Wahoo!

"Ono" in Hawaiian means "tasty" or "delicious," but locally it is also used to mean, "the best." It is a lovely fish - white, mild and firm-fleshed - from the deep ocean waters off Hawaii and other tropical places worldwide, where it is known as "wahoo."

It is an exciting sport fish as well as a delicious meal. If there is a down side to ono, it is that it dries out dramatically if overcooked. Because of this, I hesitated before ordering this at the Kaneohe Yacht Club, a delightfully casual club that my Hawaii brother belongs to. The members of KYC don't ever want it to become stuffy and upscale, so they purposefully put rules in place that keep it from becoming silly.

After dithering happily between ono and ahi on my luncheon salad, I decided to take a chance on the ono. Turns out I made exactly the right choice. The young chef at KYC knew just how long to cook it so that it was still moist and perfect. Add to that a view of the Koolau mountain range on the windward side of Oahu over the tops of the masts docked in the tiny KYC marina, and you have a lunch fit for a Hawaiian queen. Maybe I'm the reincarnation of Ka'ahumanu, she who broke the taboos and first ate foods forbidden to women and, not content with that level of badass, also ate in the company of men.

Wahoo!