Go Sam, it’s your birthday…

My sister Sam (heh) had a birthday recently and asked me to throw her a party. I agreed because I love my sister, though she would say it’s because I’m working off karma for being a mean older brother so many years ago.

If you know Sam, you know she likes sushi, and so a sushi party it was.

I made her a shrimp cake, with the traditional octopus tentacle on top. She refused to eat it, despite my insistence that eating the tentacle on your birthday is a tradition that’s at least, like, months old.

I also made something of my own invention, scallops with jalapenos and lemon wrapped in kelp. Sort of a Japanese ceviche with a mean kick.

Finally, there were the handrolls. We had been preparing all day and about an hour before everyone arrived I shot a few demonstrative photos of how to make a handroll that doesn’t look like it came from Chipotle. No tripod, I was just freehanding it with rice all over my hands, which perhaps explains the camera shake. (Steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6)

Dessert was ice cream cake (one of Sam’s favorites) and pastries from Cakelove, where she ought to have a credit card.

That’s the last meal to be prepared at my house for a while. I’m going to be without a kitchen while a small quantity of constructive destruction is done on the house.

Still without DSL at home, by the way. Not that you’re obsessively checking my website, but my stalkers probably feel a little left out. At this point they’ve had to resort to sneaking up to the house and looking in the windows to see what’s up in my life.

THINGS MY STALKERS SAW LAST WEEK

• A rowdy poker game that suddenly became silent when two of the 13 people left
• Three people chopping and washing food for 4 hours
• Obsessive longing for a larger poker table
• My office getting cleaned because I have nothing else to do
• Me arriving home cackling to myself from a big poker win
• Tax paperwork being sorted because I have nothing else to do
• Passive aggressive Tivo-watching (“Fine, I’ll watch this stupid show it recorded for me”)
• Leftover sushi being eaten
• Leftover sushi being eaten
• Leftover….you get the idea.