What a contest! You guys are great. Richard told me a couple times, “This is really a lot of fun!” One time he told me, “Every time I want to laugh I go and read the captions.”

I, too, really enjoyed it. I was at a nice dinner party a couple nights ago, and eating dinner when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I snuck a peek and saw it was an email coming in, one that I receive when someone comments to this blog. So I surreptitiously read the caption right there at the dinner table and it was so funny that I laughed out loud. Which blew my cover, and then I had to explain. Fortunately, I have cool friends.

Richard and I agreed that it was virtually impossible to choose one best caption, and the best we could do was get it down to a three-way tie. So the following three winners are each going to receive a box of farm-fresh Hamakua Springs produce (Just wait until you see the amazing box of vegetables they put together! It makes me swoon.)

Here’s the picture again.

We did not rank these three winners. We just liked ’em all. So here they are, listed in alphabetical order by the entrant’s name.

From Baron Sekiya, of Hawaii247.org:

• Dog, “Wot brah, beef!?!”  Chicken, “No, actually chicken.”

From Darren, of Island Notes:

• “Friends don’t let hens drive drunk.”

From Janice:

• “Ah! I see my stimulus chick has arrived!”

Both Richard and I had some others we really, really liked. This was hard! You guys are good, and it was so much fun that we’re going to have to do it again some day.

Baron, Darren, and Janice, please email Richard (richard@hamakuasprings.com) to arrange to pick up your produce.

Thanks, everybody.

And now for something completely different, we’d like to present to you this photo:

We thought this picture needs a caption, so we’d like to offer up this challenge:

Come up with a short caption for this photo, enter it in comments at the end of this post, and we’ll pick a winner. Have fun with it!

The prize, you ask? If the winner lives around these here parts, we’ll arrange for them to stop by Hamakua Springs Country Farms in Pepe‘ekeo and pick up a specially prepared box of the freshest produce. I have been handed such a box before, and believe me, it is a glorious treat!

If your caption wins but you do not live around here, you are welcome to either fly here (on your own dime, unfortunately) and pick up your box of vegetables, or else merely sit back and bask in the glory that will be yours when we acknowledge your cunning wit here on the blog.

Let’s see what you can do! Enter your comment at the end of this post by April 1.

(This is a pretty casual contest, but the judges’ decision is final, void where illegal, and Richard and Leslie cannot enter. Good enough!)

We are very proud to announce that the Grand Prize Winner of our second annual Tomato Recipe contest is:

Lakeisha Germany-Ross, an 11th-grader from Connections School in Hilo!

Note that this was not a kids’ or students’ contest. This was a regular old, anybody-can-enter adult contest, and that made it even better when we learned that our winner was a student from our downtown charter school. We were thrilled to realize that.

Our judges prescreened the entries and chose the top five recipes from each of the three categories, and then on Monday morning culinary students from Hawai‘i Community College prepared those 15 recipes. Their task was to follow the recipe exactly, and it’s a credit to their instructors Chef Allan Okuda and Chef Sandy Barr that they did such an absolutely terrific job. What an impressive job the students did. I know that because we got to sample the dishes after it was all over.

Lakeisha’s dish was called “Cherry Tomato Compote & Budino.” “What is Budino?” wrote Chef Alan Wong, our guest judge, on his score sheet. We will inquire and then let you know, because this inquiring mind wants to know too.

Looking at the recipe, Budino is a mix of cream cheese, mascarpone cheese, eggs, sugar, lemon juice and orange and lemon zest. The mixture is baked, then cooled, inverted and topped with the recipe’s Tomato Compote (ingredients: red and yellow cherry tomatoes, large tomatoes, sugar, lemon [sliced thin with peel], sultana raisins and water). The result is delicious.

Chef Alan Wong donated a special prize for the grand winner, and so Lakeisha and a guest will be dining at Alan Wong’s restaurant in Honolulu, with roundtrip airfare provided by Go! Hawai‘i’s Low Fare Airline.

Each category’s first place winner receives $350 and is invited to a personal tour of Hamakua Springs Country Farms. Go! is also providing airline tickets for winners who live on outer airlines to fly over for the tour. Second place winners each receive $300, and third place winners $250.

Congratulations to all our winners! And thanks for all the terrific entries. We’re going to do it again next year at this time, so start thinking about tomato recipes.

Soups & Bisques

1st – Hamakua Double Tomato Bisque
Candy Barnhart, Makawao

2nd – Tomato Basil “Soup” in Parmesan Cups
Alan Ritari, Honolulu

3rd – Rich Tomato Lobster Bisque
Adina Guest, Honolulu

Entrees

1st – Roasted Tomatoes Piperade with Tomato and Spinach Orzo
Alan E. Fujimoto, Hilo

2nd – Roasted Hamakua Tomato Lasagna
Candy Barnhart, Makawao

3rd – Rustic Hamakua Tomato Tart
Misty Inouye, Hilo

Preserves & Condiments

1st – Cherry Tomato Compote & Budino (Also overall Grand Prize Winner)
Lakeisha Germany-Ross (11th grade, Connections School, Hilo)

2nd – Pacific Rim Hamakua Tomato Jam
Al Barnhart, Makawao

3rd – Slow-Roasted Lomi Lomi Salmon
Alan Ritari, Honolulu

Today we’re going to tell you a little story.

So there are these people with a farm who grow really good tomatoes and other produce.

Richard and June Ha, owners of Hamakua Springs Country Farms

And there’s this guy who runs a culinary program at Hawai‘i Community College.

