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By Root 1082 0

are excellent. Farther down Poipu Road, in the tiny Poipu Plaza, nestled next to Sea Sport Divers and Outfitters Kauai, is the Kukuiula Store—a shop for everything from produce and sushi to paper products, sunscreen, beverages, and groceries. Occasionally, when fishermen drop by, the store offers fresh sliced sashimi and poke, quite delicious and popular with sunset picnickers and nearby condo residents. In Kalaheo, condo dwellers and locals flock to the solitary, nondescript building that is Medeiros Farms, 4365 Papalina Rd. ( 80 8/332-8211), for everything they raise and make: chicken, range-fed beef, eggs, Italian pork, and Portuguese sausages. The meats are hailed across the island, and the prices are good. Medeiros Farms chicken is so good it’s mentioned on some of the upscale menus on the island.

You can take paradise home with you—well, at least the outrageously beautiful flowers. The best place to order flowers to be sent home is Tropical Flowers by Charles, 3465 Lawailoa Lane, Koloa ( 80 0/699-7984 or 80 8/332-7984; www.a-tropical-flower.com). Not only is Charles a flower genius (who grows a range of tropical flowers, including some very rare and unusual varieties), but his hardy blooms and his skill at packing means that your little bit of Kauai will live for a long, long time. For all this, at extremely reasonable prices, we highly recommend Charles.

4 Western Kauai

HANAPEPE

This West Kauai hamlet is becoming a haven for artists, but finding them requires some vigilance. The center of town is off Highway 50; turn right on Hanapepe Road just after Eleele if you’re driving from Lihue. First, you’ll smell the chips at the sumptuous lavender Taro Ko Chips Factory , located in an old green plantation house at 3940 Hanapepe Rd., Hanapepe 80 8/335-5586. Cooked in a tiny, modest kitchen at the east end of town, these famous taro chips are handmade by the farmers who grow the taro in a nearby valley. Despite their breakable nature, these chips make great gifts to go. To really impress them back home, get the authentic Hawaiian li hing mui–flavored chips.

Ultimate Kauai Souvenir: The Red Dirt Shirt

If you are looking for an inexpensive, easy-to-pack souvenir of your trip to Kauai or gifts for all the friends and relatives back home, check out the Red Dirt Shirt. Every T-shirt is hand-dyed and unique. The shirts were the result of a bad situation turned into a positive one. The “legend” is that Paradise Sportswear, in Waimea ( 80 8/335-5670;www.dirtshirt.com), lost the roof of their warehouse during Hurricane Iniki in 1992. After the storm passed, employees returned to the building to find all their T-shirts covered with Kauai’s red soil. Before throwing out their entire inventory as “too soiled to sell,” someone had an idea—sell the shirts as a Kauai “Red Dirt Shirt.” The grunge look was just starting to be popular. Unbelievable as it is, people took to these “dirt” shirts. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and the shirts have numerous outlets on Kauai.

There’s also an interesting story behind how these T-shirts are dyed. Paradise Sportswear is a true community effort. They employ families who, due to family or disability challenges, prefer to work from home. Their employees take ordinary white T-shirts home and dye the shirts in vats with red dirt collected from valleys on Kauai where centuries of erosion have concentrated red iron oxide into the dirt. It’s this red iron oxide that is used in the tinting agent, along with some other organic compounds in the dye solution that ensure that your dirt shirt will keep its red-dirt color.

The best prices on the Red Dirt Shirts can be found at the factory by the Port Allen Small Boat Harbor, open daily 9am to 5pm. You can watch the silk-screening process or purchase a few shirts from the retail shop, which has everything from T-shirts for infants to XXXXL. The deals are on the factory seconds and discontinued designs.

Our very favorite Hanapepe store is the Banana Patch Studio, 3865 Hanapepe Rd. ( 80 8/335-5944; www.bananapatchstudio.com). For the best prices on the