![How to choose a good taro [with video guide]](https://savouroceania.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/taloniue-750x675.jpg)
So I only learned this skill recently….and I’m old. My excuse is that, for a Samoan girl, I’ve never reeeeaally been a fan of taro. But apparently, as us Samoans start to age, our primal instincts rise more to the surface and we begin to crave the food of our elders...
I spent several days looking online for a local seafood restaurant that had good food (ie. great reviews) but in a reasonable price range because... well... the budget. It was a bit of a mission, and I almost resorted to dipping into my savings to satisfy my seafood...
Taro, green banana and breadfruit are some 'official' staples in the Pacific, but we love our rice, too! Samoans have several rice-based favourites, including koko alaisa and alaisa fa’apopo, but sua alaisa is probably the simplest to make. Alaisa (or araisa) is the...
Ever met someone for the first time and immediately thought, "This person is going to be my friend someday," and then it comes true? I thought Jaemen Busby looked so familiar when I first encountered him in a Launching Leaders class. Like we could be cousins. And then...
I know Koni from when we worked together in a contact centre. The first words she ever said to me - while I was in 'the zone' gunning it towards my data entry targets - after distracting me, first, by sliding her chair up inappropriately close and gazing at my face...
I was well out of high school before I fully understood that the history we learned there is not really mine. I mean, I loved the stories of Socrates, Da Vinci, Magellan and Napoleon, Martin Luther and Abraham Lincoln, and I still think it's important to know these...
In my culinary fantasies, I can walk into any café and ask for a fresh brew of sweet, black koko Samoa. That world is not reality just yet (at least not in New Zealand) but I know connoisseurs of this 'black gold from Samoa' have been talking about it for years, and...
The early 2000s were a difficult time for my family. In the space of 4 years, 6 of my close relatives died. Our first loss was my 46-year-old first cousin. His sudden, cardiac event widowed his wife and left his 4 young-adult children without a dad. My own father was...
In early June this year, the Balmoral Seventh Day Adventist school in Auckland celebrated Pasifika night by hosting an auction of artwork. One young artist’s painting caught our eye and we posted it on the Manaui Facebook page - to overwhelming response. I’m actually...
Lots of Asian countries do a coconut and rice dish, but they don't do it like Samoans do. (As far as I know.) Alaisa fa'apopo literally means rice that's been coconut'ed, which of course means that we've done something very coconut-y to the rice. (I'm cracking myself...