Diving in to new flavors

Who wants to eat raw fish? I always thought that was all sushi was and would taste slimy and, well, fishy. I tried it one time with an ex and didn’t like any of the types I was given. I felt unsophisticated and out of place for not appreciating what so many others were salivating over.

My husband and his family enjoy sushi and, even more so, sushi buffets. When his brother-in-law invited us this week, I immediately reminded my husband that I don’t like sushi. And later that evening, he reminded me that I was trying to become more adventurous. He was right! It never even occurred to me that expanding my culinary tastes could be a part of my deliberate spontaneity project. After all, I love food. It’s not as if I only eat meat and potatoes or all white food or only American food. I love trying new things — or at least, that’s how I imagine myself. I can be very Midwestern in my tastes and stubborn in general, so maybe I don’t try as many new types of food as I could and should. So, camera and notebook in hand, I set out on my tough assignment to eat a sushi buffet brunch today.

My husband’s family was surprised to see me come along for the sushi event, so that alone should tell me I need to get out more and try new things. Eriq’s younger brother informed me that I should try the fried bananas, which sounded tantalizing.

Sushi by definition is vinegar rice with other ingredients, including usually some type of fish. It can be in little rolls or oblong and is often wrapped in what looks like paper called nori, edible types of seaweed. We dipped our sushi into soy sauce, but you can also use wasabi if you’re brave enough — I had a pinprick portion of wasabi in London in 2002, and it was enough to set my mouth ablaze and make me sweat. Sushi is served with green tea, but I stuck with Sprite. I guess that means I’m not quite Anthony Bourdain or the guy from Man vs. Food yet.

My second plate of sushi

At the restaurant, I poured my soy sauce into my tiny dish and tasted the miso soup. My sister-in-law said that if I was going to try miso soup for the first time, this was a great representative. However, I wasn’t a fan of the tofu aftertaste. On to the sushi … I filled my plate with a small portion of rice noodles just in case I became anti-raw fish and grabbed one of each of the dozen or so different types of sushi. I snagged a couple of fried specimens as well. I started with safe flavors first, a California roll, which was filled with cucumber, crab meat and avocado. My next piece was even tastier. It may have been what is known as a firecracker roll, which has red pepper in it to give it a little kick and cream cheese to cool it down. This was fun! I dove in and tried several other pieces, including a couple of oblong pieces of packed rice with a piece of salmon or crab on top. I realized later that I didn’t try the eel! One of the fried pieces was a sweet surprise — the fried banana I was waiting for. I returned to the buffet and filled my plate with some more sushi rolls and grabbed two pieces of fried banana, which I saved as my dessert — the perfect sweet taste after my brunch of new and tasty flavors.

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