Eat, Play, Run

Fran's Chocolates

This little guy, for which the picture does not do it justice, is little piece of heaven. It's about an inch long, the width of my pinky, and it's packed with flavor.

What is it? It's called the "Gray Salt Caramel" from Fran's Chocolates. It's dark chocolate over a luscious, smooth caramel, then topped with gray salt. I picked this up at the shop under the Four Seasons in downtown Seattle.

If you ever want to torture me while I'm on my diet, put one of these in front of face. I'm most likely to punch you, then grab the chocolate and run.

Maui: Malasadas, Manju and CookKwees

Snack time is a good time on Maui. OK, snack time is good time pretty much everywhere in the world. On Maui though, it's better than most places.

Three of my favorite snacks are malasadas, manju and peanut butter CookKwees.

Malasadas are Filipino Portuguese donuts. At Home Maid Bakery, you order them fresh and hot. They have plain sugar and custard filled. I like the custard filled malasadas. Again, they're served hot, so you have to wait a few minutes to get them, but oy, they're definitely worth it. The "donut" part is hot and sweet, and the custard is rich and creamy.

Manju are flaky, dense pastries, primarily filled with fruit, but they have other types, as well. My three favorites are apple, peach and peanut butter. The apple and peach are like mini-pies. The peanut butter is like, well, imagine a buttery,flaky pie crust, baked around a spoonfull of peanut butter. These are served five to a package and also come from Home Maid Bakery.

Cruise by any ABC convenience store and you're likely to find an aisle full of "Hawaiian cookies." My favorite brand is CookKwees. Favorite type? Peanut Butter. I like to put the whole cookie in my mouth and chew it by pushing my tongue up to the roof of my mouth. From there, the cookie melts in my mouth. Love them!

Maui: Spam Musubi

One of the great delicacies of Hawaii is the Spam musubi. A musubi is a rice ball. Simply put, rice, shaped into ball. Spam is, well, canned "meat." Like peanut and butter and chocolate, they're two great tastes that go great together.

So, a Spam musubi is a rice ball, topped with Spam, wrapped by a piece nori (seaweed) to hold it together.

Here in Hawaii, you can pick up Spam musubi at pretty much any convenience store, found next to the hotdogs that have been been grilling for the past 20 hours.