The sushi experience
I do not cook. Absolutely not. It’s boring, messy, time-consuming and just generally unpleasant. That said, I had a great time at the sushi workshop put on by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Asian American/Pacific Islander Association. It took everything that sucks about cooking out of the picture, leaving only the fun parts for the class to do.
The food was measured out, the vegetables were cut, the rice was cooked and it was all put out in front of us in neat little piles. All we had left to do was to create our norimaki sushi, which, until cut, looks like a big log.
To make sushi, start with a rolling mat and put the nori (dried seaweed) on top of it. Then use your hands to spread out the rice. Add egg, carrots, cucumber and tuna, then use the mat to roll.
I usually hate making a mess while I cook. I walk around cleaning up any little piece of
food that may have spilled, but this time I enjoyed making a mess. My hands, cutting board and work space got messy and I didn’t care.
I have never seen anything prettier than my sushi after I cut the big log into little pieces. The colors of all the ingredients blended perfectly in a nice little rainbow swirl. It looked too good to eat. The masterpiece I had just created deserved to be framed, not ruined in one greedy bite.
Alas, sushi is made to be eaten, so, after staring at my work, I ate it. To my surprise it was really good. I rarely make anything that I consider to be really good, yet there on my plate were these pretty little rolls of sushi that actually tasted great. It is way more fun to cook when it is actually appealing to eat the dish.
Next came the temaki, or hand-rolled sushi. It is made with nori, rice, sesame mayonnaise, Krab and cucumber. Instead of a big log, it is shaped like a little cone. The cones weren’t so pretty and it’s a lot harder to make cones than it is to roll logs.
Even if they weren’t as pretty, they tasted just as good. The mayonnaise was unexpectedly delicious and the cucumber gave it a nice crunch.
After the workshop was over, the worst part was taken care of. Apparently the $10 registration fee included cleanup. I felt kind of bad about letting people clean up after me, but hey, they offered.
I left and brought my amazing sushi treats home to share with a friend. When I told her I made them she said, “Well, if you can make this, I definitely can.”
It’s true — if I can make sushi, the kind of stuff that actually tastes and looks good, anybody can.
The class gave me a needed boost of cooking confidence. I am ready to break in my kitchen. All I need is someone to pre-cook and measure my ingredients before I begin.
Written by Ryli Hennessey
