Time for Other Inquiries
Because I'm awake and Paula's still very much not engaging in the world outside her eyelids, I'll take advantage of the time and tap out a post or two. Got my headphones on, some rare old No Doubt blasting away and I've got my lists of post topics to consider.

We had a sushi party last night, amidst the debris and moving boxes. Now, sushi's hard enough to prepare under the best of circumstances but take away the tables and take away the chairs and you find yourself using any flat surface to store ingredients or the rice flats that we've taken to using. Maybe I should explain that a bit more as its not especially clear.

I don't know how many people out there have made their own sushi before but we've done it a few times now and are starting to develop our own techniques. They may not be the best techniques but they work for us and that's really the most important thing for now, eventually I plan on taking some culinary arts classes to learn more. What we do is take the cooked and now cooling rice, scoop some into a shallow bowl and cut in the seasoned rice vinegar (the directions say someone fanning the rice at this point will result in a better luster on the rice). Once the rice has been sushi-fied, it's laid out flat on a movable surface. Last night we used these disposable cutting board things that were really nice, sturdy, non stick (VERY important when working with sushi rice). Anyway, the rice is laid out flat and then we used a plastic bag that the produce came in to lay over the top of it and flatten the rice more (the thinner the layer of rice, the smaller the diameter of the rolled product). Another cutting board on top and we start to create a stack of rice flats. And having the rice already laid out, cooled off and ready to peel up and use in a roll is much faster and neater than doing each roll by hand. But hey, do it your way and have fun.

We'd started the process of making the sushi while still loading up the truck so there was lots of movement around, boxes and belongings being packed, marked and stacked in the truck (we did score the curbside parking space! super cool). As was inevitable, some of the things we needed to cook with got packed away and we had to make do without. We started the packing and rice cooking with those alkie pop Skyy Blue's which are training drinks if I've ever seen them. It'd be no trouble to get teenagers to drink those things, they're like alcoholic candy.

Those alkie pops disappear quickly so I had to make a quick run to the store and get some Mike's Hard Cranberry Lemonades that are a bit less sweet but still candy alkie pops. But they are tasty and go down like soda and that six disappeared quickly as well. This is still during the preparation phase of the sushi party too, still light out, still packing the truck with Paula's stuff.

Once the rice had cooked, first time we'd used the huge rice cooker she bought, it seriously holds like six cups of uncooked rice and makes a virtual boatload of cooked rice. We spread the rice out onto the sheets, stacking them seven high in total. And then jumped into the prep work on the other ingredients, fresh ruby red ahi from Henry's (and I had to hear Paula tell me how much she's going to miss that store again, part of the deal, she can reminisce as much as she wants), some flaked crab meat (probably pollock actually) and shrimp. Veggies included green onions, carrots, peppers, avocado, cucumber (no seeds) and no jicama or daikon root though I like the crunch of both. I wonder how thinly sliced radish would work, bet it'd be really good. And my personal favorite ingredient in any sushi, macadamia nuts, heck they would make mud taste good. The only hard part is bashing them up some so you get pieces instead of whole nuts that mess up the rolls.

With gin and tonics and vodka tonics (hey, why does gin need the "and" and vodka doesn't?) in hand we finished up the extras, the sauces for the ahi sashimi (Paula's really got an excellent sauce worked out), the cooking sauce for the shrimp, a good sized ball of wasabi (no design for this ball this time but I learned a cool rolling technique to make a cone shape), dishes with seasoned rice vinegar to be used in damned near every aspect of the process, lots of nori, by mistake we got an untoasted version and it did have a slightly more present odor to it, not bad by any means and only noticeable if your attention was called to it.

We also had Henry's wasabi peas and honey sesame sticks out along with some freshly cooked and seasoned edamame (salt and lime juice) from Trader Joe's. And then we added some hot sake and proceeded to have a great time with several of Paula's neighbors, Geno, Rich and Anna. Good fun and they had fun actually putting together the rolls and creating their own foods, Geno was actually really quite good at rolling, eschewing the use of the bamboo cheat mat.

So, um yeah, it turned into a great dinner, served on borrowed low tables, but great fun. An hour or two into the dinner itself, after much of the eating had ceased and the drinking had picked up pace, other folks swung by to say goodbye to Paula. I was beat and ended up falling asleep on the couch before it had been turned back into our bed. Paula and the others went out for a bit, not that more libation was needed, she's been feeling a need to spend as much time with her friends and neighbors while she can. I'm going to be with her all the time so its totally cool. They went walking in the surf, and I plan to get some ocean time in today. But we're thinking about hitting Sea World or the Zoo today, there's a great place for breakfast in Balboa Park that I saw on Food TV and want to try as well.

And then more packing and an early departure tomorrow morning for the long drive up north. The bummer deal about the move now is that the application for the apartment won't be completed until Monday at the earliest. The girl who was working on it doesn't work on Fridays and then needed to verify my employment, not like I haven't been there all week but whatever. Now we have to unload the truck into my house and then move all of it again with mine when we do get a place. It looks like we may end up getting the one we want but we won't find out until the woman finishes the background check. So fingers are still crossed.

But I think I'm going to grab a cruiser, unplug the iPod and go for a pedal along the beach.