My mother-in-law recently had a birthday. She is 98 years old! In this time of COVID and in light of her age, we really haven’t spent time with her for months. On this momentous occasion for our family we decided to take a calculated risk and get together under one roof. I opened up all the windows for fresh air rather than recycled air. We set up two tables to eat at so that each household could have their own table.

I would normally have tried to cook something but we decided to order takeout from Restaurant Miwa. This worked out really nicely rather than a family style dinner so that there was no sharing of utensils and dipping into shared bowls. I forgot to take a picture of our food but we enjoyed delicious dishes ranging from tempura to katsu curry to sushi to tenzaru soba. For dessert, we had cupcakes from KTA and lychee Twist Cones in individual cups from K’s Drive In.

We were nervous about being in the same room with grandma but felt that this was a safe and very much needed way to celebrate together. Living Hilo Style.