Sushi

"We sat in a blood-red booth. Orest gripped the tasseled menu with his chunky hands. His shoulders seemed broader than ever, the serious head partly submerged between them.

'How's the training going?' I said.

'I'm slowing it down a little. I don't want to peak too soon. I know how to take care of my body.'

'Heinrich told me you sleep sitting up, to prepare for the cage.'

'I perfected that. I'm doing different stuff now.'

'Like what?'

'Loading up on carbohydrates.'

'That's why we came here,' Heinrich said.

'I load up a little more each day.'

'It's because of the huge energy he'll be burning up in the cage, being alert, tensing himself when a mamba approaches, whatever.'

We ordered pasta and water."

-- Don DeLillo, White Noise


--

Prior to today, I could have counted the number of sushi rolls I'd ever eaten on one hand. The last time was in Seattle, with my sisters, and it was bought in a grocery store but also delicious. I remember the one with the salmon meat wrapped around the rice because I liked it the most. Up to that point, I thought sushi referred to the seaweed wrap and how it was rolled and sliced.

Today, I had an outrageous amount of sushi. Something like twelve samples, and this after trying more than a dozen of the restaurant's "American" dishes.

I am bursting and my stomach is making massage noises.

--

We've been training for almost a week. The first few sessions were mainly lectures and (embellished) readings from packets we received. We were given CDs with menu items and photos, told to study everything. We were given another set of CDs which contain daily quizzes, reviews to be completed before moving on. We are given gold coins for answering questions and volunteering to do odd jobs like picking up hole-punched paper circles from the carpet with chopsticks. These coins can be redeemed later for all kinds of "expensive" prizes.

We are told this training is very cutting-edge, experimental, intuitive, effective.

This morning after a break, my table's discussion turned to note-taking and typing, the latency of abandoning college habits. Someone mentioned finding herself unable to take notes by hand during classes. I contributed that my baby sister is allowed to use laptops during her high-school classes, that her teacher gathered email addresses from each student on the first day of school and created a website for literary discussions, that she is allowed to email her teacher until midnight with any questions about homework.

I remember being in tenth grade and having my CD player confiscated during biology. I think that might have been around the same time I heard a pop-music ringtone for the first time.

--

One of the sushi samples dropped from my pinching chopsticks into my square soy sauce bowl. Sushi chefs, we were told, cringe when people dunk their rolls into soy sauce because it overwhelms any other flavor. It's true.

We were also told that sushi refers to the rice, not the fish. So you can prepare sushi rice and eat it with beef or chicken and it would still be a sushi dish. Sticky rice is not sushi rice. Wasabi is almost always made from paste before it is made into a condiment, because fresh wasabi is extremely potent and pricey.

I'm proud to say that I learned a lot and tried everything (except the sliced ginger). I have a lot of studying to do.

--

Last night, I had this idea for a short story:

A young man moves back to the Midwestern suburban home of his adolescence. There is a neighborhood association that regulates things like weekly lawn trimming and property lines in a democratic fashion. The residents realize--with satisfaction--that no one on the block smokes anymore. One night, the young man has a cigarette and flicks the butt onto the sidewalk, where it is discovered the next day.

A Girardian sacrificial crisis results.

--

There are training sessions during the day and in the evenings. Yesterday, I went in the evening. A completely different vibe. Fewer coffee mugs. Only half of the trainees smoke. More arms tucked over the backs of chairs, more wisecracks, more Yes's than nods.

This morning, I downed three cups of coffee by the end of the first hour.

Three more days of food tasting, followed by some mock service sessions (I think of them as improv rehearsals) and then a simulated business day with invited guests. We are warned constantly about Secret Shoppers. More people arrive every day and they have stopped introducing themselves. The kitchen clanks and wafts, the construction sectors grind and sputter and ratchet, the lighting fixtures get fancier and fancier.

Faces are getting familiar. The restaurant is opening soon.