Let's go luau!

Tom and I got tickets a couple of weeks ago for the annual luau at the Keawalai Church at Makena. We had no idea what to expect, but we don't go to commercial luaus anymore, and this looked like a good bet. It was unusual, being held in the middle of the day rather than in the evening, but that seemed like a good thing, especially in such a glorious setting. And we had a swell time.

We found two seats at a long table under a ginormous tent (apparently last year it rained, so this time the Church was prepared). As we chatted with our seat-mates, we were treated to some really good slack key guitar and singing before lunch. Around noon we made our way to the food tent.


They served us rice, kalua pig, chicken long rice, squid luau, potato mac salad, purple sweet potatoes and poi. We passed on the poi. Dessert was haupia, and chocolate cake.

Meanwhile we were treated to a 20 minute chant in Hawaiian, tracing the history of the islands from the beginnings to unification by King Kamehameha.





Finally, we enjoyed hula by everyone from the tutus (grannies and aunties) to the keiki (kids), in this case 3 and 4 years old (and there were lots of beaming moms in the crowd!).










We may not have had flaming torches or coconut cake, but that's a luau!