Along the highway,
Oleanders bloom beneath
The massive redwoods
Wayne and I have been busy traveling this year. In June we returned to San Jose and the beautiful Northern California Coast to enjoy and celebrate the Art Exhibit of my father, Patrick Murdock’s paintings co-hosted by our family and the City of Milpitas Public Library. My niece and co-author Kathleen was largely responsible for planning and creating this joyful event. For those of you who may have missed the memo, you can enjoy the entire exhibition in my June Blog, “Patrick” where the beautiful catalogue created by Kathleen displaying of all the paintings, is available. The opening reception for the art show was also a family reunion and a wonderful opportunity for me to reconnect with my friends, former students and teaching colleagues who still live in the San Jose area.
In summer light and
Shadows, yellow lilies bloom
Beneath the maple.
For this festive reception, of course Kathleen and I hoped to serve a buffet of summer-themed refreshments, including savory finger sandwiches, cheeses, cookies, cakes and fresh berries from Watsonville along with Martinelli’s sparkling cider. However, since the exhibition and the reception were both held in a large auditorium area accessible from the library, we were not allowed to serve food or beverages. Fortunately, my family and my husband Wayne’s family are friends, and Wayne’s sister Joyce stepped up to help Kathleen assemble some charming little souvenirs for the guests to take home as mementos of this unforgettable event. Every guest received a bottle of Pelligrino sparkling water, their own printed full-color copy of the catalogue, a chocolate bar from Trader Joe’s and two refrigerator magnets, each depicting one of Patrick’s paintings.
A bird perches on
A bare tree above a bush
Filled with autumn leaves
Earlier, in my May 2026 blog, “Grief and Grace,” I mentioned that last winter Wayne and I boarded a cruise ship docked in Honolulu and embarked on the long sea voyage to French Polynesia.
Two thousand miles from
Tahiti, a sea gull flies
Ahead of the ship.
There are many reasons why people choose to travel. Some are seeking thrills and danger by sky diving, mountain climbing, deep sea diving and rigorous sporting activities. Others travel to learn about other cultures or to see beautiful works of art, architecture or scenery. Or, as in our recent trip to California, many people travel to visit family members and friends. The poem below, first published on the Poetsonline.org website, explains why Wayne and I chose to visit Tahiti.
HEALING IN TAHITI
In Papeete, the Paul Gauguin Gallery seems to be empty
And abandoned with no plans for revival,
But there is a shiny new museum of Polynesian
Artifacts, full of students, quietly taking notes
On the ancient sculptures, the feathered headdresses,
The timeless tools and jewels. We can only speculate
Why one of France’s best known artists has faded in the place
That made him famous. The epidemic of venereal disease
He gifted to the women of Tahiti is one possibility.
There may be other reasons, but what is our excuse
For showing up in Tahiti? We’re not painters. We are
Not even tourists. We’re just lonely pilgrims
Seeking healing along with thousands of Tahitians who
Ask for nothing more than a quiet, clean life.
Their land has been confiscated, and our son has died.
Which sorrow is worse? From a universal perspective,
Our grief can be measured with a microscope, and theirs
By a massive planetarium, yet irreversible loss and the
Silent solitude that hovers forever can never truly be
Computed. So we, with the people of Tahiti, welcome
The downpours in the rainforest, generating the coconuts,
Breadfruit and the bananas that feed us each morning,
Celebrate the waterfalls, surrounded by fragrant ginger
And wild gardenias, walk together to the black sand
Beaches and wade among the clean corals and the
Yellow angelfish in the pristine lagoon. Even the
Sharks in Tahiti are harmless as they glide among us
With the manta rays who have lived in this reef for
Millennia, confiscating nothing. And finally, we embrace
The thunder and lightning, following the glorious sunset
That paints the tall clouds like a feathered cape as the
Southern stars emerge, bringing peace, healing, and hope.
We chose to travel on the Regent cruise ship, the Seven Seas Mariner. This beautiful and spacious mid-sized cruise ship is a quiet and elegant vessel, designed for adults who seek comfort, relaxation, excellent food and attentive and thoughtful service as well as privacy and solitude. This is what we needed.
As the ship leaves the
Harbor, her lights sparkle on
The black, rolling sea.
