with a grain of salt



Okinawa Sea Salt



   Last week I went down to Naha with my friend.  We wandered around all the tourist places on Kokusai street.  We spent hours looking at all the glasses and trinkets one could buy.  Some of the stuff is pretty ridiculous.  Japanese people seem to like things that are far from necessary.  Towards the end of our adventure we came across a store that we thought looked like a spice store.  Since we both like to cook we decided to take a look.

   As soon a we walked in you could smell the spices, but it wasn't overpowering like I had expected.  Normally a spice store or market smells so strong its almost unbearable.  But this store was very subdued.  As we started to look around we realized it was a salt store.  An entire store of salt!  I thought it was pretty weird when I realized what the store was, until I started looking around.  Some of the products had English on them or a picture so we could tell what they were.  And you could taste them too.  Seems weird to just eat salt but they were much more then just salt.

   I had never seen so much salt in my life.  They had different types of salts that had spices mixed in like garlic and onion or pepper and lemon.  But then they had some strange things like rose and orchid.  They even had a green tea and sesame one.  It wasn't too bad but I don't know what you would make with it.  They also had salts from all over  the world.  From Europe to the Himalayas.  They even had Merlot salt, which I think I may go back for!

  

Sesoko Island

   Now before I tell you about this beautiful little island, I need to explain a law.  This law is like Murphy's Law, slightly, but not exactly.  Once when I was younger I went to work with my dad, and he had a newspaper clipping on his desk  The clipping said " ORLANDO LAUGHS LAST" .  Now it took 15 years, but I finally get it.  Orlando Laughs Last is the name of this law.  And I will tell you why.  As an Orlando, there are certain elements to life you need to learn.  The most important that pertains to this post is, traveling is never easy!

   In Murphy's Law, it states anything bad that can happen will happen.  Orlando Laughs Last Law is, when you travel something ridiculous will always happen!  Now by ridiculous I mean something that is a set back at first, and usually make you very angry, but in the end makes you laugh.  Hence, ORLANDO LAUGHS LAST".  The law entails losing your bags, getting searched and or threatened to get arrested.  That really has happened.  Also wrong trains have been taken.   But the trick to this law is that once you marry an Orlando, the law affects you as well. 

   A couple of weeks ago I planned a day trip.  While my husband was away with work, I looked up places to drive on Okinawa that looked beautiful.  And I came across Sesoko Island.  Sesoko Island is a very small island, about 2 kilometers in diameter, close to Nago.  You take a bridge from Okinawa to the island.  It seemed like an easy enough drive.  So one Monday we packed up the cooler and went for a drive.  Now I had planned to go on a Monday that my husband had off.  The whole weekend was perfect so I figured it would be perfect.

   Once we walked out of the house it started to get a little cloudy.  But I figured it wouldn't be too bad.  So we set off for the road.  About 10 minutes from our house the skies opened up.  Crazy lightning and pouring rain for the hour drive up there!  The closer we got the darker the clouds looked pretty much right on top of where we wanted to go.  So I thought " at least we have sandwiches for the car picnic we are going to enjoy"!  But we lucked out.  Perfect weather by the time we got there. 

   Once you cross the bridge, you drive through a little town then take a right.  Seemed simple enough.  My husband took the directions way too literal.  The directions we found said take a right after the last house.  I think he wanted to actually find the last house on the island.  After we found ourselves at a dead end in the middle of a field, i decided I would navigate to the beach.  We turned around and found the right that we should have taken.  We then parked the car and walked down the hill.

   We were the only non Japanese here.  They were selling floats and beach toys at the top of the hill, and there were stairs down from the information desk.  I chose to go down the little path and avoid being stared at with those eyes that scream white devil.  After we walked down the path we were right on the beach. It was so beautiful.  White sand and aqua water.  Part of the beach was netted of so kids could play, but I walked down the beach a bit where it was quiet.  It was our own private beach!

   After the ORLANDO LAUGHS LAST LAW kicked in, we ended up having a perfect day.  Great sun, picnic on the beach, and a nice walk with pictures to show!  Now that Pete fully understands what its like to be an Orlando, maybe he will think about changing his last name!  Probably not, but we'll have great travel stories!

Shelton Sushi!

   One Saturday afternoon, my husband Pete and I decided to make our own sushi.  We have lived in Japan for over a year now, so we thought we could try and make brown rice sushi rolls ourselves.  It seemed like it would be a fun way to spend an afternoon.  So as I normally do, I started planning in advance.  As soon as I came up with the idea I started buying all the stuff I would need.  I even made sure I got the ingredients for spicy sauce.  I also I got the expensive nori which turned out to be a bad idea.   I got everything for this sushi day.  Salmon, tuna, octopus, and of course avocado.  I even got Japanese cucumbers instead of normal cucumbers.  It turns out they are not that good.  Next time I will use normal ones.

   I was so excited to make sushi.   A couple of years ago Pete got me a few cook books for Valentines day.  One of them was a Sushi book, and I finally got to use it!  I read the entire thing trying to get my bearings on the jap stuff, and I thought I had done a pretty good job!  I told Pete I was gonna kick his ass in Sushi making!  His answer went something like, How many girl sushi chefs are there?  
   Although I was was excited to make the sushi I was even more excited to use all my plates!  I got so may cute plates for my Engagement shower, and I finally got to use them, including my sushi plate set.  I couldn't be more excited about it!  Until I had to wash all the dishes.  Then I wished we ate on paper plates.  Now I know why my mom always made us eat on paper plates when my friends came over.  Doing dishes really sucks!  Not to mention I'm not that good at it.  I get water all over the place and the dog usually stands behind me and licks the water from the floor.
   The most time consuming part of this process was the rice.  And I truly mean process.  You need to make this sauce with sugar and rice vinegar which has to boil.  But you cant pour it on the rice hot.  The sauce not the rice.  Then you have to fan the rice while you pour the sauce over it and mix it with short, choppy strokes.  For fifteen minutes or until it is room temperature.  Stupid annoying.  But before you can do all these fun steps, you have rinse the rice several times with your hands until the water is no longer milky. The most I have ever had to do to make rice.  I could have made risotto and paella in the time it took me to make sushi rice.
   Once this was done we could get the competition under way. I was for sure going to win the Shelton Sushi roll off.  Or so I thought.  Once we started it was clear that Pete really was better then me.  SHITTY I KNOW!  And the sad thing is I had done this before!  I'm going to blame my sad performance on the fact that was  very excited to eat!  I had even bought gyoza and shumai at the Japanese store so I just wanted to eat.  And I figured the faster I rolled the sooner I could eat.  That's why there are no girl sushi chefs.  We just want to eat it all!



Finished product of the Shelton Sushi roll off!

    So our table looked pretty good and I couldn't wait to eat.  I had even made salad with goma dressing( sesame).  I was so excited!  I tried mine first, so I could taste victory!  Then I tried Pete's, actual victory.  Seriously, it killed me that he was better then me!  We are are going to have to do this again so I can win! 
   So I didn't win, and to make matters worse, I got hives.  For the first time in my life the nori gave me hives!  Stupid expensive Japanese seaweed!  Next time I'm gonna but the cheap stuff so I know its made from algae.  Normally, I'm fine from sushi rolls because I did my research and I know that most nori I made from algae.  And since I'm allergic to seaweed no algae I'm fine.  But of course I had to get the only one made from seaweed.  Thats what you get when you cant read the language!