Birthday celebration, family and homemade sushi

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celebrations, children, dinner, homemade sushi, postaday2013, sushi

Tonight, the four of us had a fantastical dinner. I call it fantastical because we were gathered together eating one of our favorite cuisines and celebrating the baby girl’s birthday and just being, as a family. Now with the two babies really busy with their own friends, jobs and schools, our family dinners have become a rarity. I choose to focus however, on how nice they are when they happen and not complain about the dinners that aren’t happening.

Our dinner was, as you will see in the pictures, mostly homemade sushi. Sushi preparation isn’t that easy, especially if you want it to be sleek and elegant. I wouldn’t mind perhaps taking a lesson sometime in the future just in the technique, because the flavors and the condiments are fairly straight forward, but the technique definitely requires finesse.

Now about the table layout; that was all my hubby, he most definitely has finesse. If it had been only me, the sushi would have been presented on the table, but in a much more austere manner. I love the way my hubby puts the flair in our entertaining, when he is here, there is nothing to fear, the setting will be beauteous. He helped with a few sushi rolls, applying his strong hands to shape them tightly and uniformly and putting the Tobiko flying fish roe on top,

The fish that I used was sushi grade tuna and sushi grade salmon filet, fresh from the marketplace at Guido’s, we also ordered salmon roe, Tobiko flying fish roe, and smoked eel from an online sushi specialty website. The rolls that we made were pretty basic, all variations on the Dragon roll. The Dragon roll is an inverted roll with cucumber, crab meat, tuna or salmon and then sliced avocado and sliced smoked eel are placed on top of the roll. You will see different looking rolls on the table but they all have the same ingredients just layered differently.

It was fun to make together but as usual, it was more fun to eat. What gets me is that for as long as you work on the preparation, you eat it exponentially that much faster. It was a great time together celebrating a very special day in our household. Happy birthday to the baby girl.

Your local guide

Write a piece about a typically "local" experience from where you come from as though it's an entry in a travel guide.

When I grew up, we lived in Astoria, New York two blocks from Astoria Park which is right on the East River. The gorgeous Triborough Bridge crosses the East river and leads us in Astoria right to the upper East Side in Manhattan. It's just a short hop, skip and jump across the river. If you can't afford the real estate in Manhattan than Astoria is the ideal place to live, affordable and so close to Manhattan.

Each and every time any of our relatives would come visit us from France, Astoria Park was the first stop on their tour because since the flight in was always late in the day, Astoria Park was the best first stop because at night you had the magnificent skyline of Manhattan all lit up at night alongside the completely lit bridge. It is one of the breathtaking sights that you don't forget. Moreover, coming in late from Europe, you're tired so how much easier than to have a gorgeous first sight of New York only two blocks away from your family's house. We would spend some time feasting on the bejeweled vision and plan for the next day, where we would go and the things and sights that we would visit.

This is always full of such fond memories.