Plate Upon Plate, Roll Upon Roll

Back in April when we made sushi Dad and I didn't really know what we were doing. So, now that we have more cooking experience in general (and a little sushi experience) we're trying again. This time, instead of cucumber rolls and miso soup, Dad and I are going to make California, and cucumber rolls.

Thanks to last time Dad and I aren't stumbling over pitfalls like last time, forgetting to make a vinegar dressing, and all sorts of other stupidities. One of our accidents last time was not really measuring that well, our sushi cookbook was printed in Australia, so all the measurements are in milli-liters, and grams. Leaving us and our calculators to get everything into cups and tablespoons. Enough to drive us crazy.

The cucumber rolls are done and, unlike last time I only had one " epic fail" in my attempts to roll the sushi. Progress! but on to new and better things, now I get to try to roll a California roll.

That was kinda fun... and hard. we layer the rice on top of the nori then you flip the rice/nori so that the rice is down. I then layered on mayonnaise, cucumber, krab, (we couldn't find the real deal) and avocado. Then we rolled it and covered it in roe which are flying fish eggs. My mouth is watering.

We made the salmon sashimi and spread out the sushi, plate upon plate, roll upon roll. A feast.

Sticky rice is gone, the roasted eel and raw salmon, cucumber, seaweed, and fish-eggs are gone. We swallowed whole the rolls and and left behind dirty dishes. And then we brought out the dessert that we picked up at the Japanese supermarket we went to today.We tried, but failed to choke down the play-do like bean paste. It is called Daifuku and is made from red bean paste. I never have and probably never will understand Japanese candy, or the lack of a cultural sweet tooth. Dad started to say something about Japan's historical isolation with no international trade and how lack of access to sugar lead them to develop desserts out of Adzuki beans. I was off to refill my glass of Sprite - sweet corn syrup- to wash down the red bean paste dessert experiment. But at least their raw fish is good. It's kind of strange the sushi rolls Dad and I made were really large and, for whatever reason the sushi restaurant a few blocks from our house makes massive rolls. This gives us "the saburo's debacle" Do you stuff it all in your mouth or bite it in half and watch it fall apart. It seems to be an interesting neighborhood curse. We'll call it the Sellwood-Moreland style of sushi. It was a good meal.