Shoulda Been a Sushi Chef

sushi (SOO-shee) 1. A Japanese dish of cooked seasoned rice (zushi) garnished with a variety of cooked or raw ingredients such as fish, shellfish and vegetables; there are four principal types of sushi: chirashi-zushi (cooked or raw fish, shellfish and sometimes veggies on loosely packed zushi, usually served in a bowl), maki-zushi (made by rolling zushi and other ingredients in nori – thin sheets of dried seaweed), nigiri-zushi (made by placing tane, or topping, over a bed of pressed zushi) and oshi-zushi (sushi pressed into a wooden box mold, covered with toppings, then unmolded and cut into squares). 2. An imprecisely used term for nigiri-zushi. 3. An incorrectly used term for sashimi. (The Prentice Hall Dictionary of Culinary Arts, Second Edition)

Shoulda been a sushi chef (yeah, say that five times fast). I've had a few pleasant experiences with sushi, but always in a restaurant (or a very exotic jungle-themed Russian nightclub). Never had I actually considered making the neat little spirals. My roommate however, consulted with her half-German, half-Chinese friend (who is presently in Hong Kong) and the most on-hand expert we had.

They weren't artisan by any means, but they still looked nice when we chopped them up. We took some rice - it wasn't even cooked very well! (I've gotta be honest, for some reason I just cannot master light fluffy rice.) But anyways, we took very sticky rice, spread it out on some thin seaweed paper and lined up skinny strips of carrot, cucumber, hot pepper (yes, one of the mystery peppers from the other night), avocado and "crab meat" to our liking. Rolled it up in a tight little roll, slice into little pucks and voila! Sushi! It was quite good, and SO easy. I didn't realize how versatile and easy it was to make - I'd love to experiment with some smoked salmon (I don't trust myself to prepare edible raw meat just yet).

Chile Challenge, Part II

So after posting my Chile Challenge entry, my first reader was kind enough to inform me that the heat is in the seeds (thanks Dad). And according to my roommate, the heat is in the seeds and the ribs. Really? I had to find out for myself, so I grabbed the big Ziploc out of the fridge, picked a pretty yellow pepper out of the bunch and cut big chunks off until I got to some decent ribbing. Then I took a caution-be-damned bite.

Oh.

The pretty yellow pepper (I think it's Indian) still has my lips and tongue tingling, a whole glass of milk later. Well, so there we go. First foodie lesson learned: don't judge a pepper by its skin. Or by the flesh, for that matter. The real heat is in the ribbing.

What can I say? I've got a lot to learn. And I'm so looking forward to it.

PS - Whatever you do after handling hot chiles, DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES!!!

*Addendum, 9/25: My professional culinary consultant brought to my attention that chili and chile, commonly interchanged, are not in fact the same thing and that the correct spelling of the fruit I was describing was actually chile. As anal-retentive as I am about words, I had to check several sources before going back and editing again. Wikipedia, of course, had Chile listed as a country on the western coast of South America. Chili peppers, on the other hand, were in fact the subject of my last two blog postings. Dictionary.com, however, was less decisive. I'll take a chef textbook glossary's word for it. (OnCooking, Prentice Hall, Third Edition).

Chile (not Chili) Challenge

I was on a mission today when I went to the farmer's market downtown on my lunch break. I had my heart set on fresh, homemade caramel apples. Not just for myself, but I had an order to fill from my coworkers as well. Last week I'd eyed the apples covetously (now I know how Eve felt) but a cash shortage kept me from indulging. This week however, cash was burning a hole through my tote bag and I could practically taste the tart-sweet crunch of the caramel and the apple, a little piece of the Fall of my childhood imported to the big city I now called home. Unfortunately, Fall was just going to have to wait. Apparently everyone else in the city had the same craving as I did, because by the time I arrived, the apples were gone - completely sold out. Awesome.

