Despite the stubbornly high temperatures (for Hawaii I mean :-) and the lack of rain here on the North Shore, there is no doubt that Fall is upon us. It's hard to ignore the season with so many students gearing up to either go off to college for the first time or return for another year. Like anywhere else, leaving home to attend college in another region of the country or abroad usually means adjusting to that region's weather and culture. This is even more true for students leaving Hawaii for schools on the Mainland. For some, it will be their first trip off the island!
One way to adjust to the usually drastic change in "food culture" is to bring your own non-perishable favorites with you. Parents are stocking up on all the things that are usually unique to Hawaii and nearly impossible to find elsewhere. Here is just a sampling of some of the things that go into these packages - not the usual brownies and cookies:
Guava Jelly (It really beats grape hands-down)
Aloha brand Shoyu (Soy Sauce to us "Mainlanders")
Cuttle Fish (A small marine animal related to the octopus which is dried and salted)
Mochi Crunch (A Japanese rice cracker with nori [seaweed]) to mix up with popcorn
Cans of Spam (Yes, they sell this on the Mainland, but it's still necessary to pack)
Rice Cooker
In addition to having to adjust to the change in their favorite food's availability, many students from Hawaii now have to adjust to sometimes drastic climate change. Here in Hawaii, the air is always moist and of course it never snows. So how does the new Hawaii co-ed deal with the dryness and cold? Well jackets of course and a steady supply of our Kukui oil, lotions, and creams. It's no coincidence that we at Oils of Aloha usually see a surge in the sale of these items around this time of year: they are indispensable in cold weather. Instead of extreme dryness and cracking skin, you can actually have soft, supple moisturized skin all winter long! Who knew? Well the parents sending their kids off to the Mainland do, which is why our products are usually included in these care packages.
Beginning today, we are offering 10% off your entire order until September 9th, so you can stock up for Winter for less. Just enter "backtoschool" (all lower case, no quotation marks) at checkout. Also, please feel free to share some of your own care package necessities with us here. We have quite a few parents sending their kids off to Mainland schools this year and could probably use some advice.
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2 comments:
I went away to college in Wisconsin. Being from So. Calif - it was the first time I encountered snow - lots of it. A classmate from Hawaii received a special care package from home. Included in it was some kind of dried optopus delicacy. It smelled so bad - the whole floor of the dorm cleared out for a day.
To be honest, cuttle fish isn't nearly as bad as I expected. It was kind of chewy and salty, but otherwise had a pretty mild flavor. What's kind of funny, is that my 10 year old nephew won't eat beef jerky, but could eat bags of cuttle fish if you let him. His mother grew up here in the islands and got him hooked. Now that he lives in Arizona, he always asks for bags of cuttle fish for his Christmas package. It's an acquired taste that soon develops into a craving. ha ha.
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