Chef Allan Okuda, visiting Hamakua Springs

And this celebrity chef whose Honolulu restaurant was recently named 8th Best in the country by Gourmet magazine.

Alan Wong at a Hamakua Springs cookout last year, chatting with Richard’s mom Florence Ha

They are all in cahoots this year—they’re getting together and having a Tomato Recipe contest. You might have heard Richard talking about it recently on KWXX with Mynah Bird.

Radio personality Mynah Bird (right) likes to cook, and said he might submit a recipe. Richard said they’d have to omit his name to make it fair, and Mynah Bird said, “Don’t do that!” Everybody laughed.

Contest categories this year are Entrees; Soups & Bisques; and Preserves & Condiments. If you were going to enter, you’d send us your original recipe by January 31st.

After our judges go through the entries, students in Chef Okuda’s food service program at HCC will prepare the top ranking recipes. Here’s how it looked last year.

A student explaining the finer point of presentation to Richard

HCC food service students toured Hamakua Springs last year before the contest

Then the judges, including Chef Alan Wong, will sample the recipes.

Richard and Alan at Hamakua Springs last year; and below, last year’s judges

The whole thing will be taped and aired on Kama‘aina Backroads.

Roland Torres of Kama‘aina Backroads and Leslie Lang of this blog

Some absolutely amazing dishes in each category will earn a lucky few some very nice cash and gift certificates.

Back row: Chancellor Rockne Freitas, Marlene Hapai, Chef Okuda; front row Chef Sandy Barr with two students

Winners from the neighbor islands will be given a roundtrip ticket on Go! Hawai‘i’s Low Fare Airline so they can come tour Hamakua Farms on the Big Island with Richard.

And all because they read the official entry info and emailed us a recipe before January 31st.

YOU could be one of our winners, you know. Send us that recipe soon!

Start thinking about what delicious dishes you make with tomatoes—or creating some new recipes—because our second annual Tomato Recipe Contest is coming up in March.

Last year’s contest was a huge success, and a lot of fun.

We’re still firming up the details for this year’s contest, but we know that our judges from last year enjoyed it thoroughly and all of them are participating again:

• Hawai‘i Community College Chancellor Rockne Freitas
• UH Board of Regents Member Marlene Hapai
• Food Writer Sonia Martinez
• Food Writer Joan Namkoong
• HCC School of Continuing Education Program Director Randy Nunokawa, and
• Hawai‘i Tribune-Herald Food Columnist Audrey Wilson.

In addition, Wanda Adams, Food Editor of the Honolulu Advertiser, will be judging this year.

And we are waiting for confirmation that Chef Alan Wong will be able to participate this time.

For now we can tell you that it will be the first week of March, there will be good prizes, and that we’d love to have you participate. Again, students from the Hawai’i Community College Food Service program will prepare the top-ranking dishes for our judges to sample.

Last year’s overall Grand Prize winner was Candace Ames of Hilo. Her Hamakua Style Tomato Pie was beautiful, delicious and a huge favorite of the judges.

Roland Joseph Torres, of the television program Kama‘aina Backroads, taped the contest judging last year and it aired on OC16.

We can’t wait to see what you all have for us this year!

“It’s going to be good fun,” says Richard. “We can’t wait.”

"It’s really amazing," Sonia Martinez told me.

She was sitting in her office, thumbing through 92 entries to our "You Say Tomato" tomato recipe contest. Ninety-two entries! We’re excited.

Recipes came in from as far away as Gainesville, Florida. (Unfortunately, our rules specify that entries must be from Hawai‘i residents—but thanks, Gainesville!)

Sonia told me she hopes these recipes teach us something exciting and different about cooking with tomatoes.

She’s sorting the recipes into categories right now. We are offering a grand prize, second prize and third prize in each of three categories—"Entrees," "Salads," and "Preserves & Condiments."

Once sorted, we will make copies of the recipes and a full set will go to each of our judges:

Sonia Martinez—food writer, columnist, cookbook author and cooking teacher

Randy Nunokawa—Non-credit Culinary Programs coordinator of the Hawai‘i Community College, Office of Continuing Education

Joan Namkoong—food writer, columnist and cookbook author

Audrey Wilson—food writer and columnist for the Hawai‘i Tribune Herald in Hilo

Each judge will rate each recipe on a point scale, and the top five recipes in each category will go on to the finals.

That means they will be turned over to Chef Allan Okuda and Chef Sandy Barr at the Hawai‘i Community College Food Services department in Hilo, whose students will actually prepare the top five recipes in each category for our full panel of judges to taste and rate.

We will announce the finalists here, as soon as we determine them and before their recipes are prepared by the HCC students, so stay tuned!

All 15 finalists will be invited to attend the March 12th final testing and judging, by the way. That event will be televised on Kama’aina Backroads, Oceanic Cable channel 16. We will announce the date and time later.

Two additional judges will also take part in that final taste-testing:

Rockne Freitas—Chancellor of Hawai‘i Community College

Marlene Hapai—University of Hawai‘i Board of Regents

Our three grand prize winners will also be invited to a tour of Hamakua Springs Country Farms, with roundtrip airfare to Hilo provided for Neighbor Island winners.

"I love the concept of using something grown here on this island," said Sonia, "and I get excited thinking that what we are doing this year could eventually turn into a big, yearly event, like the Tomato Festival in Carmel, California, or the one held every June at White Oaks Plantation in Baton Rouge."

We will keep you posted along the way, as the contest narrows to a close, so keep checking back!   —posted by Leslie Lang