I tried.. I really REALLY tried!

(OK.. this is the second attempt at the Sushi Party post..Pictures linked this time...at least in the preview they did)

For the record... I tried. I really did. I made it through, but was later told I had turned about 4 different shades of green.

I'm talking about sushi.



One of my daughter's wishes for this Christmas was to have a Sushi Party with the family. We were going to do it all; cut all the ingredients, make the rice, and roll it in the Nori... everything.

Water chestnuts, green and red bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, bamboo, green onions...
 

Cutting the skin off the salmon.

 

Now the rice was fun.  After cooking it up in my rice cooker, we had to add the "sauce".  A mix of rice wine vinegar and sugar.  While turning and fanning the rice.. yes fanning.. we fanned with the cutting board... we had to drizzle the sauce over the rice.

 

I now know why it is called Sticky Rice..

 

It was perfect.  Even the layout looked inviting.

 

Notice the Christmas tray with Penguins.  Penguins are a necessity for any Christmas activity.

We rolled...

RESIST THE URGE TO OVER STUFF

 

And stuffed...

 

Some of us overstuffed anyway.



And cut and shared...

First tray full

Second tray full. 

We were having so much fun... Until the eating.

That's when I started turning multiple shades of green.  There was some sort of smell that was not agreeing with me.  It wasn't the shrimp (even though I don't eat shrimp.. it wasn't bothering me), or the salmon, or the tuna, or even the eel (nope.. don't eat eel either, but my Mom does).  I ate a couple pieces, but anytime anyone needed anything from the kitchen I'd go get it.  You know.. Mom's duty and all.  I am proud to to say.. I successfully kept everything down.  It was hard.... MAN was it hard. 

I couldn't confess to my daughter that her Christmas wish was making me sick.  So I sucked it up and ate what I could.  I had bolused for a dubious amount of rice and started to fear that I would drop low if I didn't eat more.  Thankfully there were lots of cookies in the kitchen, so every trip I snuck one.  BGs stayed level without dropping low.  Yay for cookies!!!

The one last thing I ate was a tuna stuffed rice ball.  THAT was tasty.  So we discovered my problem.  It wasn't any of the stuffings that weren't agreeing with me, it was the Nori.  Darn seaweed was trying to make me the same shade as it!

It was a learning experience.  One I will not forget... ever.  I learned I DON'T like Nori.  Give me a rice ball, or a separate plate of all the ingredients and I'm good.. but you can keep the Nori.