Macadamia Nuts

The world's largest grower of macadamia nuts has changed hands. Campbell Soup Co. said Friday that it has sold MacFarms of Hawaii to Blue Diamond Growers, a cooperative owned by California nut producers, for an undisclosed price. The sale includes 3,900 acres of macadamia orchards and a processing plant in South Kona on the island of Hawaii. MacFarms also buys nuts from 600 independent growers.

Among the world's great gastronomic mysteries is how our forebears learned to eat inaccessible or seemingly inedible foods. Consider the artichoke, whose barbed petals serve as a botanical suit of armor, or rhubarb, whose leaves are poisonous. And what could be more off-putting than a gnarled, closed-tight oyster shell dripping salt water, or a hive full of angry bees protecting their cache of honey?

Your article ("Sponsor of Candy Levy Has Answer: Taxes Aren't Fair," Part A, May 30) clearly portrayed the concerns the Coalition Against Food Taxes has about a proposal to tax certain foods for the first time in California. The proposal could easily push families already stretched economically over the financial edge.

DEAR SOS: I'd love the recipe for the Naughty Hula Pie served at El Crab Catcher at the Whaler's Village on Maui. --EVELYN DEAR EVELYN: It's a naughty pie, all right, with all those calories. But it is a sweet-lover's dream. You can purchase macadamia nut ice cream at some specialty ice cream stores. Or you can cheat by mixing coarsely chopped or whole macadamia nuts into softened vanilla ice cream.

DEAR SOS: Cafe Figaro Espresso on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles has been serving great comfort food since 1969. Would you please try to wrestle from the chef their recipe for an egg-free Caesar salad? --D.S. DEAR D.S.: The recipe from Cafe Figaro notes: "The classic recipe has been adjusted by our chef, Derek Chasin, graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, to give it a little more kick, and the raw egg has also been left out."

What gives this meal its special zest is the "opposites attract" marriage of pineapple and pork. First, the fruit salad uses orange, mango and pineapple combined with a sweet onion and a light mint-ginger vinaigrette. Then, we've added pancetta. Pair the salad with grilled mahi-mahi, a little chile and lime, and this becomes a meal worthy of the Big Island.

Standing over a bounty of an unlikely Ventura County-grown harvest, Braden Jones coaxes the browsing farmers' market shoppers to stop long enough to consider his product. No large selection of green vegetables or sugary fruits here, just a load of armor-shelled nuts that you're more apt to see while visiting the Hawaiian Islands. "People hear horror stories about how hard they are to crack," the 17-year-old Buena High School student said recently. "But it's all in the tool you use."

In the 1930s, Ruth Wakefield cut up a chocolate bar and added it to a basic butter cookie recipe at the Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Mass. The rest is history. * The Coffee Roaster: This 6-inch wonder, loaded with butter, molasses, walnuts, brown sugar and Ghirardelli chocolate chips, is thin and crisp on the edges. Have a couple with a wonderfully fragrant cup of coffee (roasted on the premises, of course). (Chocolate chip cookie, $1.) The Coffee Roaster, 13567 Ventura Blvd.

The Internet just got a little less sweet. Hershey Co. announced Thursday that it was closing its Hershey's Gifts online service on July 31. After that, if customers want the nation's second-largest candy maker's products, they'll have to visit local stores. "Hershey's is making the strategic decision to exit the online retail business," said Hershey spokesman Kirk Saville. "The current business model is not sustainable."

When police officers impersonate criminals, large questions arise. Are the police wrongly entrapping someone, luring an otherwise law-abiding person into committing a crime? Are they strictly accounting for all the money or drugs they use as bait? Are supervisors monitoring the operations to ensure they will stand up in court and result in convictions?