Who Cooks?

When Sharkey and I were married, we made a household rule. Whoever does not cook, cleans up the kitchen. Well, being the anti-cleaning person that I am, where I love to clean so very much, I do pretty much all the cooking. And it's not because Sharkey can only make cereal and toast. Well OK, so she does make a lot of cereal and toast, but that's not totally why. =) I do enjoy it. I try to make a lot of different things and I try to do a lot of new things, time permitting. I'm also seasonal in what I make. In winter as everyone knows you do comfort foods like beef stroganoff, chili, and baked orzo and cheese. In the summer time, you do more Asian Chicken salads, seared tuna, grilling Mexican chicken sandwiches, and more colorful things like kabobs. I am also into the food presentation. So I try to arrange things and have some fun with what I make. I also try to go back to the "homeland" once in a while and make Japanese dishes. So you probably think all Japanese can make sushi. That is totally not true. However, JP can do sushi. I've done the California rolls, the nigiri with tuna and salmon and the maki rolls. I have the tools too. The super sharp knives, the bamboo rolling mats, sushi plates, chopstick holders, and fortunately for me Wegman's has a really decent Japanese, YES JAPANESE, not just "Asian" section of their store!!



One time I was at Wegmans, I was approached by this woman who was going to make a traditional Japanese dinner for her boyfriend. So she proceeded to ask me all these questions for about 1/2 an hour about what ingredients to use, how to do what, what's the secret to this, etc. I was happy to help. The funnier part was that this lady was what we Japanese people call a "hagojin" or in modern English a "whitey." It is interesting how much things have changed. No longer are we the sandal wearing goldfish tending people. We have technology, automobiles, and culinary respect!! Not bad for the "quiet American" people.