Mississippi Japanese Dinner Version

One day last week, my friend Debjani dropped by with a bunch of clothes to be repaired. So we went to work in my mom's bedroom where I keep the sewing machine. We were so engrossed in working that I forgot all about lunch. Then around 3 PM, I felt the hunger. Our friend from Alaska sent us a box of smoked salmon and Debjani always wanted me to show her how to make sushi so I decided to have a sushi making lesson.

I will show you the steps at the bottom of the tablescape. I showed Debjani once and she picked it up pretty quickly because it is very easy so I asked her to take over while I created my Japanese tablescape.

Debjani was quite impressed with how fast I whipped up this tablescape. I wouldn't be, because I forgot to set the napkins before taking pictures, lol. I kept going around the house picking up any Asian item that I could find and forgot an important element. But I added them later.

I pulled out the Japanese and Chinese warriors and the Oriental tea set from the home office shelves, the smaller placemats from the cabinet under the book shelves in the hallway, the celadon soup bowls, spoons and chopsticks rests from the cabinet in the family room, orchids from the family room, the bamboo placemats and serving trays under the kitchen island and chopsticks from the kitchen island drawer.

While Debjani was rock and rolling, I made green tea and miso soup and squeezed wasabe on small sauce plates.

I got the Oriental tea set from Ebay about 3 years ago.


I pulled out these bamboo sushi plates from the buffet server in the formal dining room. I think John bought them from World Market in Sanford, Florida when he used to work there before we moved here. I bought the bamboo placemats from Ross in Port Richey, FL and the smaller red and black rectangular placemats from London.

I thought I would use the ceramic cow to serve the soy sauce. That makes it a soy milk, doesn't it? LOL!

And here are my 2 dinner companions ready to eat. John even came out in his robe saying he is in his Japanese kimono and he started exhibiting his Ninja tactics, lol.



I got the tall Japanese warriors from a closing store in Baton Rouge and my sister gave me the smaller clay Chinese warriors. She bought them from China when she traveled there last year. She said they were part of the treasures they dug out from the Last Emperror's empire.

Aren't the celadon fish chopsticks rests cute?

John also bought the cow server from World Market in Sanford, FL.

I am going to show you how I make sushi.

You can mix up different fillings like Avocado and crab to make California rolls. But we used smoked salmon because my friend from Alaska just sent me this. It was yummy! We added cream cheese and jalapeno peppers. We actually made 2 kinds omitting the peppers for some of them because John cannot eat hot pepper. I try different flavors sometimes. I have even used mangoes or cucumbers mixed with crab or shrimp in the past.

I usually used Kokuho Japanese sticky rice but I did not have any so I used my sweet rice and it was fine. Cook 2 cups of rice. Then add 6 tbsps. of rice vinegar. I used Marukan brand. Mix well.

Slice some salmon and cream cheese and jalapeno peppers

Here is the cooked (steamed) rice mixed with the vinegar.

Spread the rice on seaweed wrapper. You can buy this from any Asian market. Then layer the sliced salmon, cream cheese and pepper on one end and roll tightly. Of course you shouldn't forget to wash your hands very well before starting all these.

Debjani really enjoyed learning the process.

And here are the finished products. Slice them up before serving. Serve with soysauce mixed with wasabe (Japanese horse radish).

I am joining Susan's Tablescape Thursday party at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

Courtney's Feather Your Nest Friday at http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/

and Gollum's Foodie Friday at http://www.designsbygollum.blogspot.com/

Thanks a lot to our talented hostesses and thank y'all for coming by.