The Wasabi Code

Last night Mr. Mustard and I feasted on the flesh of raw fish and seaweed, otherwise known as sushi. Of course, I had to prepare my accompanying condiment platter just so: pickled ginger (there could never be enough blog entries about my love for pickled ginger), and wasabi stirred into soy sauce. What I enjoy most about the wasabi/soy sauce combination is how it changes throughout the course of the meal. First, the wasabi is but a bubbling echo whispering in the salty soy sauce, then as you keep dipping, soaking up a larger percentage of soy sauce than the wasabi, the wasabi gradually kicks the soy sauces ass until you take a bit of a tuna roll and your sinuses erupt and run like Mount Fuji.

But while it's intense, it doesn't hurt like chile peppers. It feels more like tough love, like some huge Sumo wrestler is going to clean out your sinus cavities BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!!

As I discovered through the magic of best Internet friend, Wikipedia, that inherent surprise is not the only one wasabi has to offer. According to "Wiki," as I like to call her:

"Fresh leaves of wasabi can also be eaten and have some of the hot flavor of wasabi roots. They can be eaten as wasabi salad by pickling overnight with a salt and vinegar based dressing, or by quickly boiling them with a little soy sauce. Additionally, the leaves can be battered and deep-fried into chips."

Oh my GOD! This is like the DaVinci Code or something - a small green nondescript paste that hides a potential and beauty so far beyond anything I've experienced. Let me just add that that paragraph holds five of my favorite words: Salad, Salt, Vinegar, Deep-Fried, and Chips. I can have all those things with a simple wasabi root? Bring it on, baby, bring it on!

I just checked the website of the huge Asian store in Seattle, Uwajimaya and they sell wasabi root! I sense a field trip. I sense exposing my pristine kitchen (maintained quite lovingly by Mr. Mustard. I'm too busy blogging.) to the perils of deep fat flying everywhere.

And I must pickle. I have yet to pickle in my life, so I might as well start with wasabi leaves.

Until then, I will have to content myself with munching on Trader Joe's wasabi peas, but you know, they do get old after a while.

All this talk of wasabi and sushi takes me back to my first sushi experience in San Francisco. I was working with the San Francisco Mime Troupe at the time. An amazing actress, costume designer and all-around superstar of a human being, Keiko Shimosato, and myself were slaving away on props and costumes for the summer show. I didn't know her that well and was a little bit in awe of her, so I let her drag me to a sushi place, even though I hated sushi.

Or so I thought.

She told me that someone else always had to order for you the first time you ate sushi, so I allowed her to present me with yellowtail and hamachi and maguro and even, some smoked eel! Sushi is about texture as much as taste and I remember feeling so proud of myself that I liked sushi. How hip and urban I was! This was years ago, but I can still see Keiko's sly smile as she turned her head and held out the chopsticks to me. And I can still taste the wasabi expoding in my sinuses. And it reminds me of her, because she's a small, beautiful woman with a gentle aspect, who just explodes with talent and charisma and power.

Here's to the Wasabi code.

Condiment Grrl