Making sushi for my son’s birthday

My eldest son, Daniel, just turned 22. Sushi is his favourite food, but of course we couldn’t take him to a restaurant during the Coronavirus crisis — and even in peacetime, the nearest good sushi restaurant to us is 67 miles away in Solihull. So I prepared his birthday meal.

Here, I am making the last of the nigiri — mostly salmon, some tuna. In the middle of the plate is a roll of my own invention, inspired by Peking duck pancakes in Chinese restaurants. It’s shredded chicken, sliced spring onions, hoi sin sauce and avocado. It was a big hit.

In one month, I’ve lost 6.4 kg (14.1 lb, 1 stone)

On the 13th of last month, having just got back from a fattening week in the USA, I weighed myself after my morning shower, and registered 105.4 kg. Today is the 13th, exactly one month on, and I weighed in at 99.0 kg. That’s a loss of 6.4 kb, which is almost exactly 14 pounds or, as the England have it, one stone.

Here’s how it was done:

(That’s just a single spicy crab roll in the photo, by the way: I cut it into twelve narrow slices instead of the traditional eight thicker slices.)

East meets West! It’s the English breakfast sushi roll

I’ve been eating sushi a lot recently, as part of a (very successful) diet where I don’t each much, but everything I do eat is something I really enjoy. Then this morning, I smelled the eggs and bacon that Matthew was frying and I realised that what the world needed was something that combined both.

Voila!

Omakase sushi — a new experience

I spent the back half of last week in Toronto with my colleague Jason Skomorowski. Jason’s great company anyway, but on his home turf he step up a level because he also knows his way around Toronto’s restaurants — and it’s a great city for food. And the most memorable of many superb meals I had in those four days was omakase sushi at Yasu.

Yazu exterior, taken after our meal, at nearly 8pm when it had got dark.

Omakase was a new experience for me. It’s a sushi experience where the chef decides what you eat, and in what order, and the individual pieces arrive one by one.

Slightly bigger lunch today

Celebrating Dan’s return from his first term at university.

 

Time for lunch!

(Note that this is only half as much as on certain other occasions.)

Birthday sushi

For Dan’s birthday (and mine, which was six days earlier), I took him to Birmingham, which as far as I can tell is the nearest place to us that you can get good sushi. My goal was to fill him so full of sushi that he actively wanted to not eat any more. Here he is with the first plateful:

Mid-morning snack

From the this-is-why-I’m-fat files.

Breakfast

Part 3 in the ongoing This Is Why I’m Fat series …

… although, to cut myself some credit, it was made using the rice left over from last night’s meal.

The other ingredients, as if you didn’t already know: “spicy crab” (surimi, mayonnaise, chili powder), pickled daikon, lettuce, nori (sheets of dried seaweed), and of course soy sauce and gari (pickled ginger).

Oops, I did it again

How’s that diet going, Mike?

Uh, not so great. Why do you ask?