What's for supper tonight?

Just take some Alli and don't forget your brown pants!

 

Platy, that's awesome man! May he turn into Tin Cup and contend

 

Wendy's.

 

Oh my. Get yourself four lemons and squeeze the juice out of them. Then fill a pitcher with seven cups of water. Then take a small sauce pan and heat one cup of water, stirring in one 3/4 cup of sugar (or substitute Splenda!). Dump the juice in the water and stir in the syrup after it cools a bit. Then pour some of that stuff into a cup with a little ice.

I've had three cups of lemonade. That's my dinner.

 

Sushi night for this kid too.

One each:

• Hawaiian roll
• Spicy scallop roll
• Shrimp tempura roll
• Fried crawfish roll

And 8 shrimp sushimi.

 

shotty, that sounds fantastic.

God, I love sushi.

 

The next five nights: Eating out, while on a long-ass road trip (Mississip' to Seattle).

 

Could you guys educate me? I heard about an upscale buffet place. We went there last fall, and it was about $25 per person. The catch was that they had a huge sushi bar. They had all sorts of stuff, but I was clueless.

What's the allure? To me, it's raw seafood. But that might even be a misconception.

Is there some sort of seasoning that makes it tasty? I just can't imagine. I don't eat fish even when they're cooked. I'm just not much of a seafood guy, but I've had my share of crab legs and some lobster.

I tried sushi once. I believe I had a single piece or two. But it do absolutely nothing for me. Then again, neither did several other items on the buffet at that place.

 

A giant Snickers bar and a bowl of pineapple, blueberries, kiwi and banana. I guess they'll cancel each other out.

 

My advice would be to try a genuine sushi bar. Find someplace that either specializes in sushi and sashimi or only does that. Buffet sushi? Discount sushi? No way.

Once you find a good sushi place, go during a time where you can get a seat at the bar and watch the sushi chef make your food. You should be able to find plenty of things that aren't raw or don't have any kind of strange texture. California rolls don't have any raw fish. Shrimp is almost always cooked in sushi. Most places serve broiled BBQ eel sushi that's really good. And I've never met anyone who didn't like a spicy tuna roll. And if you sit at the bar you should be able to order a la carte, two pieces at a time.

Sushi rolls are just like they sound. There's a sheet of nori, sushi rice and the fixins all rolled up and sliced. Nigri sushi is handmade with little balls of rice and a single piece of fish stretched over it. Places also serve bowls of sushi rice with bits of fish and veggies on top. Sashimi is simply raw fish, sliced thin and served with a dipping sauce of some kind.

On your platter will be your sushi, artfully displayed. You will also get green wasabi paste, or, if it's a really spendy place, fresh grated wasabi. This is strong stuff, sort of like horseradish but not really. There will also be some pink vegetation -- that's pickled ginger, and you can use it to clear your palate between tasting things.

You will get a little dish to pour some soy sauce in, but don't go overboard with it. Sushi isn't as much about the raw fish as it is about the rice -- which, if prepared correctly will be sticky and faintly sweet. It is an insult to the chef to drown your rice in soy sauce.

Try the easy stuff, and if you like that, try other stuff. You'll be amazed at how good raw tuna and salmon taste -- much better than when cooked. It's finger food, so just use your chopsticks or your hands and eat each piece in one bite. The beauty of sushi is in its simplicity and attention to detail. At nicer restaurants, you'll get these amazingly done platters with beautiful tuna sashimi roses and every piece of sushi will have the same number of rice grains. When I had abalone sushi for the first time last weekend, it came on a separate place from the platter, The rice was still warm and the abalone was chilled and it was tied together with a strip of nori. Just a perfect little bite of food.

 

Oysters, crackers, no squish.

 

You won't be sorry.