Left-over Sushi

I made sushi for dinner tonight--the first time in a while. For various reasons, I had drifted away from sushi making, so I had to try and "feel" my way back into the process. I made a few little mistakes, though. First of all, I made way too much. Second, I put a little too much of the vinegar mixture into the rice, and, third, I made mistakes in the way I cut some of the fish. The reason I made too much was because, when I made sushi before, my two sons, who are now away at college, were at home, and so I misjudged the amount of rice I needed to cook. I'd forgotten that they used to eat more than the other three of us put together.

It's not that I'm really all that fond of cooking. My repertoire definitely has its limits, but, somehow, making sushi is really fun. Perhaps it's because, using both hands to "create", it reminds me of how I worked hard on my small art projects when I was a child. I started making sushi when our eldest son was still at home, so it's been about four years now. At first, I'd make sushi on my days off, every Thursday, so, as you can imagine, I really was quite obsessed. But, this eventually started taking a toll on our family budget and threw my diet off whenever I made sushi, eating too much red fish, such as tuna, that is high in purine, can cause elevated levels of uric acid in the body, which is what happened to me. Since this, in turn, can lead to gout, I reluctantly had to reduce my sushi intake.

But, having just received some fresh fish from the members of Seicho-No-Ie in Ishikawa Prefecture, where I visited on a lecture tour the other day, I decided to resume my sushi making for the first time in a while. We had red snapper, tile fish, and some other types of fish and calamari. Since I'm not too adept at skinning and de-boning the fish, my wife took care of this, and I was in charge of making the rice mixture, cutting the fish and making it into the nigiri sushi. When my sons lived at home, I'd fill three large platters with sushi, but, today, we couldn't even manage to finish one. After dinner, we were trying to decide what to do with the leftovers--send it overnight delivery to our sons, share with our neighbors, or give some to the stray cats--but, as it turned out, the three of us decided to try and finish it up the next day. Looking at the leftovers, I realized for the first time just exactly how blessed we are to have children who really dig in and enjoy everything (the food) that is prepared for them.

- MT