beautiful pictures. 7. Laurie of That's Not What the Recipe Says: Laurie is a great food writer, mother of four, grandmother of 1 and has a blog full of great writing and recipes that I enjoy. OK, hard to choose but those are my 7 award winners and the rest is up to them! To choose the meme, scenario, both, neither... and to pass on the award to some Bloggers they admire.

Hope you all are enjoying your Saturday. See you tomorrow for Souper Sunday and Monday, I reveal the contents of my Blogging By Mail Box! (You know you want to see what's under the scarf!)

Max says "Here's how to enjoy a Saturday!" (Oh wait, make that any day...)