Neat guy: tall and handsome in a Jeremy Irons kind of way, much more fetching than the photo of him on the book's dust cover. He's funny and full of stories, as a writer should be. Neat place for a party: the downtown apartment-over-the-bookstore of this town's really wonderful independent book store's owner. Neat day to entertain a guest: finally, a day of summer, with a clear view over Bellingham Bay and the beguiling San Juans that bite its toes.
In the small kitchen, a pony-tailed man named Alex who looked to be Native American wore a white chef's coat with bright cuffs of bold Carribean colors was making sushi for the assembled crowd of about 50 people. The party was at 6:00 and we were there maybe five minutes early. I was dismayed when I saw that Alex was forming only his third roll, and was suffering heavily from an inability to talk and work at the same time. And of course everyone wanted to talk to him. This party was no different than the ones you have at your house--everyone ends up in the kitchen.
The rice looked too wet. Alex was laying the rice down on the nori in a pretty heavy layer, and there seemed to be no space between any two kernels. Someone asked if he used a rice cooker. No, he never felt the need, "I learned to make sushi from a Japanese guy about 20 years ago, and he didn't need no rice cooker. Neither do I." I jumped in to defend that statement even though the rice was lining those seaweed wrappers like cement. Something he almost acknowledged, saying that he'd had trouble with his first batch but that the second batch he was going to use for the nigiri was perfect.
I stepped out on the balcony to give Alex more space and enjoy the view and Trevor joined me. Below, a big blue boat below bellowed it's intention to leave port. "What's that?", Trevor wanted to know. "The Alaska ferry," I answered, "it's heading north." "Cool," he said appreciatively. I asked if L.A. was home, knowing that's where he did his stint at the Sushi Academy that is the background story for his book. No, Washington D.C. He moved there with a girlfriend he's since broken up with.
Kind of how he got into sushi, too, a relationship with a Japanese girl. He told this story of how he'd learned Japanese, but at first only the useful words needed in an intimate relationship. Linguistically speaking, he branched out from there. For instance, at a meal with his girlfriend and friends of hers he'd once eaten too much wasabi and made "the face". They told him, we have a word for that in Japanese. You say, "Kiku!", then everybody knows your pain and gives you time to recover. Years later he went back to Japan and was dining out with a group of Japanese, and decided he would impress them with his knowledge of Japanese. So he deliberately ate too much wasabi, made "the face", and exclaimed, "Eeku!". His new friends looked incredulous, not impressed.
Turns out he'd gotten his table-manners Japanese and his intimate Japanese words mixed up, and had just announced to the table "I'm coming!"
Meanwhile, back inside, Alex finally started slicing and plating his sushi. Unfortunately, the rice was as bad as I thought. Mushy and starchy-wet on the outside, undercooked on the inside, and they were dense. Actually, not unlike the proper texture for risotto. But for sushi, it was all wrong and, well, weird. The rice in the nigiri that he had pronounced perfect was also wrong. Mushy-overcooked, also wet and heavy. The pieces did not form well, they were large egg-shaped ovals. I have to accept based on what he said that he was happy with this result, odd as it seemed to me, but I cannot imagine preparing rice for a professional catering job and not tossing that first batch. Rice is cheap, and reputations are hard won.
Now that we had food Trevor could address us as a group. He provided these handy little do's and don'ts cards that set several of my sushi habits on their ear. First of all, I was relieved to learn that it is acceptable for me to pick up my sushi with my fingers. Secondly, I was surprised to learn that it's considered all wrong to put wasabi into your soy sauce. "The chef puts the amount of wasabi he thinks is right for the fish into his creations," and you basically insult him by reseasoning it when you load in extra wasabi. The result of your doing so brands you a rube of sorts in the chef's eyes and he won't then give you his best cuts of fish. As a cook I can relate to all of that, but I'd never understood it about sushi.
Can't wait to read the book. I'll probably start it today over coffee at Cafe D'Agio after a sushi lunch at Moshi Moshi. Sushi's one of those foods I get a jones for that doesn't go away by itself, and last night's sushi left me...well? No eeku.
