I’ve been waiting out the winter on Oahu, where eating local is whole new kind of different.

Hawaii is a mutt culture — a mix of Pacific Islanders, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and military, which is to say, everyone else in the American melting pot. For most people here, local food, or the kind of food your great grandmother might recognize, means everything under the tropical sun.

If local includes anything on either side of the Pacific, does it stand for anything at all?

I’m not so bad at a little Hawaiian hunting and foraging — coconuts, papaya, and Samoan crab — but I had a Shabbos meal which put to shame any 100 mile diet ideals we might have on the mainland.

My friend Naoki is an artist. Fishermen reel in mighty, record-breaking fish and bring in their catch to be printed in the ancient Japanese art of Gyotaku then framed in local koa wood. They take the fish home to eat, or to the auction block. Naoki only prints eating fish – no sport fish. No trophy gets stuffed. Nothing is ever wasted.

I adore taking people through my NYC apartment, showing them my Tako print, and saying “I ate that.”

Friday night we went to the North Shore, near the famous Banzai Pipeline surf break, to his friend Jeff’s weekly dinner.

Among my dining companions there were two artists, three teachers, a fireman and a charter boat captain, all committed to a lifestyle – easy, warm, and outdoors. They reminded me of my wayward years as a lifeguard, except they were all grown-ups. Winter never came. No one ever left the beach.

They catch their dinner because it’s fun. A day is no good if it doesn’t have a little water and sunshine in it. Their proudest parental moments come when the kids dig Mom’s skateboard out of the attic to start grinding on their own.

Jeff made the main course: he spear-caught Uhu (parrot fish) in the reef across the street, scaled and cleaned it in front of us, stuffed it with kaffir lime and onions, wrapped it in “tea leaves” (wild red ginger) from his yard, then barbecued it in red Thai curry paste with coconut milk.

Naoki brought sashimi – a lot of sashimi – one of his clients had given him. This is tuna that gets sold to the highest international bidders and Fed-Exed away; there might have been $1000 worth on the plate. At NYC or Tokyo’s fanciest places, tuna never tastes as silky as it does here, 5 hours out of the ocean in a friend’s dining room.

Dinner was served on dishes Jeff had made downstairs. Someone strummed a mango wood ukulele.

When we were full, everyone “talked story”. Mainly fishing. Heavy on environmentalism.

“I saw a gillnet last week here, abandoned, 70 feet full of Akule (big-eyed scad). Guts spilling everywhere. Must have been there a week.”

“They’re going to have to ban it, like in Florida. After only 3 years, the fisheries there totally responded and bounced back.”

At some random point, the 8 keiki (kids) spontaneously undressed and ran around screaming.

It wasn’t really Shabbos. We were not mezumen. But it was the end of the week. A relaxed dinner. Families. Ritual. Uber-local music, art and 100-yard dining.

It’s not my culture. It’s hardly anyone’s inherited culture.

And I am oh so sold.