Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

It’s the Rice that Makes Great Sushi

Making excellent sushi means making excellent sushi rice. No matter how good your fish is, if the rice sucks, your sushi sucks. Unfortunately, my sushi sucks.

I’m working on it, though. I know that apprentices in real sushi restaurants – not the all-you-can-eat variety – can take years to perfect their sushi rice. I might not be able to perfect mine, since I won’t be making sushi rice several times a day for several years in a row, but I’m aiming to make mine good.

Here’s something I came across from an excellent little food-related blog:

A friend once told me about meeting a team of Japanese master chefs. Chief among them, the oldest and most respected, most deferred to, was the man who had perfected cooking rice. Seventy years of experience behind him, and his most revered accomplishment was rice. This is a cuisine, I realized, of finding the complexities in simple things, of perfecting the humble. It’s a cuisine of contemplation, deliberateness and concentration, a cuisine that asks you as a cook and as a diner to understand and to appreciate the difference between rice that is cooked well and rice that is cooked perfectly.

Yes, there is indeed a difference between rice that is cooked well and rice that is cooked perfectly. There is a gargantuan difference between the crap that all-you-can-eat sushi joints give you, and the rice made by a master. My rice isn’t total crap, but it’s not much better than that just yet.

As I told a friend recently, making good sushi rice isn’t just about buying the right kind of rice grains and dumping a few scoops into the automatic rice cooker. Yes, you can make fantastic sushi rice from an automatic rice cooker. There’s no shame in using a machine that will cook your rice evenly and consistently. The issue is what happens after you scoop your rice out of the rice cooker.

My friend was surprised to learn that sushi rice is gently mixed with a combination of rice vinegar, sugar & sake (or real mirin if you’ve got it), and a bit of salt. The trick is to do this well – the right amount of seasoning and mixed in just the right way.

I freely admit that as of this moment in April 2010, my sushi rice sucks because it’s terribly inconsistent. I’ve made rice that was pretty good, and I’ve made rice that was way, way off.

You have to love your food, and you have to have pride in your culinary craftsmanship to make excellent sushi. The fish gets the glory, but it’s the rice where you can tell the difference between a master and a hack. The details are what separate the excellent from the eminently-forgettable.

Pay attention to your sushi rice when you make sushi. Better yet, pay attention to the rice you get when you go each sushi. It’s how I judge the quality of a sushi joint, and if you pay attention a few times, I’m willing to bet that what you’ll start doing, too.

Adora Svitak: An example of what kids can accomplish

I was speaking with a 16-year-old friend yesterday, and I was reminded how capable kids and teenagers can be, if we let them be so. When I saw the video below, delivered by 12-year-old Adora Svitak, I had to say something about this.

We, as adults, very easily and commonly underestimate kids and teenagers. In return, they meet our low expectations of them. Take a look at the following videos first, and I’ll come back to you afterwards.

Adora Svitak, at just 12 years of age, is a better speaker than the vast majority of adults. She is intelligent, articulate, and insightful. Is this exceptional for a 12-year-old? Maybe. But I think only because she has been raised in a different environment, not because she is intrinsically different from other kids.

We raise or lower ourselves based on what is expected of us and how we are supported (or not). That is true of children, teenagers, adults, and seniors. It is true of all humanity. Think of your own experience, and you know it’s true.

Most children will not have the same breadth and depth of experience as most adults. However, some children will have seen more, heard more, learned more, and done more than adults 2 or 3 times their age. Life and experience is not a number – it is what you do with yourself and what you actually go and do, learn, and experience. Who ever said that a child’s experience must be limited to what they learn in school and watch on popular TV? Who ever said that children need only learn from the school curriculum and no more? Who ever said that a child’s only purpose is to learn at school and just play afterwards?

Adora is a fantastic speaker and presenter. Why? Because she’s worked at it and because she’s practiced. That is the same as for you and for me, no different. What is different between her and most kids & most of us is that her parents have given her an environment where she can do this, and have given her the foundation and support – from an early age! – to fulfill the potential that she has already at 12 years of age.

When I talked to my 16-year-old friend yesterday, yes, she joked around as a teenager will, but she is also intelligent, capable, immensely creative, and responsible. What struck me as an absolute disconnect, though, is the way her parents – as she recounted to me – focused so much on her poor performance on a school test that her father got upset enough to not even speak to her for 2 days afterwards.

Parents, bless their hearts, wish the best for their children. Yet, unfortunately, I think parents very often focus on the wrong things. School is important, yes, but school is not an end in itself. It is simply a means. It is part of life’s journey. A mark is not the be-all and end-all. Yet that is what parents focus on. Mine did. Perhaps yours did, too.

What I learned, though, when I went for my second undergraduate degree, is that one’s focus should not be on the marks. It’s not even on the studying. It is on the end result that you want to achieve. In my case, I wanted to be capable in the field that I’d chosen, to be the most prepared I could be, and go out into the world and make a meaningful difference. That change in perspective, from the marks-focused view I’d inherited from my parents to the achievement-focused view I adopted, made all the difference for me. I went from being a good but not particularly noteworthy student to being the top achiever in my class.

