Sashimi Shout Out!

Did you know that Seafood at West Main (SWM) has something called Sashimi Thursdays? Neither did I. But thanks to a co-worker, I've discovered there is an email list you can join by email. Twice a month, SWM will send you a list with that week's offerings. You simply reply back with what you'd like to order, your name, and when you'd like to pick up. Pickups are Wednesday and Thursday starting after 12 noon. So about every other week you can purchase your very own sashimi-grade tuna, salmon, and yellowtail to create delectable sushi rolls in your very own kitchen! Whouda thunk it? In addition to wonderfully-fresh fish, they have roe, seaweed for wrapping, and of course pickled ginger and all the extras.

The lovely folks at SWM wanted me to know they make sushi rolls Monday through Friday every week (the best damn rolls *I've* had in Cville btw), and offer sashimi-quality fresh fish daily. So why Sashimi Days? Not sure. Maybe it's a timesaver of some sort - the drive-thru window for high-grade tuna. The "Brew-Thru" for sushi. In any case, Hubby and I have had a terrific time (or he has rather, I just eat them) creating all sorts of sushi rolls. Stuff you wouldn't see on a menu. Two weeks ago it was:

• Spicy Tuna and Watercress Rolls - Duke's mayonnaise mixed with Sriracha sauce was blended to make the spicy sauce, and Horse and Buggy watercress provided the crunch.
• Salmon and Watercress Rolls - buttery buttery salmon. Among the best I've tasted.
• Salmon and Wasabi Tobikko Rolls - Tobiko purchased from SWM. It's tiny fish roe marinated in wasabi. Provides a nice pop of heat in the mouth - a great complement to the salmon.

In past weeks, Hubby has created little gems with Yellowtail, Salmon Roe, and seared Bonito. I'd provide, provide bad pictures, but we kinda inhaled them like famished wolves (sheepish grin). Seriously, for the money we spent (about $20) we each had 8-10 HUGE rolls, and 3-4 pieces of about the most buttery sashimi you could ask for. Hubby even sauteed the salmon skin for some salmon skin rolls that were out of this world. Why pay huge gobs of cash to eat utility sushi? Or endure high-grade yet teensie-eensie portions? Get creative! All you need is some Nori (which you can buy at Harris Teeter) some sushi rice, some rice wine vinegar, a bamboo mat, and a little courage.

The next Sashimi Days are THIS Wednesday and Thursday, 5/20 and 5/21/09. A copy of the SWM email is below, containing a breakdown of prices and availability from this week's selection. So what are you waiting for? Go order thee some sashimi! Man, I can't WAIT until Wednesday...

From Seafood at West Main:

Our sashimi packs (tray) contain a piece of fish, approx. 5~8 oz each. One pack contains about 2 servings. You will need to slice the fish at home for a Sashimi or Sushi dish. For example, if you order 1 tuna tray, you will get one rectangular piece of tuna that is approx. 5-8 oz each. The price fluctuates. Understandably, the price will be more expensive than our usual fillet price, because sashimi will be from the prime part of fish and well trimmed. Sashimi packs will be ready after 12:00 noon. Please indicate your pick up day and your phone number.

Our Sashimi selections (all subject to availability) (1 tray 5~8 oz)
Tuna $10~14
Assorted Whitefish $8~11
Salmon $8~11
Yellowtail (Hamachi) $9~12
Squid (Ika) $3.50~5.00
Salmon Caviar Ikura $8.98/pk
Flying Fish Roe (Tobikko) Orange, Wasabi, Golden, Black $3~4/pk
Seared Bonito (Katsuo Tataki) $7/pk
**Sushi Rice*** $3.50

Also, we have an extensive selection of Japanese groceries and frozen items, such as Seaweed Salad, Grilled Eel (Unagi), Pickled Mackerel (Shimesaba) to enhance your sashimi experience.

Mrs. Atsuko Nakamoto
Retail Sales Associate
Seafood @ West Main
416 West Main St. ( Main Street Market )
Charlottesville, VA 22903
434 296 8484

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I Hate Food Blogs!