When we boarded, the Seven Seas Mariner was docked for a tour of Oahu, Hawaii and Kauai, three of the Hawaiian Islands, before sailing on to French Polynesia and the island of Tahiti.The Mariner was on a world circumnavigation, having embarked from Miami and scheduled to proceed around the world. We joined the cruise only for the journey from Honolulu to Tahiti. Along the way we learned that the islands of Polynesia are more widely scattered throughout the southern Pacific Ocean than the Hawaiian archipelago, comprised of islands in the northern Pacific, that are relatively close together. Both archipelagos are far from any continent, and as remote islands, they were among the last geographic locations on earth to be inhabited by humans, only about one thousand years ago.
Gray rain clouds cover
Hilo. Volcano smoke lifts
To join the dark sky.
Like the Hawaiian archipelago where we have lived for the past thirteen years, the chain of islands that comprise French Polynesia is volcanic. Each island is formed with a central mountainous area covered with tropical foliage growing on top of lava-rich soil. And most of the islands in the Polynesian chain are surrounded by clean sandy beaches, some made of black sand, with a lagoon backed by a coral reef facing the beach. The lagoons of Polynesia are its treasure trove, with crystal clear waters filled with countless brilliantly colored reef fish such as Moorish Idols, butterflyfish, golden clownfish swimming in and out of the coral and octopus, crabs, magnificent manta rays and reef sharks. Yes, the reef sharks swim gently in the lagoons, never bothering the human visitors.
Black tipped reef sharks swim
Under the boat, ignoring
The scuba divers.
In the pink dawn, a
Manta ray glides through the clear
Waters of the reef.
After leaving the Hawaiian Islands, it took the ship five days in the open ocean to reach the first island in the Polynesian archipelago, Rangiroa, followed by Raiatea and Bora Bora.
In Raiatea,
Crabs dig holes in the tree roots
To escape the heat.
These islands are close to the Equator, and the brightness of the sunlight and the intense heat can be startling to someone who is used to the mild temperatures of Hawaii. When we visited Raiatea, we learned that this island was once the artistic, political and spiritual center of the Polynesian culture. There is a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Raitea. This expansive area contains a massive marae or sacred temple, constructed primarily of black lava stone and dedicated to the creator god, Ta’aroa. Numerous sacred temples also remain in the Hawaiian Islands, and they are referred to in the Hawaiian language as heiau.
Tall chestnut trees shade
The ancient lava stones in
The hidden temple.
The heritage site on Raitea, referred to as Taputapuatea, covers an area of more than fourteen acres, including a large religious altar, a council house for the chiefs and priests, an archery platform, a beach area where chiefs visiting from other islands could dock their canoes and a ceremonial sea gate. This great marae was the religious and political gathering place for priests and chiefs of the surrounding islands from approximately 1400 to 1768 when the warriors of Bora Bora besieged Raiatea and the great temple lost its sovereignty.
A barefoot man with
A tattooed face leads us through
The sacred black stones.
The next island we visited, Bora Bora, is one of the most beautiful of the French Polynesian islands. It is surrounded by coral reefs and lagoons filled with crystal clear water, and the view of the island from our ship was stunning. The central volcanic mountain, covered with rainforest, has two black lava peaks, jutting into the pure blue sky. And Bora Bora is a tourist magnet, famous for its resort bungalows with native style thatched roofs, jutting out on wooden pathways over the reefs and lagoons.
Clouds pile high above
The Bora Bora sunset.
Sudden rain descends.
When the Seven Seas Mariner docked at last in Tahiti, at Papeete, the largest city and the capital of French Polynesia, we disembarked and immediately boarded a ferry boat for the short, thirty- minute cruise to the neighboring island, Moorea. Here we took a charming motor and walking tour of this beautiful green island, filled with rivers, waterfalls, wild chickens, fragrant wild ginger, native gardenias, the National flower, fruit trees and another ancient morae, almost overgrown by the dense, thriving rainforest.
After sundown, birds
Whistle in the uru trees
Long into the night.
We spent two memorable nights at the Hilton Resort in Moorea, which, like Bora Bora, also has private thatched-roof bungalows reaching out over the coral reef. Our bungalow also had a wooden deck with a ladder leading directly into the lagoon where we could swim or snorkel with the fish and the other ocean inhabitants. In addition, a section of the floor in the interior was a large glass viewing area where we could admire the sea life from our couch.
In the clear waters
Of the lagoon, a school of
Blue pipe fish circles.
