My Malasada Odyssey

I'm not exactly sure how much a malasada cost back in the sixties, or how much one will cost sixty years from now, the eighty cents today is worth every single mouth-watering bite.

Lips were made for kissing when caked with residual white sugar left behind by the dearly departed dough now sitting happily in a content tum-tum. When cinnamon sugar was introduced, then of all things li hing mui sugar, the blue blood in me said "No Wayz'!" Until yesterday. The rain, the wind, the lightning, the thunder, who knows why, but I dood it, I mean, I finally ordered one of each (you thought I would totally abandon my white sugar babies?) Dream on.

It was tough deciding which one would leave the box first, but here is how I processed it. I would entreat the foreigners first, and if I didn't like either newbie, the four remaining whities would at least wipe clean the nasty taste of alien invaders now laying as one within their pink Leonards box spaceship (a half-dozen is my self-imposed limit per outing, it used to be a dozen but I'm watching my svelte figure now. Watching it go out the window).

I opened the box and the Tongan malasada gatekeeper had neatly tucked Mr. Cinnamon and Mrs. Li Hing Mui away from the white folk by partitioning them off (and from each other) by way of that special kine' paper bakeries use to keep things neat and proper. There would be no incestuous relationships coming from this order, no hapa haole malasadas today.

Time was ticking, each second seemed like an hour. I hit em' hot, it's how I roll (roll home). I was faced with an unexpected doughy dilemma. Which brownie first? The samurai blood in me took charge, and for some unexplained mostly Japanese reason I knocked off Mr. Cinnamon first, paused, and thought, "Damn, that wuz' sum gud sh__." Primal, of course. I then pinched Mrs. Li Hing Mui and then the next thing I remember was my taste buds exploding left and right, top to bottom in my mouf. "This was some really gud shit!" I said aloud this time. Well malasada fans, ya'll know what happened to the White Ohana of malasadas.

Malasadas, comfort food for me, no doubt about it. Memories of being a child growing up in the 60's, a McCully/Moiliili boy, the clan's designated malasada runner (I rode my bike, fast) to the Leonards Bakery in nearby Kapahulu, for a hot and fresh bag which never ever made it home intact, and which makes my heart smile just thinking about it even to this day.