Vacation Journal: Honloulu Farmers Market

The Honolulu Saturday Farmers' Market at Kapiolani Community College is a thing to behold. Operating from 7:30 to 11:00am, the market is packed from the very start, making our own Hollywood Market seem sparsely attended.



The market has a wondrous selection of tropical fruit, including many varieties of mango and papaya, lychee, longan, dragonfruit, local pineapple and other produce. About 50% of the stalls are prepared food, including every sort of island delight from a lovely locally made butter to butterfish to spam musubi.



I was thrilled to see these fresh abalone on the grill at the Big Island Abalone stand. The size of large oysters, these plump beauties are farmed on the Big Island and explode with juice when you bite into them. At 2 for $5, you won't find a better deal on abalone.

Italian Butter

Parmigiano Reggiano Butter is an Italian butter produced by Delitia. It is made from the cream that is left over in the production of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. A cultured butter, it weighs in at 83% butterfat. The only ingredients are cream and cultures.

This is a fabulous butter. The culture comes out in the cheesy smell, but not the taste. The flavor is subtle and creamy, with notes of straw and hay. Usually, I'll add salt to an unsalted butter, but this one stands on its own.

Delitia Parmigiano Reggiano butter seems to be fairly available at gourmet stores. I picked it up at the Cheese Store of Silverlake.

Buttering Up Local Restaurants

My recent pontifications on butter have led me to wonder whether it's time for a change in butter service at LA's finest restaurants. Usually, along with some very fine bread, you get a plate of unidentified butter plopped down unceremoniously. There is little commentary around it, and, in my experience, you almost always have to ask to find out what type of butter you're eating. (And more often than not it is something acceptable but unexciting, like the European style Plugra that is available almost everywhere now).

Given that there is a new crop of fine artisanal butters available as well as plenty of wonderful European butters which now appear regularly in gourmet stores (butter apparently freezes well for transportation), it's high time that fine restaurants put more of an emphasis on butter.

Why not offer a choice of butters as an alternative to the standard? In fact, in a town that has seen water bars and oxygen bars, why not a butter bar...selling great bread with an option of different butters?

Now, I know that in a city in which the cheese spread is so often lacking, even in the finest establishments, butter appreciation may be asking too much, but this is something that people eat everyday, and damn it, it should be good.

So come on all you fancy-dancy restaurants, you Patinas and Providences, Spagos and Bastides, butter us up.

Isigny Ste. Mere Butter

Among my favorite butters is Isigny Ste. Mere, cultured butter from Normandy. Normandy butter is the creme de la creme of butter, and among those available in the US, Isigny Ste. Mere is the best I've had.

I've tasted a number of their varieties, including a special butter made in spring, when the cows of Normandy apparently feast on flowers. I wouldn't say the result tasted floral, but it certainly had grassy components.

I recently picked up a tub of their standard unsalted butter. It is as creamy and rich as any butter I've had. I enjoyed it on crusty bread topped with a few sprinkles of Maldon Salt or as my daughter calls it, the salt that Daddy gets in the mail. The wonderful crunchy flakes and light saltiness of Maldon goes perfectly with the crusty bread and silky smooth butter.

Bread-butter-salt, is there any better combination?

Isigny Ste. Mere butter is sporadically available at the various gourmet stores in Southern California. I've seen it at Whole Foods, Surfas and Bristol Farms though it does not seem to be consistently in stock at any of those stores.

Like Buttah: Vermont Butter and Cheese Co.

Good butter is one of those things that makes you understand how amazing the world can be, so creamy, so fatty, so delightfully rich. A good cultured butter tastes more like a mild cheese than your regular supermarket butter, and I have found none better than the amazing butter from the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company.

Weighing in at 86% butterfat, the lightly salted Vermont butter hits you first with the cream, but then gives you a mildly cheesy taste and finish. I buy this stuff in huge sausage like tubes because it's that good, rivaling the best Normandy butters I've been able to try in the US.

As good as this butter is, it is enhanced by the addition of sea salt crystals in Vermont Cultured Butter with Sea Salt Crystals. The crunchy salt adds the prefect touch to the already wonderful butter, creating an addictive treat. If you are like me, once you taste this butter, you will find yourself wondering how much butter you can legitimately put on a piece of bread without being considered excessive. My rule: as long as the slice of bread is thicker than the butter on top of it, you're okay.

Regular Vermont Butter is available at a number of locations including The Cheese Store of Silverlake, Surfas and Bristol Farms. I've only seen the sea salt version at Surfas. While the Vermont Butter and Cheese website does not sell directly to consumers, it appears that there are on-line sources for purchasing their products (though I wouldn't order any butter by mail in scorching LA right now).

One note about buying the cultured butter with sea salt: Be sure what you are getting is fresh. If it has been sitting around for a while, the sea salt crystals can actually dissolve, which completely ruins the experience.