Sushi Making!!

It's been awhile, and there's actually quite a bit I want to post, but I'll have to go easy on you as it's never good to let myself ramble while under the influence (of sushi!!!!...not really, sake).

I love sushi, let's just make that clear. And not the crazy unhealthy rolls with all the fried stuff and fatty sauces and what-not. I love salmon sashimi (sashimi is just the fish cut in slices, raw), spicy tuna rolls (that does have mayonnaise in it, so not incredibly healthy), and I love wasabi! And eating with chopsticks.

Sushi is also expensive, and I'm a grad student living in one of the most expensive locations in the world.

The other day one of the guys in my class brought in homemade sushi to share. Besides the fact that it had mac and cheese in it, it inspired me. He said it wasn't that hard. I happen to know that the sashimi grade fish at the local Japanese market, is actually fairly affordable (albeit $22/lb). 

One of my favorite things about this marketplace (Mitsuwa) is that in the food court there, is the BEST ramen place in the world. They have them in Japan too, although I can't say how it compares to other ramen places in Japan, so I'll amend that. It's the best ramen place in the US. And it has a chain in Chicago (Debbie) and San Diego (so it's ok when I finally move home, I can still have awesome ramen).

Google is great. It tells you how to do all sorts of things. It tells me why my right foot is slapping the pavement while running, how to fold origami flowers (but that rose....so help me) and how to roll sushi.

It was hot today and I didn't want to cook.....so.....sushi day!!!

I was going to do it. I did a quick google search, made a list, and headed to Mitsuwa. I told myself I was not going to look at the sweets. After grabbing a cucumber, I looked over and saw the desserts in the refrigerated shelf. I decided to just go take a peek. Well, since they were in single serving sizes, if I only took two home, I'd only be able to eat two, not twelve (I do this, believe it or not).

So I picked two bean cakes, one with sesame seed on the outside that I've never tried, and one with green mochi on the outside. Japanese desserts are a little different. Sweetened red bean cakes coated with mochi, which is a gelatin made from rice meal. Yum!

Off to the seafood section. I picked a small fillet of sashimi grade salmon (you pay a little more for the assurance that it was handled properly so that you can eat it raw.) It's handled with the expectation that it will not be cooked and still needs to be safe to eat.

I found a rolling mat and went in search of nori (seaweed) and rice.

Well.

In a regular American supermarket, when you go to the foreign foods aisle, things are written in English. Even if they are Chinese or Mexican foods. In a Japanese market, things are written in Japanese. I don't know how to read Japanese. And it's not like you can compare what you have written on your list to what it says on the label either. I don't write in Japanese so my list was not in Japanese. I found the nori.

Surprisingly, in the rice aisle, there was no rice. Only an entire aisle of rice cookers. I kept walking. I came to the end of the row by the sake (yay!) and saw big bags of rice on metal shelves. I perused the bags and could not for the life of me tell what I was looking at (other then, yes, most of it was actually rice).

There was a 3 lb bag of rice for $22! I hoped that wasn't what I needed. I looked at my list and the description on the price tag. It didn't seem to match. I started over again in the rice aisle. Worked my way through noodles, various types of seaweed, tea, ignored the chocolate aisle, wrapped around...and bam! Rice. End of aisle. Those are tricky. I found it!

I paid for my goods and ate my first bean cake while driving home. Kept me sane in rush hour side street traffic (with construction). Oh yeah, I also had a bottle of sake (rice liquor...rice wine? I don't know, it's alcohol made out of rice that you drink either cold, room temperature, or warm, depending on the type.). I was thirsty but since sake was all I had...no go.

I got home, and off I went!

First I had to make the rice (so there was some cooking involved). I seasoned the rice with seasoned rice vinegar. Then set about rolling the sushi.

So, we've got the prepared rice, salmon sashimi, the rolling mat, nori (in the big package), my bean cake with mochi, and the bottle of sake (it's small, only 300ml or 10.2 FL oz.).

Nori is supposed to be kept very dry. I'm not sure what happens to it when it gets moist, but supposedly it's not good.

The rice on the other hand is very sticky, and to work with it, your hands have to be kept wet.

I laid the nori on to the mat, and then spread the rice out on top.

This was my very first attempt. I should've spread the rice all the way to the end.

I added a strip of the salmon.

And then I rolled.

I had read the directions, maybe I should've watched a You-tube video. I'm sure there's an actual technique to this. One which I surely do not possess. But either way, a sushi roll was created.

I cut it into pieces....

and voilà! Sushi roll!!! My very first. There it is.

Mind you, not very creative. There could've been some cucumber and avocado in there, but I was hungry and also lazy, so there you have it. I made two more (getting better with each one...except for when I forgot to wet my hands and grabbed a handful of rice....that stuck to them like glue.).

I mixed some wasabi and soy sauce in my little dipping thingy, and ate my sushi with my chopsticks and drank my sake.

