Sushi Dinner
I had invited my PARC colleagues over for dinner last Wednesday. R had decided to try something new, she
decided to follow a menu suggestion from a Japanese friend which was to have a
make-your-own-handroll sushi dinner. To
get the necessary ingredients she got help from another Japanese friend,
Yuko-san, who drove her to a fancy and large Japanese supermarket where she
bought a variety of raw fish and other necessary ingredients (special soy sauce
for sashimi, some special vinegar to put over the rice, etc.) She borrowed some serving dishes from our
Japanese neighbor. They were spectacular
samples of imari pottery (from Kyushu), a
wedding present and very valuable no doubt.
On these, she arranged the fish and fish roe and squid on a bed of
greenery. The presentation was a
stunning sight to behold.
Unfortunately, neither my colleagues nor I were in in a mood
to party that night. I had left work
right after lunch as I had not been able to eat anything but two bowls of miso soup
and was feeling lightheaded and as if I would throw up any moment. Both of the American colleagues were
exhausted from all the work and the lack of sleep due to their jetlag. The one Japanese colleague was fine for the
first five minutes after his arrival, but then started to look yellow and
green, feeling bad and was falling asleep; we had to send him home before
desert as keeping him would have been cruel.
Fortunately, I had been able to sleep a little that afternoon, and the
peak of the nausea had passed. Given all
the preparation R had gone through I could not not attend and I actually felt
better after a little beer. So we ate
despite ourselves and it was so delicious that everybody enjoyed several
handrolls each, but in our state we could not do justice to the beautiful
dinner R had spent such trouble to prepare, which was a shame. The pictures of the fish platters below give
some impression of the exquisite meal R prepared that night.
 
10:05:47 AM 
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