Sushi Otaku

I was introduced to sushi when I was around 10 or 11 years old, I think. I was at a fairly ritzy party of some sort and they had a large plate of basic items for the taking… but no one was taking. This was over 20 years ago and I guess sushi hadn’t caught on here in North America, and it looked kind of weird. But then again… I’m kind of weird

so… I bee-lined for the table and tried a piece. And then another. I couldn’t believe that something this good existed and I hadn’t come across it. My mother had a catering business, and food was a large part of my lifestyle, but here was something so totally different, so intricate yet simple that it really made me stop and think about what food can be. For a minute. I was only 11, after all. I was used to fancy foods, I even cooked for my mother’s business at times and knew the routines. But I knew that these pieces required skills that no one I knew possessed. This was food as art, and it was mighty tasty too. Food, a basic requirement of life and a mere commodity, couldn’t get better than this.

I knew that I had found something that I would seek out for the rest of my life. I didn’t eat anything else that day, and I probably polished off most of the sushi and sashimi that was offered, since no one else seemed to want any (and 11 year old kids kind of do what they want anyway, right?). It wasn’t a problem. But what was a problem was finding more sushi. It was years before I realized that there were restaurants out there devoted to sushi. And even longer before I could eat at one(the thought of raw fish was never something that the rest of my family could appreciate). Eventually, I found my way, and my aunt, seeker of all things culinarily different, became my sushi savior. But that too is another story.

Warren
The Sushi Guy.