Hecho A Mano

Shiro’s Tips

Reading Shiro, a memoir by Shiro Kashiba, famous Seattle sushi pioneer, I ran across this tip by the sushi ‘sensei’:

In Seattle, there are plenty of sushi bars that serve raw salmon. I highly recommend that you don’t indulge unless you know that is has been flash-frozen first. I’m afraid that in some establishments, the process is skipped because the chefs don’t know their fish.

Not any fish can be eaten raw and fresh. Sometimes, for safety’s sake, it’s necessary to lightly frill or flash-freeze a fish to kill the bacteria and parasites inside. It’s the same reason we started cooking meat long ago.

Salmon (and many other river fish) are highly susceptible to parasites. The flash-freezing process kills them off. Plus, it still tastes great. So make sure you or your sushi chef don’t skip this process.

I had no idea this was something to look out for! I wonder if I’ll annoy the next sushi chef I ask about it. Here’s the book:

And another tip, which happens to cover a pet peeve:

I don’t know how many times I’ve had I’ve had to hold my tongue behind the sushi bar when a diner soaks a piece of sushi in soy sauce as if putting a tortilla chip in a bowl of guacamole. Using too much soy sauce kills the fresh flavor of the fish and rice. Remember that sushi rice has already been seasoned. Dip the fish side of the sushi briefly in the soy sauce to enhance the flavor, not overpower it.

Also, when eating sushi, you don’t need to put wasabi in the soy sauce [emphasis mine]. First-time sushi-goers might not realize this, but the sushi chef applies the wasabi when making the sushi.

This is different from sashimi, where you may want to add a hint of wasabi to your soy sauce before lightly dipping the slab of fish in.

So remember: soy sauce with sushi is not like ketchup with fries. Just a drop or so will enhance the taste. That’s all you need.

Preach it, Shiro! Great, easy-reading book about what sushi was like in America before it became a craze, from one of the first, actual Japanese Itamae in America.

Man, Animal

The BBC and Richard Attenborough do it again. This is not only fascinating, it's exquisitely shot and narrated. The message is rather incredible. To me, this belongs in the pantheon of heroic human deeds, next to--but perhaps somewhat less than--the battle at Thermopylae:

The Magnificent Bastard

Invented by Bryan Swanson, it’s:

• 2 ounces Bulleit bourbon
• 1 ounce Berentzen Apfelkorn
• ⅛ ounce Laphroaig 10-year-old scotch
• 2 dashes of Angostura bitters

(From the Magnificent Bastard website.)

Anyone with all the ingredients (I only can get the Laphroaig and bitters), quick, mix this thing and let me know what it tastes like.

Now.

Happy 17 weeks alive, Freddie. One day, you and I will sit in our backyard and enjoy one of these (each). Until then, keep sucking!

