After The Fast: Day Three

I always seem to be catching up, or posting too soon when it comes to my meals. But in order the keep everyone up to speed, last night's dinner was supplied by Peggy Raley, my friend and associate Sherman's wife. She'd been following my fast on Facebook and so was aware of my circumstances. Needless to say she rose to the challenge and cooked up a sumptuous vegetarian extravaganza. It was a black bean and sweet potato vegetarian chili over rice, which she's promised to get me the recipe of. Only problem is, she cooks like both Jane and I. It's like a made for TV movie. It's BASED on a real recipe, but is really just a list of ingredients, the proportions of which are at the discretion of the cook. There was also a wonderful salad with greens, cheese, and ripe strawberries. I definitely ate too much.

This morning I had to get up early. Peggy had again come through and was prepared with whole wheat tortillas and organic eggs. I skipped the tortillas, but scrambled a few eggs.

Throughout the morning I snacked on roasted peanuts and had a nice hot plate of the previous night's chili. It hit the spot as I was outside all day.

Got finished early and was able to get on a 4:15pm ferry, rather than the 7:45pm one I was originally booked on, so I can get home and make a decent dinner, as well as tomorrow's lunch. Grabbed a banana and a bottle of water at the terminal. I'm getting better at this. In the past, I definitely would have scrounged a hot dog, or two, and then had a large cup of coffee.

I haven't weighed myself in a few days, so I'm anxious to see what regular food has done. I expect to go back up a bit before beginning to lose weight again, but I'm hopeful that I don't go up much.

When I come home tired, it's hard for me to be creative about food. Hell, it's hard for me to be creative about anything. It takes something out of you to be sure. That's why historically, a lot of my more adventurous food excursions have been when I'm on vacation, or at the very least, on the weekends. Even when I am out and about with work, if I'm really tired, I'm not interested in anything new or overly elaborate. That's when comfort food comes in.

But I want to eat more sushi. Or at least what I think of, most of the time, as sushi. First, there's Maki-zushi, or rolled sushi, which is what most Americans think of when they think of sushi. Maki is a layer of rice around a core of fillings, all rolled inside a layer of nori. A variety of this, and what I prefer, is called Uramaki, or inside out sushi. Uramaki is where you have a core of filling such as tuna or salmon, a layer of nori, and then an outside layer of sushi rice.

Uramaki was created because Americans had trouble eating nori. While Americans dining in the early sushi bars enjoyed the food, they preferred to not see the seaweed. To remedy this, the pioneering Chef Mashita at Tokyo Kaikan in Little Tokyo created the inside-out roll. This development is widely believed to have fueled sushi's early success in the United States, and has led to hundreds of variations on the first uramaki.

Interestingly, the American-style uramaki sushi is beginning to find its way across the Atlantic to Japan. Bringing innovations in sushi-making back to the traditional styles in Japan is another step in the cuisine's evolution.

Sushi, by the way, is a reference not to raw fish, but to the rice. It's sushi rice. The filling is up to style and taste.

I think I may just stop on my way home and get some for dinner. Wouldn't mind some spicy tuna. Hmmm.

Spicy Tuna Roll. Uramaki.