My long-time friend from primary school, a dentist soon to start specializing in pediatric dentistry, tells me he had the exact same experience. A change in focus from the what, to the why – from the mechanics of studying and getting marks, to the end achievement beyond education – made all the difference.

It is the same with children. Help them to focus on what they want to achieve in life, not on the mechanics of marks. We ought to expect more of our children than the shocking mediocrity (or worse) that our education system expects of them. Parents ought to expect their children to comprehend more than just basic reading and textbook mathematics.

Children can be analytical, insightful, articulate, and yes, powerful. I see great potential in my teenager friend, but fear that it will not be nurtured. I see Adora Svitak’s accomplishments, and am excited about what people – at any age – can accomplish if given the right environment and support right from the start.

The world is what we make of it. Adora knows that. She’s trying to teach us that in words, and by example. All children are capable of doing what Adora is doing. It is up to us, adults, to make that a reality and not just a dream.

Musical Madness by the Muppets

The Muppets are classic. The Muppets are hilarious. And yes, the Muppets are musical!

This first video is something I promised to the biggest Bunny Fan I know. It’s also something that I know the one whom I call Bunny Basher will truly appreciate!

This next video is a rock classic, done with style – Muppets-style!

The inimitable and instantly identifiable Beaker now performs a true classic that we all know and love as only he can!

Finally… Beaker, performing his heart out online with the classic song, Dust In the Wind. This is my favorite video of the bunch!

I don’t think Kristen Au, whom I saw perform last night, has anything to worry about!

Kristen Au @ Aspetta Caffe

Kensington Market is becoming a more interesting place for me these days. It used to be just a grungy, dirty area of town next to Chinatown that offered nothing for me but fruit stands and small stalls offering cheap clothing I would never buy in a million years.

It still is grungy and a little dirty – complete with a park that I hear is definitely sketchy – but the cool thing is that there are a number of tapas joints and cafes now that make the place worth visiting once in a while.

Aspetta Caffe is an Italian joint at 207 Augusta, just on the other side of the street from the previously-mentioned sketchy park. I was there last night with my friend to see his friend, Kristen Au, perform with her 3 bands. Yep, she has 3 different bands!

Aspetta is a cozy little place. You could never describe it as palatial, but it is a friendly,little joint – just the way a cafe ought to be!

This first video shows what the place is like, while Kristen and her first band play a nice little Ella Fitzgerald piece. The video does not really show how busy and tight it felt there because, unfortunately, most of the people are just out of frame, below what the video captured. Hey, I was filming this 360 with my cellphone and doing it blind!

The music was absolutely organic. By that, I mean it was natural and grew from the skill and heart that the musicians brought to the place. Things were made up on the spot, and yet it all sounded great! In the first video above, for instance, the guy on the keyboard is actually a percussionist. In this following video, the percussionists in the lower left – who were the guys the guys on keyboard and bass in the first band – were thrown into the mix for fun. Later on (after my phone battery died on me), a trombone player joined in who was a guest to the event – he just happened to have his instrument in the trunk of his car!

When I visited Lijiang in China last year, one of the things I loved most about the experience was the music. Whether in little cafes, in out-of-the-way bars and lounges, or just in the public squares, musicians played music with heart & soul late into the night. Those are some of my fondest memories, and I am happy that I can find a little bit of that atmosphere and heart right here in Toronto.

First Salsa Night @ Chimera Lounge

I used to dance decently well. It’s been a while since I stopped going regularly, though, and it’s amazing how rusty I felt on Thursday night at Chimera Lounge.

Every Thursday night now is Salsa Night at Chimera Lounge in Metro Square (right near Warden & Steeles).  For a paltry $5 cover, you get a great little group lesson starting at 8pm. If you’re already a fantastic dancer, you can join in the fun at 9pm (no cover) to relax, chat, have some food & drink, and to dance.

You may have already seen the promo video that I posted on the blog a few weeks back. If you liked what you saw, well, things are starting up now!

As it was the first night this past Thursday, it was just a small group of us there for the salsa. But it was really enjoyable nonetheless. The lesson was great, and I immediately knew several important things:

1. I miss dancing – it feels great to be out there!
2. I’m incredibly rusty – I’ve forgotten so much!
3. Chimera Lounge is a cool little joint for dancing & fun

It will only get better as more people continue to find out about the place, about the salsa night, and join in on the fun.

If I sound like a commercial, it’s because I had a good time there and because the instructor is a friend of mine. If you’re in the area – meaning in Richmond Hill, Markham, or Scarborough! – come on by for a bit of instruction, a bit of fun, and a lot of atmosphere!

Here’s a short clip of my friends Amy & Felix going for a bit of a spin on the dancefloor: