Sushi on a Sunday

It had been over a year since I could take my daughter to a nice sushi restaurant. We were in Carytown in Richmond, VA and I was so excited to treat her to good sushi. Well this blog post will have the story but not the name of the restaurant. I don't want to be rude and name a restaurant with the persons way of living with my negative opinion. If it was great, yeah I'll name it all day long, bad food, nope just the tale not the name. I actually wanted to take my daughter to the fancy french restaurant in Carytown but she freaked at the prices. My daughter is amazing with money and the biggest cheapskate I have ever met. I mean that in a good way. So we walked around in the swampy Virginia heat searching for sushi. Our favorite place in that neighborhood, Moshi Moshi had closed its doors permanently while I was financially strapped. So cue the music, we were looking for a new love baby. This place was not it. We walked in and I tend to enjoy a lot of air conditioning when I eat raw fish. This place wasn't much cooler than the outside. The decor was plain and dark and pretty empty. We were seated promptly and we stuck with just ice water. This was not the sushi orgy of greed from the late nineties. When my daughter was seven she could eat over fifty dollars of sushi by herself. It's been a while since we ordered like that. I only ordered tuna and octopus and a spider roll, she ordered a shrimp roll and some other low priced roll. We picked a moderately priced roll to share. The waitress brought my seaweed salad and it was so tiny, the bowl could have been part of a doll's tea party set. The flavor was normal, just like the seaweed salad at the old Ukrop's. Then the sushi came and the small portions were aggravating me. First time in over a year I could afford sushi, I was hoping to have a memorable meal. The spider roll had a sweet sauce on it that took away from the crab flavor. Oh, wait a minute I really couldn't taste the crab flavor. Back in the late nineties Hana Zushi had the biggest spider rolls, they were amazing. The claws were coming out the edge of the roll and the pieces of the backfin were so huge in the roll, that you knew exactly what you were eating. My octopus was tiny and just okay. Please don't kill the baby octopus just for me, kill a grownup octopus so I can have a grownup size order. The tuna was medium size, but not the pretty shade of pink. It was kinda dark. The roll that we shared had no rice, and instead of seaweed was rolled in cucumber. The cucumber was too much, you tasted the cucumber instead of the tuna. When we were done, I was still starving. Literally starving. I ordered a bowl of rice just to tide me over until we got home. When we got the check, it was twenty over what I had thought we had ordered. And about twenty five more than what I would have spent at the French place. Next time in Carytown it will be ooh la la at the French restaurant and the next sushi trip, we will play it safe in Shockoe Slip.

Saying Grace

Every meal is started with saying grace. A solid tradition. Gratitude for the meal, gratitude for your spiritual beliefs. At this house, the gratitude is genuine, you can feel the compassion rolling off in waves. A kind house. The meal was simple. Fried croaker on a white oval plate. The father caught the croaker and fried it for his wife. Lima's and corn in a casserole dish, french fries on another white oval plate. You could see how much this man loved his wife with every part of his life. From the way his fishing boat was named after her to the way he cooked dinner for her. The way he smiled when he looked at her, the kindness when he he greeted her with a kiss. They have been married for around fifty years give or take. The parents of a high school friend. Seeing this couple made me think about my short marriage. Fifty years ago marriages weren't so disposable. A man would have been shamed for abandoning his wife during a health crisis. No social media to congratulate him, shame her. In another value system a man never called his wife ugly, evil, or a psycho. No lies of soap opera worthy crimes leveled against the wives of yesteryear. Maybe I'm looking at that generation with rose colored glasses. Two weeks ago I met a man in his nineties, he talked of his wife, and their sixty-two year marriage. He said she was his true asset. This man, his walls are covered with his accomplishments in business, agriculture and county politics, does he boast or brag? No, his asset was his wife. I wonder how RG thinks of me. Does he remember the way I drove him to work everyday for three and a half years. Every meal I cooked for him. The pork butt I dry rubbed and roasted for hours a month before he left me. The flour tortillas I made by hand that same last month. With the gossip I heard about me, I imagine not. I still remember every kind thing he did, every meal he cooked for me. I wonder if our meals had started with grace from the beginning  would last September had steam rolled over us? If we had a home filled with grace from the beginning, a kind house, a compassionate home. What if? Perhaps if our meals had started with grace, it could have been a tradition to last fifty years, give or take.