There's no such thing as a free lunch

This is not the inaugural post I'd intended to write.

For weeks, I've been slowly stitching phrases together in my head for this very first post to my shiny new food blog. The first post sets the tone, and I wanted to get off on the right foot. Then the phone rang and changed all my plans.

"Hey Alan. It's Brian. Wednesday is opening day for the Hawaiian State Legislature, and they're catering lunch for anyone who wants it. It's all free!" Yes, a free lunch!

At the capitol, hundreds of people were milling between the various senators' and representatives' offices. Inside each office, heavy styrofoam plates were being passed out in a kind of informal competition between the lawmakers to provide the best grub. Brian had arrived earlier and scoped out the most promising options: Korean, Japanese bento or Hawaiian. We voted unanimously for Hawaiian.

Starting from top left and moving clockwise we sampled chocolate cake layered with mocha cream, chicken long rice, lau lau, fresh pineapple, ahi poke, salmon poke, a scoop of rice, boiled peanuts and poi in the center. Did I mention this was all free?

Food quality was surprisingly good, in flagrant disregard of the old, "you get what you pay for." The lau lau in particular was the perfect balance of faintly bitter taro leaves and succulent melt-in-your-mouth pork. The pokes were fresh and the poi was sour without being masochistic. I don't know how the other offices fared, but they had stiff competition from Senator Hee and his Hawaiian plate.

As we were sitting out on one of the long, interior balconies and finishing our meals, we gazed around the capitol and played games trying to guess the symbolism in the architecture. All around us, we were surrounded by "aunties" and "uncles" gathered together around ono food-- a very local thing to do. We then departed, filled with that particular contentment that follows a good meal. Better yet, a good free meal.

And that's what prompted me to shelve my original idea for a post and share my afternoon instead. I've joked about our free lunch, but price is secondary to the serendipity of discovering good eats in unexpected places. Food fascinates me -- to talk about it, view it, share it, consume it -- in profound ways that go far beyond mere sustenance. I've been reading other food blogs for months now and have come to realize that, although most of them are leagues ahead of me, I can still contribute to the dialogue in my own small way. We'll see if I can live up to that hope as I write about meals and memories. My own particular focus will be exploring regional dishes and ingredients as I learn about them myself, sharing stories around food and capturing photographs of food and events. All free!