Abi Bordigioni is cooking with Spam

Making Musubi Bowls with the tinned Hawaiian delicacy.|

KATHLEEN HILL

INDEX-TRIBUNE FOOD AND WINE EDITOR

April 8, 2021

Abigail Bordigioni’s Deconstructed Spam Musubi Bowls

Ingredients:

•Spam (Sliced long ways)

•Tamari

•Garlic Powder

•Onion powder

•Sesame Seeds

•Rice (sushi or basmati)

•Dried Seaweed

•Furikake (Nori Komi Furikake)

•Avocado

Recipe

1. Start rice.

2. Slice Spam long ways.

3. Heat pan and drizzle equally with Tamari & Sesame oil.

4. Space Spam slices equally and dust with onion and garlic powder. Pan fry and dust with sesame seeds then flip, dusting the second side with both powders and sesame seeds.

5. Remove from pan when browned to taste. Drain on paper towel-lined plate.

6. Serve toasted Spam with finished rice. Dust liberally with Furikake and serve with slices of avocado and dried seaweed slices. I like adding red pepper chili flakes and Tamari too.

Pairs beautifully with a dry Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, or Rose.

Many Sonomans know Abi and Dean Bordigioni, who sold their Annadel Estate Winery just before our last fires and moved kit (but not the whole kaboodle) to the big island of Hawaii.

Unfortunately they left family antiques, Dean’s prized and prize-winning Cannonball antique motorcycle, and other prized two-wheelers in container cars parked on the historic Annadel property.

They had been visiting the same locale in Hawaii for more than a decade, made the big move, and then had their hearts broken when the Glass fire basically reduced Abi’s family’s treasures to dust and melted (“killed”) Dean’s prized 1914 Harley (the last of its kind, according to Abi). Instead, Dean will be riding Plate #1 with their 1923 Harley in September’s Cannonball ride as part of the Bordigionis’ Team Vino. As Abi says of the 1923, “She was, thankfully, at the machinist’s and survived.”

Abi is known as a fine artist with prominent gallery one-woman exhibits, as a former NASA specialist, and as an excellent cook who likes to experiment, especially using whatever she has and adapting to local cuisine.

So I asked her for a Hawaiian Spam recipe since she had been posting photos of Spam creations. I was hoping for a simple Spam and eggs breakfast at most, but look what she did with it. This is her kids’ favorite Spam meal, which they call Musubi Bowls.

A little research told me that furikaki usually consists of dried fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt and MSG. Personally, I avoid MSG.