Sushi and Me
I just got back from Sushi Friday, a tradition here at work which has shifting group of folks from our department heading over to the local Japanese steak house for some hibachi or, of course, sushi.
When one thinks back on the wreckage of a marriage, one looks for silver linings so as not to face the fact that a decade of misery were all for naught. Alas, my daughter and stepson were more than worth every second of woe during those ten years. Also, without my ex, I may never have tried sushi…
Back then, in 1988, I was in the Air Force studying Russian in Monterey, California. I was from the buttoned up and solid suburbs of Philadelphia, where I had thought of myself as a bit of an urbane man of the world. I headed to California knowing exactly one person who’d had a divorce,thinking that activities like purchasing pot were fraught with peril (one minute your making the deal, the next you’re in a barn in Schwenksville being passed around by a bunch of Warlock motorcycle gang members as their love doll) and thinking pushing the envelope as far as cuisine goes was sitting in Denny’s at 4:00 in the morning ordering a Moon over My Hammy after just scarfing down a plate of spaghetti.
So there I am sat in a sushi bar in Monterey, which is overlooked by hills that are one big pot farm, talking to a woman who was going through a divorce, who was at the time dating a guy who was divorced who rented a room from her twice divorced mother who was out of town watching her divorced son play a concert at the school his divorced wife was attending (one can’t say I wasn’t warned).
The sushi was a revelation. I was too amazed at how the rice tasted to even think about the fish. Eel, shrimp, tuna….in the form of nigiri or roll…I never thought anything could have tasted that good…as good or better than, say Weaver Batter Dipped Chicken. I was hooked. I even survived that ritual which all sushi veterans inflict upon newbies. I was told the smoking hot dollop of wasabi was a delightful mint paste used to cleanse the palate, and that I should gobble it down whole. I did and my face exploded. My eyes were watering for three days afterwards.
I was fortunate to be stationed in Japan for three years and tasted sushi in all its freshest forms. I was fortunate to live near cold water Mutsu Bay, from which monstrous shellfish and scallops the size of hockey pucks were plucked. One night, during a conference, a bunch of the senior guys in my unit took me out to a sushi place and asked for the special. The chef formed a cone out of seaweed, scooped rice and veggies into it and then reached into a tank and pulled out a shrimp as thick as my forearm. A couple slashes of the knife later he put it, still wriggling, onto the handroll. I ate it and didn’t have to pay for a drink all weekend.
Cupcake and I have had many memorable sushi feasts. When we lived in Columbia, MD, one of my favorite things was bringing home dinner from Sushi Ono..we’d set out the sushi plates on the coffee table, pour a couple drinks and gorge ourselves. Their specialty was called the Dragon Platter…lobster nigiri and rolls arranged to look like a dragon.
Alas, tragedy struck in November of last year. While visiting her daughter Stevie in Olney, Leslie bought one of those sushi snack trays from Giant. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so ill in my entire life. It’s actually kind of scary because she went downstairs and spent the night on the sofa or in the bathroom. I don’t think she would’ve had the strength to call me if she’d needed me.
Sadly, she’s off the sushi now, probably for life. I’m lucky though, because we can still go to a Japanese restaurant and she can stomach me eating the tasty stuff without getting ill. It’s a good thing…because the stuff is like crack to me now…
Man….my mouth is watering……