Determined not to let the apple shortage get me down, I wandered from stand to stand, mentally flipping through the limited recipes I knew that used veggies as the main ingredient. I'll be the first to admit that I have a very short list of vegetables that I actually enjoy eating (corn!). Mostly I eat them because I figure I should eat them. Actually, mostly I don't eat them at all. Ha! So with that knowledge and the fact that my vegetarian roomie was out of town that night, I eventually settled on making nachos. Some ground beef with the Chipotle pepper flakes I got from work, some chopped onion, bell pepper and the rest of the Mexican cheese blend I had in the fridge, and ta da! Nachos.

I was on my way back to the office with my purchases when one stand in particular caught my eye. A stand with shelves of baskets, brimming with shiny, alluring red peppers was covered with signs that screamed "10 for $1.00." Like a child drawn to a freshly frosted cake, I edged closer, just to look. Hanging from each basket was a sign, on which someone had scrawled the variety of chile pepper as well as the Scoville measurement, and if THAT couldn't hook me, then nothing could. Suddenly the chile peppers became research. They became shiny red opportunity to see for myself what the chileheads were all so excited about. I'd recently written an article that covered hot sauces, and not being an aficionado of hot sauces, I decided to go straight to the source and figure out what all the fuss was about. I armed myself with a plastic bag and selected a variety of chile peppers, ranging in shape from bulbous and innocuous to thin, curly and deadly. Their Scoville ratings ran from 200 - 200,000 (the hottest chile on record hails from India - the Naga Jolokia, measuring in at 1,040,000), which promised to be a good time when I was tasting them.

It's hard to have buyer's remorse when you get ten chilies for a dollar, but when I got back to work, it hit me - what in the heck am I going to do with ten chilies?! Not only that, but I certainly didn't remember which chili was which with them being all mixed up in the bag. When I got them home to taste them, as in, my "scientific research," who knew if I'd be biting in a pepper with 200 or 200,000 SHU (Scoville heat units). If nothing else, I wouldn't be bored!

I got home with my cache and jotted down a few notes - I knew I'd be blogging about this later. As my pen scratched across the paper, I could smell the peppers, fresh and spicy from the plastic bag on the table, taunting me with spiciness unknown. I arranged the peppers on the table, grouping together the ones that looked similar, and then it was time. Time to taste my fate.

It's funny how, until we actually taste the heat on our tongue, burning the back of our throat, making our eyes water, and nose run, we forget what the heat feels like. I sliced off a tiny sliver of the most friendly looking pepper on the table and crunched it between my teeth. Nothing! Like biting into a bell pepper. I sliced off a larger piece and bit it, with the same disappointing effect. Tasting my way down the line to the smaller, more threatening-looking chiles had the same effect! Not one pepper I purchased gave me the slightest rush of blood to the face. I still don't know what the problem was, but I was definitely disappointed by my anticlimatic end of my great chile challenge.

Writing Exercise: 9/16/2007

The very first time I ever had fresh pineapple, sliced open right there in front of me was on a fishing boat miles off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. I was deep-sea fishing with my family and our fishing guide, as we took a break from the strenuous task of watching our poles, explained to us that sharing pineapple with someone is a sign of friendship. After that first taste of pineapple however, I realized that friendship couldn’t even begin to describe the feelings I had toward this man for introducing me to the fruit as it is meant to be. Up until that moment, I’d been happy to eat the fruit as it was after swimming for hours, days, weeks in simple syrup and juice, after being canned or air-vacked into little lunch-sized fruitcups, crushed, chunked, in rings or slices. But in that moment a new day began.

Our guide offered me a large chunk of pineapple, deep golden yellow against the azure sky and the cerulean water. I took a bite from a large chunk of ripe fruit and the piece came off easily in my mouth, heavy and sweet. It was a tantalizing combination of textures, soft and firm, to roll around with my tongue, press against the roof of my mouth, juices trickling down my throat. The juice was effervescent like Champagne as I swallowed. The sweet smell of the tropics invaded my senses like the cologne of my high school crush, and the juice from the large piece I was holding began to drip down my hand, as if reminding me it was there, waiting for it’s turn to be savored.