Sushi Success

On Saturday I attended a sushi class at The Curious Kumquat. Our good friends own the store, and sometimes I help out when they need shifts covered, so I am getting quite familiar with various ins & outs of the store. Last month they hired a chef to teach a sushi class on a day that I was running the register - and I heard peals of laughter, regularly, coming from the kitchen. When the class was over I watched everyone emerge with containers full of sushi rolls they'd made, and then most of the participants bought several ingredients to presumably go home & make some more.

I promptly signed up for the next class, which was this past weekend. I'm not sure we were quite as rambunctious of a class as last month's, but we certainly had a great time. If nothing else, the class demystified the art of sushi making, while simultaneously elevating it into something we may never master.

I realized that it's relatively easy to make mediocre sushi. This is the part that is liberating. The ingredients are not complicated or expensive, and it really is fun to prepare and assemble. The part that is daunting is realizing that there are an infinite number of varieties and presentations, and I may have to attend Sushi II to get even a little start on that.

But when I got home we sliced up the sushi rolls I'd made and snacked on them as our first phase of dinner - and they were tasty. I was impressed with the cross-section view of the third & final roll I'd made, because I think I did it pretty much correctly.

Now I'm inspired to purchase the "staple" ingredients so I can have a "sushi kit" in my kitchen, ready to go. Just some wasabi, pickled ginger, rice vinegar, soy sauce, nori, rice and my rolling mat in a box and I'm good to go!

One interesting tidbit I learned: "Sushi" has nothing to do with fish. It's sushi if it's got rice, nori, and rice vinegar together. "Sashimi" is the term for the sushi-grade fishes.

Happy eating!