Sushi Rice.

This is only my fifth year celebrating Mother’s Day with my wife, and it feels just like another birthday if you know what I mean.

And I wish she was a more basic, materialistic being - flowers, purse, a fancy meal, a new car.

Usually, for her birthday, she comes back with answers like ‘happiness’, ‘peace’, ‘contentment’…

‘I want to have a non-stressful day.’
‘Yukuri. Slow.’
‘Make sure you don't buy anything.’

This is beyond physical matter, it's the astral plane.
My final semester of design school.
No budget, no specific answer, abstract AF, and if you get it wrong, you fail.

But this year must be my lucky year because she said she wanted salmon don.

Hurrah, finally something tangible. Something one could hold, touch, feel, consume, digest, and return to the world.

I was like, yay, something we can order and collect from <local Japanese restaurant 1>?

*Anakin stare*

Something we can order and collect from <the expensive Japanese restaurant 2>?

*Anakin stare intensifies*

---

I know what this is about.

Every time we're at the market and she expressed interest in the salmon, I always scoffed. Seafood is expensive compared to other proteins, we're not even sure what 'sashimi grade' means, it's probably filled with salmonella. (It's in the NAME!) So this is her revenge. Buy the salmon, and make the rice to go with it with your bare hands.

In the end, we compromised on aburi salmon don - at least let me blow torch the outside for peace of mind.

We already have the rice, and the sushi vinegar ready.

If you don't have the store-bought ones, for 2 cups of rice:

Heat up

3 tbsp of rice vinegar (the fancy restaurants use red vinegar);
1 tbsp of sugar;
1 tsp of salt;

in a pot until dissolved.
Adjust to your liking.

Remember to throw in a piece of kombu when you cook the rice. I measure my rice nowadays - 270g of rice to 270g-300g of water, depending on the weather. Wash and soak for 20 minutes, then cook it your way.

Do we really the wooden sushi bowl? I don't think so.
I impulse-bought it during the lockdown, thinking I'd use it for a shoot / make sushi rolls for the daughter’s bento one day.

The science behind it is that the wood absorbs moisture faster.

Because once the rice is cooked, you gotta dump them into a bowl, add the sushi vinegar, mix it with a spatula in a 'cutting' motion, and fan the whole thing to vaporise the vinegar while drying out the rice.

I'm sure you can do it on a large chopping board, a large bowl, using a dyson hair-dyer.

That’s the secret, drying the rice separates them.

Once you're done, transfer the rice to a different bowl, and cover until ready to use.

Fish is easy, purchase from the market, pray to the salmonella gold, blowtorch and slice before serving.

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I saw the Amazon JP transaction from my phone that she bought heaps of online manga, so she's in the room, on the couch, scrolling for the whole weekend.

Before dinner time yesterday, she did emerge from the manga-hole and we made samurai hat (kabuto) dumplings, because 5th of May was also children's day. And they make samurai hats to inform the boys that they are now ... ready for the battlefield.

We baked the dumplings in the oven and played board games. The girls ate their dinner while reading comics.

I don't know how many mums are reading this (happy Mother’s Day btw), but I think I cracked the code.

The best Mother's Day gift is to be left alone, but not too alone. You gotta know that we’re in the next room and not bothering you, having fun, without using the TV, iPad, phone. Genuine giggles.

That's my submission to the 'happiness' and 'bliss' assignment brief.

An out-of-body experience of being a mother, with the option to join in anytime, plus some blow-torched fish and rice.

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I've been waiting to write from an urge, and not for the sake of the newsletter, book sales, or maintaining the quota of whatnot. Something to just flow.

Didn't expect it to be Mother's Day.

I think it's a culmination of various things.

I've just finished Into The Weeds by Tom Vitale, the director of all Bourdain's TV shows. To sum up, let's just say I no longer want to be ‘Anthony Bourdain'. Did you know the lunch with Obama in Vietnam was carefully orchestrated months before it actually happened? (The local diners at the next table were just extras!) I mean, of course, it was, why would I assume that the president of the US would just randomly stop by a Bun Cha restaurant in the middle of Hanoi?

There’s also this thing going on with my big toe, which I suspected to be gout. But it's not as painful as the internet is describing - no redness or pain to the touch, which means it could just be old-fashion tomorrow-gonna-be-cold arthritis, which is kinda worse.

I guess I’m writing this out of acceptance.

Despite how I feel when I write, I'm not 25 anymore. Fuck, I look around at everyone in this cafe, so shiny with proper hair and make-up, I could not identify or relate to anything they are talking about. And what they’re chasing, what this mainstream social media metaverse is pushing, is not what I want. (Apart from the best seat in the house. They're probably thinking I'm hogging their special table. Wake up earlier next time, pal.)

We had a serious, laugh-out-loud moment yesterday at the dinner table, that our lives are the same - pre / during / post lockdown.

Some people would've been freaked out or depressed by that.

But I’m perfectly ok with that.

Next time, I think I’m going to make chirashizushi.