One of the things I hate about blogging is having to focus on links and photographs when all I really want to do is write about food. How do other food bloggers get around this? Their pictures always look like art, like wonderful still lifes painted by Rembrandt. Mine look like crap.

Exhibit A - the photo at left. In an attempt to capture a wonderfully delicious meal of CSA Bibb lettuce leaves holding morsels of grilled shrimp with tomatillo salsa surrounding a bed of CSA asparagus I have instead created what looks like a big green vomity mess. Instead of honoring my Hubby's culinary prowess, I have disgraced all things edible. I can even imagine Mr. Gordon Ramsey yelling, "That's looks EXACTLY like a DOG'S DINNAH!" Fuming with rage, smoke coming out of his ears, haughty British accent, shaking fist, the works. He rips off my white coat, impales it on the nail, and sets my portrait ablaze without so much as a howdoya do. "GET OUTTTTTTT!!!!"

Sigh.

Since when did writers have to become photographers? How do other writers get around having to spend hours adjusting the light, moving one leaf of lettuce, taking photograph after photograph hoping they look okay? Anyone who has looked through local coupon books at half-off savings for the local all-you-can-stuff-in-your-craw buffet being served next to the WalMart know what I mean. There is nothing more vomit inducing than amateur food photography. Hurl. Those pictures always remind me of the buffet they had out at The Pyramid Club in Richmond (back in the day). Virginia bars are required to serve some sort of food, so the Pyramid had their buffet. But that didn't mean you actually ATE it. Not if you wanted to live.

I know people like Michael Ruhlman have spouses who are professionals. Professionals trained in the intracacies of food photography and more importantly, food styling. These are the people who water down Elmer's glue in Count Chocula commercials so the milk looks more milky than real milk as it cascades in a slow motion waterfall over those chocolatey nuggets. Stylists brush that Butterball turkey with shellac so it looks glistening and moist and juicy. More juicy than it EVER could be in real life. Some of their tricks reside in the evil genius category. <----------and there's yet ANOTHER LINK I had to go retrieve. Grrrr....

I don't want to have to go through such theatrics when I post. I just want to write. The most I want to do well is edit down the extra instances of "that" which I seem to sprinkle about like seasoning - as well as change some of the more cliched turns of phrase (and bad food metaphors) others have pointed out. This is as fancy as I get with blogging. Since when did you have to earn a degree in food styling to be a good blogger? For that matter, since when did you have to become a complete expert on blog design and social networking? Since when did you have to Tweet to get people to read your writing? How come people don't get attracted by the words themselves?

I know. I sound like a grumpy old man. A curmudgeon - which I guess inside I am. Reluctant to go with the times. Hell, it took forever for me to sidle up to a computer to put down words. You should see all the half-empty notebooks in my attic. It's just that I don't want the "jazz schmazz" of blog design and photography to water down my words (another food metaphor, ding ding!) I don't mind a little design "tweaking" now and then. I like to learn new things, complaining the whole way. Don't even mind getting out the manual to figure out how to turn the flash off on my digital camera. It's when things like revamping my blog to attract readers takes HOURS out of my day that I start to get itchy. Anything taking me away from the words makes me itchy.

You can see from my post that I'm probably doing a redesign as we speak. Which I am. And it's taking forever (or what seems like). But until I make money at this thing, it's just little old me (with a bit of template design by acorn glue) doing the redesign. Learning as I go. Yelling the whole way. Ramsey-ing my way to a new blog design. With crappy pictures. Promise.

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Localvore or Locavore?

Which is it? I've seen both, although "localvore" seems a little stumbly. Anyone have a consensus on this? Or an Oxford English Dictionary handy?

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Delays, Delays. And Greens!

Somehow it seems, the foodie gods have been conspiring to keep me off this blog. First I had surgery (see previous post) then literally out of the BLUE was offered a new job. In a matter of 3 weeks I have gone from an always-feeling-slightly-sick-and-really-hating-her-job kind of person to a new woman. One who feels 110% better and has had the door of possibility and opportunity opened for her. It's a new frikkin' day people. Which for the moment means less time to actually sit and WRITE, but more time to THINK about what she WILL write when she is able to GRAB that time for writing. Or something to that effect.

