Lahaina Noon Today

May 31, 2006 | In Ephemerides | 3 Comments

This is the inaugural post for the “ephemerides” category:

Update: I was off by a day, Lahaina noon was May 30th this year. See my erratum.

Today at local noon (12:35 pm on the east coast of Kaua’i), the sun will be directly overhead, at a point properly called the zenith. It is commonly said the sun will cast no shadow, but in fact will cast shadows straight down and only perfectly vertical objects such as flag poles will have no shadow.

It turns out there was no scientific term for this occurence, and so the Honolulu Planetarium held a contest in 90’s and the name Lahaina Noon was chosen. Lahaina is a town on the dry south-facing coast of Maui where the sun is glaring, intense, and hot—the name itself means “cruel sun” (not to be confused with “mean sun“).

Source: NASA, graphic by the aptly named David P. Stern (”star” in German)

The path of the sun across the sky is called the ecliptic and defines an ecliptic plane. The angle of the ecliptic plane is constant for a given location, but it “moves” north and south with the seasons. On the imaginary line of the tropic of Cancer, 23°30′ of latitude north, the ecliptic touches the zenith once per year on the day of the summer solstice. Further south, the ecliptic passes north of the zenith and the sun will shine from the north the whole day. Lying between 21°54′N and 22°14′N, Kaua’i sees Lahaina noon twice, on May 31st and July 12th. Note that the other inhabited Hawaiian islands are further south and therefore experience the first Lahaina noon earlier and the second later, giving them more days of northern sunshine.

For the foreign readers, Lahaina Noon is also an pun on the expression high noon which denotes solar noon, when the sun is highest and hottest in the sky. Hawaii is the only US state in the tropics and thus the only one where Lahaina Noon occurs. I suppose billions of people live in the tropics around the world and don’t find the event special enough to name it.

Update: here are my photos of vertical objects at today’s Lahaina Noon.

Local Dressing

May 4, 2006 | In Food | No Comments

I never imagined I would write about salad dressing, but here you go. I was at the Star Market grocery at the Kukui Grove shopping center a while ago, when I spotted a family of tourists shopping for food for a week in their condo. I guess I have to give them credit for trying the local supermarket (Star Market is a Hawaiian chain), but they seemed so relieved to find all the mainland brands, including the big green and white bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love ranch dressing, after mayonnaise it’s the next best thing to dip French fries in. But wherever I travel, I like to try what the natives eat, either the local brands or the local substitutes–hence the mayonnaise habit I picked up in Belgium. Maybe my fellow Americans aren’t as adventurous overseas, so here are my recommendations for tasty salad dressings made in Hawaii. You can’t really go wrong because they’re all creamy and full of saturated fats, just like Hidden Valley Ranch:

• Papaya seed dressing: papaya seeds are a bit peppery and fruity, so they make a good tropical dressing.
• Creamy wasabi oriental: the wasabi is not enough to be spicy and oriental usually means it has sesame oil for flavor.
• Maui onion dressing: Maui onions are sweet like Vidalias and they add extra sugar, so this one is rather sweet.

In the picture above, the plant behind the dressings is Okinawa spinach, which you can sometimes find at the farmer’s markets. It’s a really tasty and colorful addition to salads, or it can be cooked like spinach. It’s also very nutritious, with lots of protein and supposedly cholesterol lowering properties–not scientifically proven but Okinawans are known for their longevity. It’s also easy to grow in Hawaii, just root several stems in a glass of water and plant in full sun.

Bonus recipe for a quick salad: Get some lettuce and Okinawa spinach or whatever greens you like, dice an avocado and a package of fake crab meat, and top with the creamy wasabi oriental dressing, my favorite.