By Nadine Kam

Nadine Kam photos
Emeril Lagasse addresses diners during The Essence of Emeril dinner June 12, during The Kahala Food & Wine Classic.

The foodies were out at The Kahala Hotel & Resort, where chef Emeril Lagasse was in the house Friday and Saturday for a series of demonstrations and food showcases. I was there for a Friday night dinner that included the kiawe-smoked salmon, below, served atop a Kahuku corn pancake and topped with Osetra caviar. My favorite dish of the evening was a crabmeat-stuffed moi roulade served with Kauai shrimp and a charred tomato butter sauce.

Kiawe-smoked salmon. At left is the centerpiece of roses and feathers arranged to look like a pineapple.

All this was detailed in our food editor Joleen Oshiro’s story here so I feel no need to elaborate more about food, but I did note that many of the women planned ahead so tended to wear cute and roomy sack or trapeze dresses that leave plenty of room for hiding the aftermath of a dinner like this, especially given the chef’s penchant for hearty ingredients. Two of the entrees were boudin sausage-stuffed whole quail and macadamia nut-crusted veal with white cheddar grits and andouille sausage ragout!

I thought about it when getting dressed in a pencil skirt and femme blouse that morning to meet a family of European artists. For a minute I considered changing into a dinner-friendly dress, but then decided just to eat less. I always think those bubbles, sacks and swing dresses, in being so forgiving, allow people to expand into them the way work expands to fill whatever time you have. (Given a day you’ll take all day; given two weeks, the same task will take two weeks.) Trying to stick to slim shapes can be so difficult and uncomfortable, but the alternative feels like giving in to the doesn’t-have-to-be-inevitable middle-age spread.

While there Jo McGarry also pointed out the Hermès SilkyCity tote on Lisa Higashigushi’s shoulder, that pays homage to Hermès’ scarf tradition. Her friend Allison Lohfeld, left, also has the same bag but wasn’t carrying it that evening. You can see more of the design details on the Hermès site here.

After dinner, men and women gathered around Michael Herklots, left, for a cigar tasting.

Special guests at the dinner were Fred Schrader, proprietor of Schrader Cellars, Napa Valley, and Schrader Cellars winemaker Thomas Brown, proprietor of Rivers-Marie, plus Michael Herklots, general manager of Davidoff of Geneva, New York. He laughed when I said I couldn’t remember if I smoked cigars before. I think I did when the craze began here about 14 years ago, but there are, unfortunately, many parts of my life I’ve forgotten. A while ago I was talking to a friend about not remembering if I ever saw the Foo Fighters in concert, and he said, “Yeah you did, you saw it with me!”

This car was parked up front when I arrived and when I left. Is that a Corvette?

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Purses, Food, Parties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.