Your Guide to the Perfect Weekend in Honolulu: August 19–25, 2020
Watch a film about the Kamehameha Song Contest from the inside, bid for handcrafted items at a museum auction, talk story with famous chefs, and plant more lettuce and flowers that fight bugs.
Pacific Heartbeat Summer Film Fest
Begins Aug. 19
The film One Voice opens the film fest this week online with the story of the historic Kamehameha Schools Song Contest, from the view of the students who compete in the four-part harmony celebration of culture and music. Pacific Islanders in Communications say the film is the first of four in the Pacific Heartbeat Summer Film Fest, which will be posted on YouTube on Wednesdays as a way to explore the arts and culture of Hawai‘i, New Zealand, Samoa and beyond without leaving your home.
Free, youtube.com
Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival
Thursday, Aug. 20, 4 p.m.
Join COVID Conversations via Zoom, a virtual talk story and pau hana put on by the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival. The foodie event rounds up chefs from across the country to describe experiences, struggles, predictions and hopes during this pandemic. Chefs include Nancy Silverton, Ming Tsai, Lee Anne Wong and Roy Yamaguchi. You can ask questions, drink wine and listen to the music without having to search for parking. Proceeds go to the event’s featured musicians and the Kōkua Ag & Culinary Fund, which supports those hit hard by the pandemic.
Buy $10 tickets at hawaiifoodandwinefestival.com
Bishop Museum Online Fundraiser
Aug. 23–30
Bishop Museum debuts E Ulu A Pa‘a, its first online fundraiser—running from Aug. 23 to Aug. 30—to raise money to support the museum’s mission as a primary resource of Hawai‘i and the Pacific. During the auction and donation campaign, people can sign up to bid on experiences, vacation packages, and handcrafted materials from noted designers, artists and cultural practitioners. The event highlights the stories and people who contribute to the museum and its mission to serve the community. Go online to bishopmuseum.org. Ready to kick in a little as homage to all those field trips we took there as students? Make a donation of $25 or more and receive a sticker designed by local artist Kris Goto.
Open online to all to bid. bishopmuseum.org
Hawai‘i State Public Library System Creates
Wednesdays
Create something new with the staffers from the Hawai‘i State Public Library System, who are releasing mini-tutorials each week that offer a mix of family-friendly crafts and classes you can tackle easily. Explore a fun mix of introductions to arts, crafts and new concoctions released weekly on Wednesdays on YouTube. Recent classes have included a pop-up card, super-cute seed starter pots made from paper towel tubes and a how-to for meditation.
Find all the classes here
Made in Hawai‘i Festival
August 21 to 23
The three-day extravaganza celebrating homegrown art, chefs, music and all manner of creations happens this weekend without parking hassles or entry fees. That’s because the 26th annual Made in Hawai‘i Festival is all online, beginning on Friday, Statehood Day. More than 200 local vendors will be selling products, many offering special deals amid the vast array of clothes, foods, gifts, plants and items you never dreamed you needed until you saw them. Among the chefs whipping up virtual cooking demos: Russell Siu of 3660 on the Rise, Lee Anne Wong of Koko Head Café, Chai Chaowasaree of Chef Chai and more. Musicians include Melveen Leed, Bobby Moderow and Kawika Kahiapo.
For a detailed schedule of demos, performances and a list of vendors to look for, go to madeinhawaiifestival.com
SEE ALSO: The Story Behind 6 Things Made, Grown and Designed in the Islands
Our Weekend Adventures
Photo: Robbie Dingeman
Plant more: herbs, vegetables and flowers
Plants perk up our meals and our spirits these days. And we’ve started green onions from the roots that we didn’t chop up for our latest stir-fry, and a couple of grown-again cilantro plants seem to be surviving better than any store-bought pot of it I’ve purchased for the past decade. Nearly everything we plant in our DIY deck boxes seems to shoot up inches each week in the hot summer sun. The thyme, arugula and ānuenue lettuce are keeping our salad game strong. And we just added some marigolds as natural insect repellent (we’re looking at you, whitefly!). –Robbie Dingeman, editor at large
Watch
When I saw that Kiki’s Delivery Service (along with 20 of Studio Ghibli’s other films, including Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and My Neighbor Totoro) is now on HBO Max, I immediately made some popcorn, plopped down on the sofa and hit “play.” It was the first Hayao Miyazaki film I ever watched, and I’ve loved Studio Ghibli ever since. —Marisa Heung, special projects editor
Bake
If you’ve acquired a new member of the family during the pandemic, aka a sourdough starter, these sourdough waffles are my favorite way to use the discard. I make them on the weekends and freeze the rest to have throughout the week—they crisp up really well straight from the freezer to the oven. The sourdough crackers are pretty awesome, too. —Martha Cheng, food and dining editor
Read a book, then see the movie about it
Or vice versa. Then discuss (this will come naturally). We just did Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers, the first big Vietnam novel (and a classic America-hooked-on-drugs novel). It’s not often the movie is the lighter, more relatable treatment, but that’s true here. It’s swift and fascinating and very tough, like The French Connection set in the desert southwest and Hollywood. The book is the father of Breaking Bad, Don Winslow’s cartel novels, Pulp Fiction, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and more. They all stole riffs from it, dialogue and setting and characters. —Don Wallace, contributing editor
READ MORE STORIES BY ROBBIE DINGEMAN
