Aah, Hawaii. This DCFuder just returned from Oahu and she can still picture the azure waves… The gently swaying palm trees… The amazing numbers of Japanese tourists! And there wasn’t an obese one among them. I was so boggled by this lack of body fat that I consumed record amounts of Japanese food while I was in Hawaii just to see what the deal was and wanted to continue eating it FOREVER once I returned home.
Thus inspired, I signed up for the Japanese Sushi class through Arlington’s Continuing Education program. On two consecutive Tuesdays, I huddled in the kitchen classroom at the Clarendon Education Center with a dozen other students. It’s a simple kitchen, but outfitted with all the essential equipment and a long table for the group to sit around. Mary Moore, youthful beyond her years and soon to be a great grandmother, led us through the basics of making sushi, Japanese dining etiquette and shopping. She is of Taiwanese descent, married an American serviceman and learned about Japanese food and culture during Japan’s occupation of Taiwan. Now she teaches people how to make sushi and is a Tupperware consultant (Fate is a funny thing, huh?).
The first Tuesday was devoted to the introduction of ingredients, how to make rice and making our own maki sushi (sushi rolls). She guided us through ingredients (types and brands of rice, vinegar, nori, etc.), how to choose fresh fish, and how to find everything at the grocery store. She was excellent about circulating around the room, giving pointers and answering questions as she went. One caveat: She loves chatting so much that sometimes things got left on the back burner, literally. Luckily some of my classmates were sharp enough to save our sushi seasoning and shepherd the rice to its happy, fluffy conclusion without many hitches. From there we learned the basic techniques of spreading the rice on our nori (the seaweed wrapper), filling it with ingredients, rolling everything up and slicing the roll into correctly proportioned pieces. I made one batch of classic vegetable rolls and one batch of simple tuna rolls, but I could have made more. When you receive your prep list for class and it says to bring a container for leftovers — bring a big one! There were plenty of ingredients to go around and lots of rolls to be made.
But, the second class was where the real fun happened. Don’t miss this class. There were noticeably fewer people in attendance for this class, which meant more sushi for everyone! Don’t be the lazy one that skips this class and misses out on the really good stuff. Everyone pitched in to prep ingredients and we started off with California rolls, which are messy but fun. Then we progressed to nigiri (tuna, salmon, eel, egg, imitation crab, mackerel, shrimp) and tamaki (hand rolls). I made my tamaki with the spicy tuna mixture Mary whipped up and thought I made it look like a spicy tuna ice cream cone, but I can

Well, I finally got to meet “Good Eats” host Alton Brown, and boy, did I make an impression on him! The man finds me

Each of the Food Network hosts attracts a certain type of fan. There are the housewives who think Tyler Florence is hot, the couples who find Emeril’s “Bam!”s and “Another Notch!”es zany and enthusiastic rather than phoned-in and phony. And there are those who can manage to get past Rachel Ray’s saccharine and excessive use of the term “E.V.O.O.” to enjoy her quick-and-easy recipes.
“Good Eats” host Alton Brown doesn’t attract fans. He attracts disciples.
You know the type: they tape his episodes and have the remote control at the ready as they prepare their turkey on Thanksgiving, ready to pause as Alton guides them on temperature, amount of time and amount of thyme. They ONLY use kosher salt when cooking, and proudly display theirs in an Alton-inspired vessel. When their kid is suffering from a fever, their digital meat probe’s probably more at the ready than a normal thermometer.
Those disciples