Long story short, while first convalescing and then rushing about learning this great new job I have brainstormed my tailbone off thinking about directions to take edible cville. I've talked to publications about writing articles gratis, just to get my sea legs in that part of the world (I'm tempted to insert a pun here about that fake crab stuff which I think is called "sea legs" but I'll pass. WAY too obvious).

On the technical front I redesigned from a 2-column to 3-column layout (okay, yeah, as of 5/4 it's still 2 columns but I DO have the layout and it WILL happen this month. So there :) I also added a page slash wiki entry about edible cville at townme.com, a new site tracking local businesses, music, etc.

Even broke down and added a Twitter presence - you can check my "tweating" in the right hand column and follow me if you like. Twitter is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because people are following what I have to say about Cville food (in my highest hopes they are anyway) and it's connecting me to this community (maybe?). A curse because now I feel like I have to Tweet everything I've eaten that's grown or produced in Cville. A curse because when I KNOW I should be WRITING, instead I'm following the tweets of @slashfood and @beardfoundation in real time during the James Beard Foundation Awards! Sigh. Hubby just glances in my direction with a look that says, "Why don't you go WRITE your OWN James Beard-nominated piece dear? Instead of TWEETING?" Yes, honey. Thanks for your vote of confidence. AS IF! I can't even get people to comment! And my style doesn't even come close to the culinary blogging prowess of masters like my idols Ruhlman and Thursday Night Smackdown. Sigh. But I shut down the Tweet Deck and dutifully try anyway. Quit brainstorming. Start posting!

I've thought about posts a lot. Sure, I've got restaurant reviews perlocating - they'll be "in the can" soon (ew, that pun hurt like hell). I'll certainly continue to review restaurants as they open (and close, unfortunately), but what else? Can this site be more than that? An online presence for Charlottesville foodies? We've got great publications in Flavor and er, that other one whose name I forget ;) ;) ;) and terrific food columns in The Hook and C-Ville weeklies. But what else? What about a true online presence? Do we even need one?

Although The Hook seems to have expanded it's "Dish" page, there is no central online Cville food forum that I know of. Unless you count the occasional restaurant review at Cvillain. Have to admit that while I lurk at Cvillain, and even comment occasionally, I haven't posted because frankly, they scare the crap outta me! It just seems too akin to willingly placing yourself in front of a firing squad. I can handle criticism, but yikes...

In any case, if you have suggestions or comments I'd love to hear them. In the meantime I'll be experimenting. And writing a LOT more often, I promise. This new job allows me to. And that's SO exciting to me because food and everything related to it is truly one of my passions. Someone asked me just last week about my food interests. I had mentioned edible cville which prompted her to wonder, "What ARE your food passions?" Now before your mind hits the gutter with a soft thud, conjuring up some lewd scene, stop. Think a minute. I did. And what I thought would be just one quick "list" post - a foodie "Top 10" kinda thing - has turned into a project. Turns out, I have THOUSANDS of food passions. Enough for a book - or in this case a blog.

So what was the whole point of this post? To very soon expect more. Expect change. And expect passion. I'll leave you with one. Greens. Spring greens. Spinach, Kale, and Swiss Chard (pictured). This year's crop from our CSA, Horse and Buggy Produce, is exceptional*. Lush, huge leaves that taste like you're lying down in a meadow and just breathing deeply of new spring air. With arteries so red they should be part of a first year med student's anatomy class. They taste like life itself. If I was describing the color green to a blind man, I would tell him to eat this Swiss Chard. Lightly sauteed in olive oil with just a touch of salt and crushed red pepper. Pure heaven.

* what is NOT exceptional are my photographic abilities. Unlike SOME people (I'm looking right at you RUHLMAN) I'm not equipped with a spouse who's a professional food stylist slash photographer. Sigh. That's okay though, he makes a strawberry-rhubarb pie that puts me in spasms...

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