Book signing Saturday, demonstration Dec. 6
A book signing with author and food writer, Wanda Adams, will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at Kona Stories in the Keauhou Shopping Center.
Adams will be signing her new cookbook, “A Portuguese-Hawaii Kitchen.”
Her cookbook explores Hawaii’s Portuguese cooking starting with the familiar soups and breads, on to basic traditional dishes and special festive recipes.
The collection incorporates the initial simple resourceful diet of major proteins and greens grown in backyard gardens and the adaptation to locally available ingredients as the Portuguese adjusted to island life.
The new edition has a new chapter — Variations on a Portuguese Theme — which features new recipes by Adams as well as guest chefs George Gomes, George Mavrothalassitis, Bobby Camara, and Sandy Tsukiyama, as well as essays on Portuguese cooking, particularly in Hawaii.
A cooking demonstration with Chef George Gomes Jr. will also take place at the Royal Kona Resort from 5-5:30 p.m. Dec. 6.
Words and Wine Event Tuesday
Join local authors for the monthly Words and Wine Event hosted by Kona Stories Book Shop at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
It’s free to the public and offers a chance for you to meet and greet some of Hawaii’s favorite authors and artists while you enjoy complimentary pupu and wine. December’s featured authors are: Virginia Fortner, Mark Martel, Pete Hendricks and Walter Dudley.
Fortner, a Hawi resident for seven years, has written since she first learned to scribble in first grade. She has published poetry, essays, memoirs, short stories, newspaper articles, 10-minute plays, and fiction, “At the Edge,” and biography, “A Design of His Own.” She’s midway into “China Conundrum,” another page-turner begun while teaching English in the Mideast.
Martel has mixed words and images through a career as an advertising art director and beyond. But it was after moving to Hawaii in 2013 that he finished writing and illustrating his first book. “Dayton’s Children” chronicles innovators from his home town who changed our world (imagine Hawaii without air travel).
Born in Los Angeles, Hendricks graduated from the University of California – Berkeley, and served as a U.S. Navy officer at sea and in Vietnam. Settling in Hawaii in 1964, Hendricks earned a Med at the University of Hawaii – Manoa, taught high school, and later became a marine extension agent for UH Sea Grant. He has been a columnist for West Hawaii Today newspaper and writer for the Big Island magazine Waimea Gazette and Ke Ola and lives in Waimea.
Dudley first came to Hawaii in 1968 to study oceanography in graduate school at the University of Hawaii – Manoa, interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Army.
Returning to graduate school after a four-year break, he received his Ph.D in oceanography and went on to do research in France and participate in numerous oceanographic research cruises around the world. But Hawaii called, and he ultimately settled on the Big Island, starting the Marine Science Program at UH-Hilo where he focused on studying tsunamis and discovered and became fascinated by little-known bits of history of the Hawaiian Islands, ultimately leading to this book.
Together Hendricks and Dudley wrote “Famous Visitors to Hawaii.”
This event starts with an informal meet and greet merging into a more formal book presentation from each author and concluding around p.m. after a Q&A session.
The fiction book club is also meeting at 6 p.m. Dec. 10 to discuss “Harry’s Trees” by Jon Cohen.
In this book we meet a grieving widower, a determined girl, a courageous librarian and a mysterious book come together in an uplifting tale of love, loss, friendship and redemption.
Info: Brenda or Joy at 324-0350.
Hawaii Writers Guild presents Writers’ Voices
The spirit of the season will not be forgotten when the Hawaii Writers Guild presents its December Writers’ Voices reading from 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Thelma Parker Memorial Library, 67-1209 Mamalahoa Highway in Waimea.
Writers’ Voices is an evening of original readings by Guild members. Readers at the December Writers’ Voices will include Donald J. Bingle, Nancy Baenziger, Steven Foster and Louise Riofrio.
Bingle will lead off with a seasonal piece titled “Season’s Critiquings,” an imagined rejection letter to the author of “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Bingle, a new member of Hawaii Writers Guild, is a prolific author of novels and short stories in the thriller, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror, steampunk, and memoir genres. An attorney and author from the Chicago area, Bingle has recently added a Hawaii address to his resume.
Baenziger, who splits her time between the mainland and Hawaii, and her intellectual endeavors between neurobiology and poetry, will be back on the Big Island with an offering of her Christmas and other seasonal poetry including works from an emerging book entitled “Citizens” in which various elements of her home area, the Columbia Gorge, both animate and inanimate, speak their minds.
Foster, author of Spirit of an Eagle, will read a scene entitled “Eagle Memories” about a dispirited Vietnam veteran’s remembered boyhood encounter with an eagle that brought him joy.
Riofrio, recently returned from a scientific conference in Paris, will read from her nonfiction book, The Speed of Light, which presents the hypothesis that the speed of light is slowing down. She will also discuss her new work-in-progress regarding cell size.
Hawaii Writers Guild is an independent association of professional writers engaged in the promotion of cultural enrichment. The semi-monthly readings are free and open to the public.
Info: Joy Fisher at 238-0551.
‘The Feather Thief’ discussion Dec. 10
Attend a book discussion Dec. 10 on the “The Feather Thief” by Kirk Johnson, hosted at the North Kohala Public Library. The group meets at 11 a.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at 11 a.m.
Info: ldssevents@librarieshawaii.org