how I make sushi

So, as a home school project, and to fuel the interest in Japanese culture that existed in our house awhile ago, I made sushi.

Most of the ingredients I can purchase at Hannaford. Price chopper has almost, but not, all I find around here. It is actually cheaper to buy at Hannaford than at the local "natural food store." Luckily the Asian market is not too far away in Albany. My recent trip to Pennsic included a stop at the Asian market a block from my friends' house in Rochester. No where else have I found nori/seaweed wrap cheaper (10 sheets for $1.39 wow!)

Ingredients: rice wine vinegar, nori/seaweed sheets, soy sauce, sugar, dried wasabi paste, water, sushi rice (cooked and cooled to directions - too much to get directions into here, I think. The directions are on the rice container!), rolling mat, veggies cut "julienne" style - often carrots, avocado, scallions, cucumber, and sometimes even bamboo shoots, mushrooms, cooked shrimp, fresh tuna (only hours old, caught at Hampton Beach, true indulgence!)...
Really the fill can be anything you like :)

So the veggies are julienned or whatever. The shiny side of the nori is placed side up -so the matte side is down on the mat.

A bit of the cooled rice is scooped onto the nori. The white bowl is filled with a mixture of mostly water and a bit of sugar and rice wine vinegar that has been heated and then cooled.
This'll keep your fingers from sticking too much to the rice as you spread it out an even thickness across the nori.
Next the veggies are laid out.
The edge without the rice is marked with water from the white bowl. This will allow the nori to stick to itself whe it is rolled over. Note: Please notice the one bite of portabella there?
Next, the one edge is tucked over using the rolling mat. Be firm without squishing it too much.
Voila! (I don't know the aha-here-it-is! in Japanese :) Now I have a nearly finished sushi roll!
Next, cut, slice, chop. The rice is very sticky so it gets cleaned about halfway through as well as at the end of each and every roll that I make. And I have to sharpen my really crappy knife between each roll too. It's super sticky rice I tell you!
There is a certain way to cut it. A kind of sawing works best. Otherwise the roll gets flattened a bit. See the young child waiting patiently in the lower right corner?
Looks like a happy diner, eh?! Well, maybe not so much. But that's my Connor for you!
Now HERE's someone looking forward to eating! :)
And here's another happy child with his dinner!
Usually we eat this with homemade miso soup and/or edamame (soy beans). I am grateful that my family looks forward to unusual foods... Sometimes, the weirderthe food, the better. In this particualr labor-intensive dinner of love, everyone chooses the ingredients and I make to order! It's all good!! :)