If Anyone Asks Me (Or Not) …

For you prospective fathers out there reading or most likely not reading this blog, allow me:  99.99% of the fathers you’ll talk to about your wife’s/girlfriend’s—shame on you, marry the wench now!—pregnancy and impending fatherhood either do not remember a goddamned thing about the hellish first six months or they deliberately withhold information, instead dispensing platitudes like, “congratulations!” over and over or “wow, it’ll change your life forever. It’s soooo cool.”
These—excuse me, but there’s no other word for them—bastards all neglect to tell you the depths of Hades you will find yourself moments after that sweet newborn gets plopped into your arms—ensconced in a car seat—for the ride home.
Not being a bastard myself, I’ll let you in on it: for the record, you’re going to lose a lot of sleep. You will cry, wail, and gnash teeth. You will suffer physical agony. It is NOT fun. It IS work unlike any kind of work you have done before. It is, literally, TORTURE.
Mental, psychological, physical, spiritual torture all combined in a scrumptious torture gyro sandwich.
Prepare yourself now. Start taking naps every single moment you can. Go to the gym, get in shape. Believe me, you’ll need the muscles.
Start meditating.
Understand anger management. If you smoke, stop now. NOW. Months before baby comes. You have to get rid of any irritation because baby’s going to rub that nerve raw and you have to be able to cope.
If you drink, don’t stop.
Read this book. Twice.
Read this book at least four times. Seriously. At least four times. When that baby is crying his ass off, you’ll really appreciate the techniques outlined in that book.
Get some white noise. Use it often.
Be prepared for anything, from baby’s feeding to sleeping problems. Understand there are essentially three things a baby does: Eat, Sleep, and Poop. So you want to know everything about these three activities.
Get organized. O. R. G. A. N. I. Z. E. D. At least as much as possible.
Everything in its place. No clutter. Streamline everything. Get rid of useless shit. At 5 am when you’re groping around in the dark for this or that thing, you’ll really appreciate this tip.
Get proactive. Do stuff NOW (or even before now) before it needs to be done. Have diapers available everywhere. In the changing room, in your bedroom, in the living room. You have to be able to change a diaper in 2.2 seconds wherever you happen to find yourself with a shit-streaked baby.
Get a shitload of Kleenex and leave those boxes everywhere. Get burp cloths and make them a fucking fashion accessory.
Get hand sanitizers and place them everywhere. You may not get the opportunity to wash your hands before handling baby so take advantage.
Resist the temptation to buy useless shit. Keep streamlined. The more stuff you have to contend with (diaper warmers, fuck ‘em!) the more time you’ll spend nearly killing yourself and baby at 3.45am in the FUCKING morning.
Take deep breaths often. When momma wants to rip your head off and/or you hers, take a deep breath. Remember your meditation. Slow down, take a deep breath and then act. No sudden movements, they are very likely to be the wrong ones. Be nice to mom. Seriously, as much as you’d like to rip her head off and shit down her neck, she’s undergoing numerous, undiscovered shit like you have no FUCKING CLUE about.
Be nice to mom.
Baby is tough, but not that tough. Handle firmly but with care.
Spend as much time being grateful as possible—it is impossible to be stressed out and grateful at the same time.
Buy this and this.
Get help. ASK for help. Tell everyone they’re going to need to help your ass out. They need to make themselves available to babysit while you and mom sleep. Fuck that, they owe you!
Get people to bring you (frozen) food. Quick-prep food. Get plastic forks, knives, dishes. Now’s not the damned time to be doing the dishes. Do NOT be afraid to be a slob. Everyone understands and if they don’t, fuck them. Then tell ‘em to get you some food.
Eat lots of food. Drink lots of water. You need nutrition, this shit is real.
There’s more, but that’s a good start.
In the end, it’s all worth it. Congratulations. It’s forever life-changing and so cool.

Your Chair Is Your Enemy

That is the opening sentence of an article on the New York Times’ Opinionator dealing with obesity and exercise. According to this enlightening article by Olivia Judson,

It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.

That last sentence is a bit alarming, most especially for those of you who, like me, don’t exercise but do sit for long periods. So, what’s wrong, specifically, with sitting?

The answer seems to have two parts. The first is that sitting is one of the most passive things you can do. You burn more energy by chewing gum or fidgeting than you do sitting still in a chair. Compared to sitting, standing in one place is hard work. To stand, you have to tense your leg muscles, and engage the muscles of your back and shoulders; while standing, you often shift from leg to leg. All of this burns energy.

There’s more in the article that makes me very worried, especially as I’m already a fatso.

But it looks as though there’s a more sinister aspect to sitting, too. Several strands of evidence suggest that there’s a “physiology of inactivity”: that when you spend long periods sitting, your body actually does things that are bad for you.

As an example, consider lipoprotein lipase. This is a molecule that plays a central role in how the body processes fats; it’s produced by many tissues, including muscles. Low levels of lipoprotein lipase are associated with a variety of health problems, including heart disease. Studies in rats show that leg muscles only produce this molecule when they are actively being flexed (for example, when the animal is standing up and ambling about). The implication is that when you sit, a crucial part of your metabolism slows down.

Some of the solutions some people have advanced are, according to the article:

Some people have advanced radical solutions to the sitting syndrome: replace your sit-down desk with a stand-up desk, and equip this with a slow treadmill so that you walk while you work. (Talk about pacing the office.) Make sure that your television can only operate if you are pedaling furiously on an exercise bike. Or, watch television in a rocking chair: rocking also takes energy and involves a continuous gentle flexing of the calf muscles. Get rid of your office chair and replace it with a therapy ball: this too uses more muscles, and hence more energy, than a normal chair, because you have to support your back and work to keep balanced. You also have the option of bouncing, if you like.

Or you could take all this as a license to fidget.

This has got to be a wake-up call to people like me (and you!) who work in IT, sitting for most of the day. Get moving!

The Ghost

“When you eat it, it's like dying.”

My kind of pepper, ringing in at 1,001,304 SHU, a new world record.

Monday, Monday

Hope everyone's weekends were fun-filled and interesting. Mine wasn't, and that's the way I like it. To me, life's like a plane ride: I want the most boring flight possible, no “funny stuff.”

Food

Once again this weekend, P. F. Chang delivers. Is it even possible to get a bad meal there? I don't think so—highly recommended, especially the Mongolian Beef, cooked well (crispy) and spicy with white rice. Yum.

