すし パーティー！ (Sushi Party!)

This is completely unrelated to the rest of this post, but it's worth mentioning because it was really good! The label says apple, milk, and lemon, but I could swear I tasted honey too.

Aaaaand on with the show!


We tried something new: hosting a sushi party. I wasn't sure what to get or what to expect, but I had help from some Japanese friends. Husband and I went to the store and guessed at a variety of fish and vegetables.

Shown here are avocado, tako (octopus), maguro (tuna), asparagus, and rice mixed with sushi vinegar.


On the stove were two types we weren't sure were okay to eat raw, so our awesome friends cooked and seasoned them while I chopped vegetables. The sticks on the left are some sort of mystery fish, but it had a great buttery flavor. The salmon sticks on the right were labeled "sashimi quality" but we weren't sure if it was meant to be eaten raw or just as good as the stuff that's meant to be eaten raw. It probably would have been fine, but we cooked it just to be safe. The yellow thing at the bottom is tamagoyaki, the rolled omelet often served as sushi. I'm so excited that I know how to make this now that it's a little silly. But I need to get a rectangular frying pan to properly cook and roll it.

Cucumber, carrot, avocado, and (cracked pepper) cream cheese.

Pickled ginger! It looks pretty gross, but it has a great zingy flavor.

I have these awesome rice molds for making maki (the cylindrical sushi) and on the right is for the tiny lumps of rice raw fish sits on. Have I mentioned how much I love the 100-yen store?

I'm no expert, but the molds worked moderately well for me.

Most people had a plate of ingredients:

Then folded those ingredients into a small square of nori. I converted to this method pretty quickly, it was much less of a pain in the neck to put everything together.

After sushi, we introduced our friends to the Kinect and the dance game we've been playing. Crooked helped.

I thought it would be fun to get some video of people playing the game, then Crooked decided I should pay attention to him instead.