Thanks Shutterfly's offer of a free book and my husband's thrifty ways, in two weeks, I'll have my very own Feeding My Ohana | Family Favorites hard-bound book. Print run = 1.

This turned out to be a harder task than I thought. Currently, Feeding My Ohana has over 200 recipes, and there were 18 8" x 8" pages for the book. What do you pick? Add three very opinionated at-home 'consultants' proposing their own preferences. "Why can't you put Spam musubi in there?" "But I looove broccoli salad!" "You can't seriously be thinking kamaboko sandwiches" and "I can't believe you're not putting lemon bars in"...

We came to consensus on most items, and have managed a detente for the rest, with side agreements to make the non-book ones in the near future. But why did we pick out these as our favorite? Tastes good, of course. Some of them, like tofu steaks or sesa-miso eggplant, were definitely descended from magazines and cookbooks, but we've made them our own, by adding, subtracting, or just plain changing things up a little.

But beyond flavor, most of the family favorites revolve around a good time or friends and family. Shave ice, Rainbows plate lunch and malasadas always make us appreciate going home to Hawaii. Sugar cookies in the shape of our favorite Sharks (12, 22, 15 & 20) attacking a hapless duck bring together our annual Christmas cookie-making and our family Sharks games. Even the names remind us--my Mom's Chicken Katsu in Hawaii, Christine's Clam Chowder at our annual Christmas party, Steve's Hummus from my long-time boss, and Todd's Pecan Pie every Thanksgiving and Christmas.


So what are your family favorites? What do they remind you of?

Thank you to L---, one my Facebook "like-ers" to get me pondering plate lunches. She said, "I've always wondered about the scoops of rice and mac salad. Seems like overkill." After 2 weeks at home on O'ahu eating a variety of plate lunches, I (grudgingly) agree, but only to a point. 2 scoops of rice is overkill. Mac salad is a necessity.

This got me thinking--what defines a plate lunch, why does an otherwise nutritionally-conscious, ex-pat Hawaii girl make a beeline for it as soon as her feet touch Hawaiian soil, and why on earth are there no vegetables? Heck, even President Obama has Rainbow's when he goes home to Hawaii! I've made a living doing market research, so I Googled away. Then I asked my Dad.

Here is the anecdotal history. For the entree part, Hawaiian Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Portuguese and Korean plantation workers all shared their various lunches, with not a sandwich to be found. A recent New York Times article concurs.

For the rice part, according to my ever-wise and pragmatic Dad, "They used the leftover rice, but the vegetables were eaten the night before. You know, rice is cheaper than meat, so more rice and sometimes noodles makes the meat go farther." Says the man who lived through the Depression, Pearl Harbor, gas masks with his lunch pail at school, and has graduated to great-grandpoppa-dom. Lots of starch stretches out home-cooking.

The macaroni salad kicked in later, with refrigeration I suppose. It also incorporates the concept of using the left-over dinner food. I've had mac salads with carrots, peas, leftover shrimp, crab, chicken, cucumbers, tsukemono, and of course, gobs of mayonnaise. And let's face it, it just tastes good with gravy or teriyaki.

So in marketing-speak, what is the plate lunch's value proposition? 

1) It offers ridiculous, best-of-breed variety. You can choose from kal-bi, tonkatsu, garlic ahi, lau-lau, pork adobo, hamburger steak, oxtail soup...the list goes on. Even more, Zippy's has daily *and* weekly specials. And at the Korean plate lunch places, you can actually pick vegetable sides, along with your macaroni salad and chop chae (see above).

2) It's a good value: Spend $5-$10 for a complete meal. $5 is a complete meal (OK, likely without vegetables) and a $10 plate lunch can usually feed at least 2 people. What can $5 buy at Starbucks? Rainbow's says it best, "generous portions of hearty, simple food with two scoops of rice and a side of macaroni salad at a reasonable price." The boneless chicken plate lunch (left), is only $6.50(!), includes two full sides of chicken, and put both my husband and me into a blissful afternoon food coma.

3) It's accessible to everyone. Served with plastic utensils on a flimsy paper plate, plate lunches are not pretentious, and you can always find whatever you're in the mood to eat. There's no right way to eat one and everyone has their favorite place to get one. Lawyers, surfers, and lawyers who surf all eat plate lunches.

Really, it's just a brilliant product--an awesome food value, consumable to ensure repeat business, marketed virally, and with a target customer base of anyone who eats. Now I'm hungry!