By Nadine Kam

SPJ photo
Rehearsal for “No Aloha Mesa,” one of the numbers in Gridiron 2009.

Hawaii’s print and broadcast media (with the help of a few ringers), have been forced into collaboration mode more and more over the years, but their biggest collaboration to date comes with “Gridiron 2009: Doing Less with Less,” in which the newspapers drop their pens, microphones and cameras to skewer politicians and other local personalities with song and dance.

The show, a benefit for the Society of Professional Journalists’ scholarship and internship fund, continues at Diamond Head Theatre through Saturday night, and I got a taste of some of the numbers after being enlisted — to help serve food at rehearsals Tuesday night.

Lynette Lo Tom, president and CEO of Bright Light Marketing, an SPJ member for more than 25 years, volunteered her time and kitchen to feed 65 hungry journalists, reasoning she can’t sing or dance, but she can cook.

Can she ever. The theme of the evening was Southern cookin, with baked ham, baked mac and cheese, cornbread and a spicy stew of tomatoes, corn and okra. You can see the whole menu here:

As always the case with Lynette, the food-service was well under control, so there was not much for me to do except enjoy the food! I only had one food-service job in my life — at Zippy’s when I was a teen-ager — but I never felt a calling for it, like those who want to become chefs. I feel Zen-like when cooking at home, but cooking for masses is more about theater and management than food, to me, and I like the soulful, aesthetic part of the equation best.

A whole lot of paring, coring and slicing went into a dessert of apple crisp.

I just wish I could have been there for Mediterranean Night Thursday, when Lynette cooked up a big fat Greek salad, orzo mint pasta salad and rosemary-roasted lamb with accompaniments of dates and almonds, hummus, eggplant dip and oranges in ginger sauce with pomegranate seeds.

You won’t get the food, but you can still enjoy the show, with tickets running $40 and $60, plus fees, at www.ticketmaster.com. Or visit www.hawaiispj.org.

Lynette Lo Tom serves up stew of tomatoes, corn and okra.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 9:28 pm and is filed under Events, Food hero, In the kitchen. 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.