Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 1, 1 January 1989 — Letter Contest Winner Shares Secret Recipe [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Letter Contest Winner Shares Secret Recipe

With the holiday season still fresh in our minds, here's a family story with humor and love to season it. Brook Antoinette Mahealani Lee, a senior at Kamehameha Schools, was the statewide winner in the fall 1988 U.S. Postal Service Aloha Letter writing contest. Ms. Lee is the daughter of Antoinette L. Lee and the late Benson W.K. Lee, Sr., both very active in the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs. Brook's award was made in November in the U.S. Senate for her letter to the Island Eggnog Co. She wrote that when she was eight years old, she would watch the company's TV advertisements that showed how they made eggnog with eggs, fresh milk and a "secret ingredient." On her own in the kitchen, young Brook decided to follow their example to the letter, eomplete with "secret ingredient," whieh she figured naturally, was the same thing her family kept in a brown bottle on their stove. Her "secret ingredient?" Oyster sauce. However, before she could sample her eoneoetion, in eame her mom, Toni Lee, who gently but firmly shooed her out of the kitchen. A while later, she eame to get Brook from the bedroom where she had retreated in tears. With the lure of the "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" TV program and some eggnogg, Brook was out in a flash. Brook concludes, "I ran into the kitchen. Out in the parlor I could see all the lights were off except for the ones twinkling on the Christmas tree. On the table in the kitchen, Mom had put the eggnog

in a pretty crystal bowl. The lights from the tree caught and danced at the edges of the bowl and swirled in the eggnog. I tried to pour the eggnog daintily into my glass, but as usual, I spilled it." "Picking up a paper towel, I wiped up my mess. As I picked up fhe lid of the trash ean, my eyes rested on the single carton at the bottom of the ean — the carton of the Island Eggnog Co., with that sweet little old lady's face smiling up at me." "I didn't say anything to Mom; she still probably doen't know. But I am glad I saw the carton. Otherwise, to this day, I'd still be making eggnog with island fresh eggs, fresh, fresh milk and that secret ingredient — oyster sauce."

Toni Lee (left) and daughter Brook Lee.