Wednesday night’s dinner was a veritable Homemade Sushi Going Away Party™ in honor of my sister Amanda’s penultimate night of living in New York. This morning I helped her pack her things and move out of her apartment.
When you’re lucky enough to live near an H-Mart, that means you have access to affordable, dependable, solid quality sushi grade fish for which to throw your own sushi parties, even if those parties are bittersweet.
Inspired by a recent trip to Atlantic City where we collectively lost hundreds of dollars, while I prepped, John and Amanda practiced blackjack for some upcoming gambling excursions where I anticipate we will still lose hundreds of dollars, just less quickly.
I am not a planner by nature, so the fun thing for me about sushi parties is that once you have your ingredients sliced and all laid out, you can throw whatever you want into a roll without having to think too hard.
In this case, I picked up some miraculously perfectly ripe avocados, cucumber, scallions, cream cheese (go ahead, judge me), shrimp + tempura batter, tuna, salmon, scallops, wakame salad, and some egg that was fun to look at but no one really ate.
Amanda particularly loves salmon, so I got extra salmon for slicing into sashimi. She felt bad that I gave myself a lot of prep to do, but I felt happy because it’s really nice to know someone well enough to know exactly what kinds of foods will bring them joy.
Amanda loves creamy, fatty foods, even though they sometimes make her nauseous: alfredo sauce, chicken thighs, duck, ice cream. She’s always loved salted caramel, and when we go to 16 Handles together, she mixes all her flavors and toppings together into a homogenous tornado that frustrates and confuses me. She’s a big fan of Chipotle, which I always knew, but it was further confirmed when I uncovered an entire tree’s worth of takeout napkins when I was helping her pack. She’s never liked soda, and she particularly hates the bitter drinks that I love. She loves the efficiency and convenience of the microwave, whereas I obnoxiously heat leftovers up in a pan on the stove (I shock myself with my patience during those moments). She appreciates both the ease and conclusiveness of a paper plate: when you’re done, throw it away, move on with your life.
Paying close attention to someone else’s food preferences is a specific way to love them, and it can really only happen with someone you spend a lot of time. But tastes change and eating habits change, and even with someone you’ve known closely their entire life, it makes me think about how people are not always so easy to pin down. It’s exciting and humbling to anticipate that there will always be so much of someone else to discover, especially when you already love and admire all the facets of the person you’ve grown to know so far.
A few weeks ago, I sent Amanda a Joni Mitchell song that I know she still hasn’t listened to yet, so I’m going to trap her into reading about it now, and then after reading this, I know she’ll go listen to it.
“Both Sides Now” is that rare combination of being one of an artist’s most popular songs, and also one of her best. It’s a uniformly structured poem that’s satisfying to read because it’s so predictable and tidy, but that says nothing about the astonishing way her simple message encased in perfect writing hits you over and over again to different effects each time, each day, each decade that you listen to it, in the unique way that only true genius can.
I couldn’t sleep the night I was rediscovering this song at my desk at 4 am, and found myself crying thinking about everything and nothing - my sister, my whole family, our futures, the simultaneous beauty and tragedy / excitement and terror of the uncertainty in all of it.
Joni looks at clouds, love, and life. She sees them from different perspectives, and then ultimately realizes you can never really know any of those things, truly. Are the things changing? Are your perspectives changing? Are you changing? Are those things never meant to be understood in the first place?
Tough questions to pose on those who prefer a firm grasp on certitude, but as Joni reminds us -
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day
For me, John, and Amanda, that something gained on Wednesday night was bellies stuffed with sushi.
For dessert, we had dulce de leche and chocolate ice cream, topped with whipped cream, and two types of maraschino cherries: standard neon and luxardo. We held a brief symposium comparing the cherries. I said that I don’t always like comparing things, that they each have their own merits and distinctions that they bring to the table. Amanda chastised me and told me that sometimes it’s okay to just be definitive and pick a favorite, cherries don’t have feelings, and she informed me that I like luxardo better. She knows my taste well, so I had to concede, okay fine you’re right.
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