Solo Sushi

My friends taught me how to make sushi. At our local natural and organic supermarket the salesclerk scanned the packet of seaweed, bamboo rolling mat, sushi rice and rice vinegar - my guiding cookbook had preemptively warned against using regular vinegar.

“Ooh, sushi!” she gushed. “Is this your first time?”
"It'll be my first time without guidance." She said she'd recently undertaken the same transition from guided to unguided sushi, and it had gone over well enough.

So, a few days later, avocado good and ripe, and the clouds bountifully shedding near-incessant rain and making me think home was a pretty good place to remain, I decided today was the day.

I didn't realize I would have a strong friend-missing moment rolling my own sushi. Back in Cairo, we’d had a Sushi Making Workshop (slash party) where our brave friends who'd already ventured into sushi-making territory guided us all into making perfect little rolls, with tons of photo ops along the way, not to mention a rule that any deformed sushi could be consumed immediately.

But thousands of miles away, I wondered how I had been part of this perfect-sushi universe. I was confronted with sticky rice that stuck to my fingers, not the seaweed; mushy avocado; and forgot which direction I was supposed to roll in. Not to mention that the rolls didn't want to bow down to the fate of the knife and be sliced.

A few Google consultations later (which weren’t that helpful – I needed pictures!), and a few last-minute sushi set-up readjustments, it came together. Cucumber, avocado, and thin leek slices united together surrounded by the sweet vinegary rice and the rolls submitted to their sliced fate – and their ultimate destiny of soy-sauce dipping and happy consumption.