About Town 2-10

Avocado Festival begins next week

The sixth annual Hawaii Avocado Festival celebrates the versatile, native American fruit with three days of events beginning Thursday and running through Feb. 18 in Kona.

First on tap is the “Amp Up with Avocado!” reception from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Kalanikai Bar & Grill at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort. The event is a benefit for the festival and Kona Pacific Public Charter School, and includes a silent auction, avocado-themed pupus, Kona Brewing Co. beer, music by Nahko of Medicine for the People and dancing for a $15 donation at the door.

The festival moves to Kealakekua Bay Bed and Breakfast on Feb. 17 for a “Farm-to-Fork Hawaii” dinner. The menu of the five-course, avocado-inspired meal is by Chef Devin Lowder, of When Pigs Fly Island Charcuterie. Dessert Chef Hector Wong, of My Yellow Kitchen in Honolulu, will prepare a seven-layer avocado dessert. Seating is limited, and a portion of the $85 price benefits the festival. For reservations, call 328-8150.

The celebration culminates Feb. 18 with the family friendly 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hawaii Avocado Festival at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort. The free community event offers a wealth of activities for attendees of all ages sprawling throughout the resort’s grounds.

Participants can get tips on growing and grafting avocado trees, plus trees will be on sale for the home orchard. Leading the educational botanical sessions is a team of University of Hawaii staff: Ted Radovich, assistant specialist, Sustainable and Organic Farming Systems Laboratory; Mark Nickum, assistant professor, Sustainable Farming Systems, Tropical Fruit and Nut Crops; and Andrea Kawabata, assistant agent, coffee and orchards with UH-Manoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. Continuing the discussion from last year’s festival, Radovich will again lead a panel in deliberating the topic, “Bringing the Culture Back to Agriculture.”

Free avocado sushi rollups — while they last — will be prepared by West Hawaii Community College culinary students. An avocado recipe contest is also planned. Chef Matt Dulin, Denver sushi guru at Elways Restaurant, is overseeing the contest with competition for best guacamole, best entree, best dessert and people’s choice. Find entry and prize details at avocadofestival.org.

Wong will demonstrate how to make a seven-tier chocolate oblivion cake while using organic Hawaii Island avocado and Keauhou’s Original Hawaiian Chocolate, which is totally grown and made on the Big Island.

Also on tap are more than 80 artisan and food booths, a farmers market, a variety of healing arts, alternative energy demonstrations and a full lineup of performing arts headlined by Bolo, Maka and Nahko of Medicine for the People. Volunteers with Kona Pacific Public Charter School are coordinating keiki activities.

This year’s original festival art is by Antoinette Sharfin, “Illuminature.” The art will be sold on organic cotton T-shirts and Sharfin will be available to sign the official commemorative festival poster that will be available for purchase.

For information, contact Randyl Rupar at 936-5233.

Chinese New Year Festival slated in Hilo

On Saturday, downtown Hilo celebrates the Year of the Dragon at the annual Hilo Chinese New Year Festival in Kalakaua Park from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. The free event features a wide array of cultural activities and information, performances and demonstrations, as well as Hawaiian and Asian art, crafts, products and food vendors with something for everyone.

This year, the children of Hawaii are to be featured in a keiki Chinese fashion show with prizes awarded to all participants. Sign up for the fashion show takes place from 10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on the day of the festival at Kalakaua Park with the show scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. “In past years we set this up as a costume contest and we have had so many wonderful and talented children in great outfits we decided this year everybody will be a winner,” said festival emcee Desiree Moana Cruz.

“Keiki, from infants to 12 years old are all welcome to join the fashion show, and they need not be of Chinese heritage,” said Cruz. “The show is a chance for all young people to show respect for and embrace the Chinese culture. The festival invites thousands of people to join our family for the day.Everyone loves the kids in their fancy outfits and we help them learn a little bit about some of the significant rituals around Chinese New Year.”

While not required, it is recommended children who are planning to enter the fashion show be familiar with what sign of the Chinese zodiac they are and learn what they can about the Year of the Dragon beforehand.

In its 10th year, the Hilo Chinese New Year Festival is presented by the Hilo Downtown Improvement Association, coordinated by executive director Alice Moon and produced with the help of hundreds of volunteers.

For more information or to request an auxiliary aid or reasonable modification to participate, call 935-8850 or email askalice@downtownhilo.com.

Preservation group plans escorted trail ride

Paniolo Preservation Society is inviting serious horseback riders on a half-day escorted trail ride exploring extraordinary precontact sites and features of the Waimea Field System as documented by historian Abraham Fornander in the mid 1800s, renowned Hawaii historian Marion Kelly in the early 1970s and, more recently, by Ross Cordy in his book, “Exalted Sits the Chief,” which was published in 2000.

The Waimea Field System was comprised of many tiny rivulets (awewai) that — from a bird’s eye view — resembled a fish net of small waterways that supported intense cultivation of dry land kalo, uala (sweet potato) and sugar cane.

The ride, scheduled for Feb. 18, will provide a perspective of this food production “system” — one of three on the leeward side of Hawaii Island, which archaeologists believe date back to as early as perhaps the 1200s. The Waimea Field System is believed to have been dramatically expanded in the 1700s, “likely associated with Alapainui’s and Kalaniopuu’s presence in the Kawaihae and Waimea area, and with Kamehameha’s building of Puukohola Heiau — all requiring greater food production,” suggests Cordy in his book.

“Trail ride participants will come to understand why Marion Kelly concluded decades ago that this area was a priceless example of agricultural ingenuity that ‘should never be developed,'” said University of Hawaii at Hilo archaeologist Peter Mills, who is also one of several society board members who will escort the ride.

Escorts also include Billy Bergin, Freddy Rice, Sonny Keakealani, Robby Hind, Gail Rice and Lilah Ellis.

Participants will assemble at 8 a.m. for an approximate three-hour escorted ride, then assemble for a barbecue lunch and talk story about the day’s sights and revelations, which will conclude about 3 p.m.

The ride is exclusively for serious riders who are 18 years or older. Participants must bring their own mount or arrange a rental; horses must be shod for rough terrain and no stallions will be permitted. Horses may be rented from Cowboys of Hawaii, the outfitter that operates out of Parker Ranch’s former surgery barn behind (south) of Pukalani Stables, by calling Roberta Mendes at 885-5006. Cowboys of Hawaii’s deadline to secure a horse rental is Wednesday.

Participants also must bring weather protection and drinking water.

This is a fundraiser to support the society’s educational preservation mission and help expand the new Paniolo Heritage Center at Pukalani Stables. A $250 donation is suggested.

For more information, call 854-1541 or visit paniolopreservation.org or find the organization on Facebook.

VFW Kona Post beginning again

The Veterans of Foreign Wars Kona Post, long missing from the west side, will be re-instituted at a meeting beginning at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Elks Lodge in Kailua-Kona.

All former VFW members are urged to attend the meeting since officers will be elected. Any veteran who has served overseas at any location where they were in combat zones is eligible to join.

Refreshments will be available. State officers from Honolulu will also be there to answer questions.

Call Dick Skarnes at 329-6261 or (818) 384-7500 to get a name on the charter or for more information.