Day Zero Project #42: Learn to roll sushi.

Every time that I start one of these new projects I have this vision in my head of how I'm going to do whatever it is absolutely perfect. Nevermind that I've never tried it, it's going to be great. Try my hand at painting? It'll be a Picasso. Run a 5K? I'll do it at a 4 minute mile pace.

It's like my mind forgets that people practice to get good at things and assumes that I'm naturally going to be the best at everything. I think this is a sign of some serious humbleness problems.

And, even though I know that I can never get anything perfect on the first try, I started the rice with the thought in my head that I was going to serve perfectly rolled sushi for dinner.

Step one was to visit the Asian market and get lost in there for three hours looking at all the different groceries and buying one of pretty much everything when you only wanted to get some sushi rice and a bamboo mat.

I ended up walking out of the store with some eel, some spring rolls that had pork in them that I had to throw away, enough sesame seeds to last a lifetime, inari skins, imitation crab, bonito flakes, kombu, two bamboo mats and absolutely no sushi rice. Because who needs to remember one of the two things you actually went in to buy. 

I eventually remedied the rice situation and got to work putting some delicious eel and sushi rice onto nori sheets.

Then I channeled my inner sushi master and began to roll.

And failed. Quite a few times. It turns out that rolling sushi is not as easy as they make it look at the restaurant. Who knew? Oh, that's right. Everybody knew!

Anyway, I ended up with a few salvageable rolls that don't look too terrible in a picture (Eel, Inari, Cucumber and Krab Rolls, if you're wondering.

The most important part was the taste. Which was okay. Not great like I pictured in my head, but more like what you'd get if you ordered sushi from a restaurant that everyone described as "Meh, I guess I'd eat there if I had to."

So if you're ever in the market for completely average sushi, come on over, I'll be glad to make it. Maybe next time I'll even be able to make cucumber rolls that don't eventually fall apart!