Movies

Saturday saw me, R, and my in-laws watching the new animated movie from Pixar: Ratatouille. Marred though it was by the inevitable presence of pesky, loud, sniveling, unruly children, I thought it was well-done.

The animation itself was par excellent and the voice work was really good, especially Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego, a food critic extraordinaire. The story unfolded nicely and with good pace and though far-fetched in certain areas, I had to remember it was geared toward children after all.

This quote from the movie, spoken in O'Toole's inimitable voice stands out:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize that only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more.

This is Anton Ego:

If you watch this, poison all the children (and their fucking idiot parents) first.

Books

Once again my disease, Bookaphilia Nervosa, reared its ugly head and I bought two: Michael Timo's Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters and Clear and to The Point by Stephen M. Kosslyn.

In addition, I'm reading a most interesting book by Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order. To call this work superlative is inadequate. There are very few books that produce Aha! moments for me, this is one of them. I will produce a full-length post on its contents soon.

Clear and to The Point is a fascinating work about information transfer using PowerPoint by a Psychologist, a Harvard Psychologist no less. In the few pages I was able to read in between munching away at a godawful muffin at Borders (great bookstore, terrible cafe, coffee, and food; Barnes & Noble is much better), he mentions the guru of visual communication (Tufte) thrice, alas, each time to poohpooh Tufte's principles. In one example, he criticizes one of Tufte's well-known examples of superlative data transfer, Minard's chart. I didn't find his argument compelling on the surface and were that it for content, I wouldn't have purchased it.

Luckily, there's a lot of original work in the book. Essentially, like the sub-title says, the book explains 8 psychological principles for compelling PowerPoint presentations. I'm looking forward to finishing this one.

SOTD

Chez Bond, superb. By the way, Wal-Mart has a 1-oz. bottle of Unforgivable by (spit!) Puff Daddy for $16!

Feelin' hot, hot, hot!

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a pepper junkie. I love pepper, the hotter the better. Pepper in food lends a certain je ne sais quoi to eating: if it's crappy food, pepper makes things better. If it's good food, a little pepper makes things better. Pepper makes food taste better.

People who think Tabasco is the apex of hotness are thorough wimps--it comes in at a measly 2140 SHU (Scoville Heat Units). There's a hot sauce I use called Dave's Insanity which is simply, bottled fire. There are hotter sauces, but I had no idea!

Check out that site and God help you if you decided to taste the 16-million SHU Blair's at the top of the list. I'm getting it. God help my ass.

Damnit, I just found out they're sold out here. Mumble mumble... God did save my ass.

How to Roll Sushi - Video

California Roll Uramaki - Video

Wasabi in soy

Because I've just finished arguing with a work colleague about this issue, for those sushi lovers among us, let me give you this piece of unasked advice : it is not "proper" to mix Wasabi in your soy dish. Not only does it look unsightly, it is not done in Japan!

You should only dip your sushi in soy sauce.

If you'd like more wasabi, ask the sushi chef to place more wasabi underneath the fish when they're making the sushi.

However, I'm sure my opinion will probably not dissuade you from this horrendous habit so, should you choose to continue, know you're being "improper." I'm sure you can rest assured though, that being improper has never stopped anyone from enjoying a meal now, has it?

Good blog entry re Wasabi and soy, a snippet:

It is helpful to know a little about wasabi when eating sushi or sashimi. Many sushi restaurants in the US try their best to cater to their American customers and usually put a small (or very big, sometimes) mountain of green wasabi next to sushi (expecting that you will mix it with your soy sauce). That does not happen in traditional Japanese sushi restaurants.

With Edo sushi, the sushi with a slice of fresh fish on top of rice, wasabi is already put inside between fish and rice, and sushi eaters more or less "passively" enjoy it as it is. Many perfectionist sushi chefs calculate the complicated balance in a sushi piece -- the volume and temperature of rice, thickness of fish slice and amount of wasabi, and we are supposed to contemplate on it on our tongue. With rolled sushi, we usually eat without wasabi.

This means, when eating sushi, that Japanese people never mix wasabi in soy sauce! But I see Americans do this frequently.

Now with sashimi, it is not so clear-cut. Although many Japanese do mix wasabi in soy sauce for sashimi, it is believed the best way is to put a tiny amount of wasabi on top of the fish and dip the other side of fish in soy sauce before eating. So, again, we are not mixing wasabi in soy!

This blog has a several-part series on eating sushi, beginning with part one. Enjoyable read.