¡Muy Importante!

YodersAfloat is moving! Please come and see us at our new location. Be sure to update your bookmarks. Once you get there, sign up yo receive notifications of updates via e-mail.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

3/24/2011 - Sushi

The cruising community is a funny thing. You meet cruising couple A who introduce you to cruising couple B. You sort of know couple A but really don't know couple B at all. You get to know couple A better but then they hoist their sails and head off to somewhere else. Now the direct connection between you and couple B is gone. But, with luck, you hit it off with couple B anyway.

So it went for us. David and Carolyn from s/v Aztec, were just up the dock from us at Marina del Palmar here in La Paz. We enjoyed many hours of good visiting with them in their oh-so-comfortable cockpit. Somewhere along the line, Dave and Marge from s/v Kievit joined in. Dave and Marge are from the same Stockton Sailing Club that David and Carolyn belonged to. Further, Kievit is the same boat as Aztec except that Aztec has a center cockpit and Kievit has an aft cockpit. So, anyway, David and Carolyn introduced us to Dave and Marge.

Last weekend, Aztec departed for Mazatlan. We probably won't see them again until late April or early May. However, during the time they were here, they had enough gatherings on Aztec that we now sort of knew Dave and Marge from Kievit. Last week, Dave and Marge invited Lulu and I over to learn how to make sushi. Today we got together to do just that.

We got to Kievit about 4:15 this afternoon. Dave and Marge had assured us that they had everything needed and we didn't need to bring anything. We brought beer anyway.

Everybody had a job. Marge was cooking the sticky rice, Lulu and Dave were cutting up the ingredients, and I was the documentarian, taking pictures. When we arrived, Dave was busy trying to skin these little octopus tentacles. No easy feat. Lulu broke out our cutting board and knife and joined in. As the skin comes off the octopus, it apparently sort of melds to the cutter's skin and is a bear to wash off.

But Lulu and Dave persevered and cut up octopus, yellow-fin tuna, dorado, scallops, shrimp (which Marge sauteed with garlic), cucumbers, carrots, radishes, avocados, scallions, etc.


After the rice was all cooked, it was time to do the actual assembly. Marge showed Lulu how to lay out the nori (seaweed), arrange the fillings, and then roll it up. First were California rolls.


Lulu and Marge rolled while Dave sliced.


After the California rolls there were rolls with octopus, marinated yellow fin tuna, etc. Also, there were these little mounds (I'm sure they have an appropriate Japanese name) of rice with scallops, shrimp, and dorado. When they were done, we had quite an array:


Now came the best part; we got to eat all this stuff. Wasabi and soy sauce were mixed in little bowls, beers and wine were replenished and, chopsticks in hand, we attacked. It was SO good! There was a ton of sushi so we could just kind of take our time eating. The wasabi opened areas of my sinuses that hadn't seen the light of day in years. Dave took a couple of serious nose hits as well. But it was all so good. We just noshed and visited and visited and noshed for a long time. Although we made a pretty healthy dent in the sushi, we didn't finish it all. Dave and Marge sent us home with some leftovers. YUM!

So, it looks like we'll be trying to track down some nori, some wasabi, and some sticky rice while we're still in La Paz. Shouldn't be too tough as there are a lot of sushi restaurants hereabouts. Can't wait to catch some fish and try this on our own. I believe that Kievit's summer plans are similar to ours so we should be having some good sushi get-togethers this summer up in the Sea. David and Carolyn should be up there as well so maybe we'll all just bring our delicacies to their made-for-entertaining cockpit.

And now we know Dave and Marge a lot better than we used to. So go the cruising community connections.


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good morning, Steve & Lulu: Your Sushi looked pretty good - most newcomers have trouble getting the ingredients in the center. I use to watch Wilma Fukui and Tommy's Mom make it. I hope it was good. Take care and my love to both of you - Nancy

Anonymous said...

So that's what you're calling it... "documantarian?" hmmmmm LuLu sure pulls her weight it seems! Funny how things keep repeating themselves!

Steve and Lulu said...

That does it Anonymous, no California rolls for you!

-Steve

Anonymous said...

I have always said someone has to be the overseer and our son has taken that to heart. Love, Mom

Mid-Life Cruising! said...

Looks delicious! Sounds like a great evening.

Anonymous said...

Curious question: except for the sauteed shrimp, were the other seafood cooked in any way, even if only pickled? I am just getting interested in sushi but really don't like the texture of uncooked seafood./Beverly

Anonymous said...

What a cool thing to do and fun way to get acquainted with new friends. It's great you documented it, too. I love food photos! Pam

Anonymous said...

I love food photos too...and photos of all the cool things you have made around the boat. Solid ingenuity!!!!!

Steve and Lulu said...

Beverly,
The only thing that was raw was some of the yellow-fin tuna. Well, I guess it was all technically raw. Part of it was marinated (which is sort of like cooking it) and the rest was raw (I'm just talking about the yellow fin). Everything else was cooked. As far as the texture goes, the pieces that are rolled up in the sushi rolls are so thin that it would be kind of hard to distinguish the texture. The octopus was chewy but other than that there was no noticeable texture.
Next step: sashimi (now THAT's raw - at least as far as I know).
-Steve

Jacob said...

Steve and Lulu,

Great blog and we're so glad to be following you. The pictures were great. We've featured your post on our brand new front page at Yacht Blogs. We hope you will check it out :)

Great work!

Steve and Lulu said...

Jacob,

Just checked it out. COOL! Thanks for the plug.

-Steve

amychasingchildren said...

The sushi looks amazing! You guys made it yourselves, how cool it that! I had to show Mike the picture of the finished product, I thinks he might have drooled!