The high point of our trip to Moorea, and indeed our entire cruise, was a cooking class we took with a local Polynesian chef named Stevenson (named after Robert Lewis Stevenson, the Scottish novelist who wrote Treasure Island in 1883,) at his farm home in the rainforest. There we, with a small group of international visitors, cooked our own lunch with Stevenson’s leadership, using only ingredients harvested from his own orchards and gardens and the nearby sea. From Stevenson we learned the history and foundation of Polynesian cuisine, still alive in the islands today. The food eaten by ancient Polynesians was gathered almost exclusively from the fruit trees and root vegetables that thrived in the rainforests and the fish, particularly tuna, caught daily by local fishermen. Sweet potatoes, yams and taro, the primary ingredient in poi, along with carrots, ginger and green and white onions provided the daily meals, enhanced by the tree crops, bananas, breadfruit, coconut, limes, mangoes and pineapple. With the advent of farming, rice was added to the diet. And fish and other edible items from the ocean have always been primary staples in the food of these sea-surrounded islands. The lunch menu we created under Stephenson’s supervision included French Polynesia’s national dish, Poisson Cru, a marinated tuna dish similar to Spanish ceviche, baked tuna fillet with curry sauce, baked breadfruit (called uru in Polynesia and ulu in Hawaii,) salted fried uru chips (similar to potato chips,) coconut bread wrapped in taro leaves and a dessert made from mashed bananas and tapioca. There were seven of us in the group, and Stevenson gave us each a paring knife and a chopping block and assigned us each a local vegetable to chop into tiny pieces: garden tomatoes, white onions, garlic, green onions, cucumber, carrot and fresh ginger, all just harvested from his garden.
While we were chopping away, Stevenson cut the tuna into small pieces and marinated it in freshly squeezed lime juice from his orchard. He then extracted the milk from a coconut, picked a large breadfruit, a staple that resembles potatoes in nutrition, taste and texture, baked some of it and sliced up the rest to fry and salt as chips. Meanwhile, he whipped up the dough for the coconut bread, wrapped portions in large taro leaves, and popped them into the oven. Lunch was delicious!
A mynah’s tail shifts
Among the shadowy leaves
And the ripe mangoes.
After our adventures in Moorea, we spent the final week of our Polynesian respite in Papeete, on the large island of Tahiti, capital of French Polynesia. Here we were served Poisson Cru once again, for breakfast on a delightful foodie walking tour of Papeete. We also witnessed close up the melding of the French and Polynesian cultures in the food, fashions and customs of this bi-cultural country. I intend at the end of summer to share our memories of the island of Tahiti with you and provide you with another recipe that links the cuisines of France and ancient Polynesia. Meanwhile, I have organized the recipe for Poison Cru so you can enjoy it with your own family in any season for, breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Poisson Cru
(Tahitian Lime-Marinated Raw Tuna)
Poisson Cru, the national dish of French Polynesia, is refreshing, healthy and completely natural. And in Tahiti, it is enjoyed at any time of the day, alone or served with breads, rice, fruits or vegetables, as it is compatible with virtually any other food, even doughnuts for breakfast. This recipe I learned from Chef Stevenson on the Island of Moorea, contains fresh garden vegetables and is served over steamed rice. Feel free to include additional fresh vegetables, such as chopped bell pepper if you wish. Chef Stevenson cracked his own home-grown coconuts for this dish, but I am adapting this menu to use canned coconut milk instead, as not all of us have our own coconut trees in the yard.
1 ½ pounds very fresh sushi-grade tuna, cut into ½ inch pieces
½ large cucumber, peeled and chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 white onion, chopped
3-4 green onions, finely sliced
2 heads garlic, peeled and finely minced
1 (2-inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated or finely minced
2 carrots, grated or finely chopped
Juice of 4-5 large fresh limes
1 can (15 ounces) coconut milk
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups white, jasmine or brown rice, steamed
Serves 4-6
Special Equipment: rice cooker, large glass bowl, extra-large mixing bowl, large spoon, paring knife, cutting board, vegetable grater, individual bowls for serving.
1. Prepare the rice with the appropriate amount of water and steam it in a rice cooker. Leave the lid on until ready to serve. Squeeze the lime juice and place it in a large glass bowl. Rinse the tuna in cool water and chop it into ½ half inch pieces. Add the tuna to the lime juice and stir gently with a large spoon. Refrigerate for 15- 20 minutes.
2. While the fish marinates, chop the vegetables and place them together into an extra-large mixing bowl. Stir the prepared vegetables gently to combine. Add the marinated fish and lime juice and stir to combine. Pour the can of coconut milk over the tuna and vegetable mixture and gently mix again.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over steamed rice in individual bowls.