So these three rolls cost about $6 to make. Had I gone out to get them, it would've been close to $30. I have a full belly, a sake buzz on the brain, and about to go eat my bean cake.

I'm a happy girl.

Mildly Successful Day

I'm supposed to be studying...as usual. Come to think of it, the only time I am not supposed to be studying is after having studied for so long that my brain can no longer absorb the information I'm trying to fill it with.

It's not like today hasn't been successful, although I did start late. If I am going to have a glass of wine, it has to be at least 3 hours before bedtime, which is pretty inconvenient when you take into account my bedtime is 8pm. It affects my sleep. Badly. I fall asleep for 2 or 3 hours, soundly. Then I wake up and continue to lay away for another 3-4 hours before finally drifting off to sleep...only to be woken by my alarm an hour later.

Well I just had to have a glass of wine last night, so today I am tired and sluggish. I still managed to make it to the gym, do a hard full body weight lifting routine, then came home, had a couple handfuls of grapes and some water and headed out for my second attempt at my interval run that went badly on Wednesday.

For a year now I've been trying to find "my shoe". Shoes are irritating. As soon as you find one that works for you, the company goes and "upgrades" it and next thing you know you've got shin splints and IT Band Syndrome. Years ago I had my shoe. Years ago I loved my shoe. It was Asics. Then they upgraded. I tolerated it. They upgraded again. I started getting foot pain, but had a marathon coming up and didn't have the time to find a new shoe. After the marathon I switched. My feet have not been in love since.

They were close. There was this pair of Nike shoes. Neutral, when apparently I'm supposed to be in Stability shoes. I bought them on a whim, online, without even trying them out. With Road Runner Sports you can send them back anyway.

I loved them. But then I developed a weird toe thing. It's possible that switching to a neutral shoe and the toe thing aren't even related, but merely a coincidence. Anyway, it's not even a toe thing. It's a nerve in the bottom of my foot.

So for the past year I've been trying to make a compromise between my doctor's suggestions, and what my feet think they want.

Well whatever was going on in November, my feet did not approve and took me out of running for awhile. I came back with a new pair. They were ok. But after less than 200 miles on them the left bottom of the toe area is worn through, showing the fabric of the shoe underneath. What the heck?

Well they weren't so great anyway. Back to the running store. I came home with a nice stable, cush pair of Asics. I ran 11 easy miles on them (for my long run) and they did well. But on Tuesday, when I went to do my 6 x 1 mile repeats at a fairly good clip, they did not do so well. My achilles and calves of both legs were just killing me (it's normal for my right calf to act up, since the hammy incident). Plus I couldn't hit my pace (7:25) for the life of me. I averaged 7:41.

I decided to repeat the same workout after the gym today, but with my old pair of shoes. I've had a hunch for a couple years now, that although my feet overpronate and my ankles turn in when I run, my feet do not actually like their movement controlled. When I bought that pair of Nike's on a whim, it was the fastest I've ever run. Call me crazy. I don't think there's a pair of shoes out there that'll make you run faster, but I do believe there are shoes out there that can make you run slower.

Case in point.

I was exhausted. Full body exhausted. And I had 6 hard repeats to do with a half mile warm-up and a half mile cool down. I laced up my old pair, remembered why I didn't love them, and headed out the door.

Man was I tired. But reviewing my splits said it all. I average a 7:14. With the first two being 7:02 and 7:03.

Here's the thing. The new shoes I bought have no flex in the forefoot. Neither do any of the other shoes I've rejected and brought back to Road Runner Sports. The shoes I've held on to, had no injuries with (I'm skeptical about the toe thing), and ran fastest with, had plenty of flexibility in the forefoot. If my foot has to work against the stiffness of the shoe with every push-off, my legs are working harder than they have to, and I therefore run slower. That's what I think anyway.

So after my run, after feeding my face and washing off the stink, I headed back to Road Runners and exchanged for a new pair of my current shoe (but they had to order it since my shoe has been discontinued...story of my life...but it's coming!). Then I went grocery shopping.

I came home with intentions of studying. Then I checked the mail and I had a new Runners World magazine. I thumbed through that for awhile and decided I needed to hammer down and finish reading the chapter for physics. I got all comfy on the couch, opened up the book....and saw all this.

Nope nope nope nope nope.

I felt fatigue wash over me just looking at the page in front me. This isn't happening.

However, I'd like to take this moment to point out a little trick of mine that you'll find on the left and right corners of the pages there.

I place the tab at the beginning of the chapter and move it with me as I go. It is there to say "Keep going! You're almost there! Keep pushing on!". And it's suppose to encourage me to keep going until I reach the red/orange tab at the end of the chapter.

Except that somehow, after all the reading I've done in this chapter so far, I am not actually almost there. That's a lot of weird Greek letters and symbols to process after such a hard workout. And it's Friday. And the birds are chirping, a cool breeze is gently wafting through my open front door. Mer. Momentum is everything. And I have none right now.