Smooth Sailing

When you think of a boat what do you see? A speedboat on Lake Powell perhaps. Maybe a paddle boat on Bear Creek Lake. Maybe you even imagine a large cruise liner off the coast of Cabo San Lucas. In my mind when I imagine a boat I see a small wooden one. It isn't able to carry much of anything. I would even go as far as saying if you tried to get it to actually float it would instead sink. Now you are probably wondering what is the point of a boat that small that can't even do it's job and float? That's because it's real intent is to hold food, one type of food in particular: Sushi.

Sushi is almost like an addiction in my family. My mother, sister and I crave Sushi always though our meals of it are rather rare due to the not exactly low rates of fish now days. But nonetheless we hold our Sushi in high regard. I have been told that woman begin craving things in intensity while pregnant. I have no idea if this is true or not but my mother says it is true. I have been told by some of my friends moms that they craved such food mixtures as peanut butter and cucumbers to just pretzels. My own mother's pregnant food craving was Sushi. Some doctors (and I am sure many other people) would say that while pregnant do not eat raw fish aka Sushi. Maybe my mother wasn't the smartest indulging this craving during both her pregnancies but I believe this is where the love began. We used to joke around that my sister and I were 'born with chopsticks in our hands'. We have been fans since birth.

Back in 2006 my two half-siblings were in town for a visit. At the time both Wesley and Tasha lived on Galiano Island which is a small island off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Living directly on the water and having a large city (Vancouver, my hometown) nearby Sushi bars and restaurants are in abundance. (Hint: Wes and Tash love Sushi). So where else would we all choose to go on a Saturday evening to celebrate their visit then one of our favorite local sushi bars: Kobe An. A friend of my mother's and his daughter joined the rest of the family that evening to bring the group to a solid 7 people. As soon as we were seated discussion started on what to order from the long detailed list of roll types given to us by one of the waitresses. Before we all knew what had happened our list of choices was completed and handed back with anticipation for the rolls to arrive.

I love spending time with my siblings and family. The table bantered back and forth about school, travel, business, etc. As soon as the food arrived though conversation was put to an immediate halt. The Sushi had arrived. I mentioned that our meal was long and I hope you realized I meant long. It would be like comparing a 3 sentence response to a 4 page paper. To fill such an order almost all the rolls had been organized onto what is called a Sushi Boat. It dominated the center of the table with it's size and the eye catching colors of both fish and vegetables artfully placed along it's surface. As always the waitress began to name all the types we had gotten: Eel Roll, Rainbow Roll, Spider Roll, Rocky Mountain, Heart Attack and endless more.

Like any family we decided on having some fun while we ate. Meaning:
Mom, "Let's time it to see how fast we eat it all".
KD, "I say 12 minutes."
Wesley, "No, more like 15 minutes or so."
Daniel. "I'll go with KD."
Me, "Can we just eat already?"

To make an extremely rough estimation each type of roll had about 8 pieces. There were about 10-12 different types of roles. 8x12=96 sushi pieces. Everyone had to eat at least 13 pieces. Want to guess how fast we dominated that sushi boat? 7 minutes. Our waitress was amazed as were we. So when I saw we have a love know it is true. Food brings people together. Sushi is that food for my family. I love my family. I love food. I love Sushi.