I rather enjoy Japanese food of any persuasion, but I gotta say, I had never heard of okonomiyaki before Mothering Magazine published a recipe for it. What is it? A Japanese pancake or pizza. Now that can’t be bad, right?

Really, as you read the recipe for Mothering‘s okonomiyaki, you realize it’s probably better than pizza or pancakes. You basically cook pizza-type toppings right into the pancake. Um… yum! I hereby dub okonomiyaki: dinner pancakes. This particular recipe has chicken, napa cabbage, green beans, scallions, carrots, green pepper and zucchini, so it is really an all-encompassing meal.

I wanted to see what other combinations traditional okonomiyaki come in (and I was dying to find a dipping sauce since maple syrup just won’t cut it for these pancakes), so I perused the internet and found a bunch of fun recipes.

First off, let’s just say that using mayonnaise as a sauce is just completely unacceptable, as this site suggests, so I’ll be hunting for some of that tonkatsu sauce they also mention. What do you know? It’s as easy as blending Worcestershire, ketchup, mirin, ginger, garlic and this and that. Cool.

Now this okonomiyaki is looking a lot more like pizza, and definitely making my mouth water. But there’s that dreaded mayonnaise again — for the love of all that’s holy, don’t ruin a good thing….

Apparently, okonomiyaki is so addicting that there’s even a blog solely dedicated to the little Japanese pizza with big, big flavor. Even without the mayonnaise, I’m sure of it.

So, we’ve learned that okonomiyaki is an eggy, cabbagy pizza-ish food with a delicious sauce that needs no mayonnaise to make it great. I’m so sure I’m trying this as soon as we get some cabbage from our CSA farm (which I turned down today in lieu of chard… bah.

I love sushi. I love the rice, I love the fish, I love the wasabi. I love the big beautiful plates they serve it on. I love the pickled ginger. I love chopsticks, miso soup, and seaweed salad. I. Love. Sushi. Look at those beautiful slices of salmon up there… Oddly enough, salmon is easily my favorite sushi, but I can’t stand the fish when it’s cooked.

Back to the matter at hand, however: I’m in a bit of a pickle. I have nowhere close by my house that provides good sushi. It’s easy to get mediocre and even bad sushi, but the raw fish is way too expensive to indulge in if it’s not really worth eating in the first place. There is a Japanese teppanyaki place close by, and they do have a sushi bar, but it’s pretty terrible. I went once and haven’t been back since.

Oddly enough there is a large family style Italian restaurant a few miles away from my house that recently installed a sushi bar. I’ve been once or twice and the sushi is actually pretty good, but there is just something so creepy and wrong about eating sushi next to a table of people scarfing big bowls of pasta and meatballs. Plus, it seems like half the time I show up with a hankering for some raw fish, the sushi bar is closed.

These days when I have the urge in indulge my habit, I have to find someone to travel with me, or I go to the local Whole Foods Market, which actually has very good sushi for a super market. Oh, how I love you Whole Foods.

I consider this conundrum to be a bit of a mixed blessing though. You see, I have the incredible ability to consume massive quantities of sushi at one time. You may not believe me, but more than once I have made my waiter or waitress giggle in wonderment at the huge sushi boat full of fish and rice and then proceeded to eat every last bite. Needless to say, this appetite can be pretty hard on my wallet. I’m afraid that if I had really good sushi in close proximity, I would go broke. It would be such a delicious way to blow my money, though. Alas, it is not to be.

Ever think it would be fun to open your own sushi restaurant? To tell you the truth, it’s not something that ever occurred to me… until recently. If I were ever to open my own restaurant, I could see it being a sort of bed and breakfast type place, or a garden cafe, or even a gourmet trendy spot, but definitely not a sushi restaurant.

It seems too limiting to me, and even though I love eating and making sushi, I think I’m probably just not Japanese enough to give it a real go. Plus, I’ve just been given a glimpse of what it might be like to run a sushi restaurant, and it’s not as easy as you might think.

No, I didn’t spend the day behind the scenes at my local haunt, nor did I even host a sushi party. I discovered the online game Sushi Go Round. Holy raw fish, Batman, this is one fast-paced jaunt into everything sushi.

Basically, you need to make sushi rolls (they give you a recipe book to refer to) and serve them to customers in a timely fashion. If you’re slow, send a little sake their way. Oh, and you’ll need to order ingredients as you run out of them. Your goal is to make a certain amount of money each day and to keep a good reputation.

Each level brings another type of sushi you need to learn to make and serve, and it’s a huge waste of time if you screw up the recipes. This leads to disgruntled diners, who, if you’re fast enough, might just get drunk on sake.

One tip I’ll give you — do not attempt to play this game when your four-year-old is coaching you (back seat driver!). It will just annoy you, you’ll lose your concentration, your customers will leave unhappy and it will give your restaurant a bad reputation. Damn kids! Try it when his daddy is giving him a bath… you’ll win on the first try.

Have you ever played Sushi Go Round? Tell us your experience, and if you’ve never tried it, what are you waiting for? We love beginners’ stories!

Video Jug’s tutorial on how to eat sushi (embedded after the jump) is a complete hoot. It’s organized into steps, from the place setting, the sake and the green tea, to rubbing together the chopsticks to get rid of the splinter hazard possibilities and exactly — I mean exactly! — how to dip your fish into the soy sauce.

I have never, ever in my life met anyone who approached sushi so seriously. It borders on the creepy, and you might just think it was a spoof video if you didn’t know better. But you know what? This video is not only spot-on accurate, but it’s darned useful if you find a sushi meal intimidating.

My favorite parts are the warnings on how not to offend your host. Why not be the host — you know it won’t be a stuffy occasion that way! Now, the commenters over on Video Jug were a bit harsh, even questioning the accuracy of some of the facts presented in the video. I say if you like extra wasabi, add it — put it in your soy sauce, plop it on your fish, mash it into your rice. Who cares, as long as you chew with your mouth closed and enjoy every bite!

Back to the serious … it reminds me of the old video tutorials on workplace etiquette, most recently enjoyed on Lost, when they found the old Dharma Initiative videos in the hatch, or the spoofs on That ’70s Show, you remember the ones.

Regardless, it’s an informative four minutes that completely takes the joy out of the sushi experience, yet you can’t help but love it in that twisted way you have. You know how you can be. Watch it, laugh, then eat your sushi, perhaps a little more aware of how you dip your fish….

Dining Etiquette: How To Eat Sushi

As I was preparing to write this week’s Maki Clack, I realized that I’ve done you wrong, and for that, I apologize. How, oh how, could I have harassed you into embracing maki, making it at home, the easy way, with delightful and daring combinations, and not ever discussed how to serve it?

My bad.

If you put sushi, maki or any of the like onto a regular, round dinner plate, it’s your bad. We even have plastic square plates to serve the kid, and we have since he was about a year old and embraced the sushi way of life. So if my four-year-old knows you need a special plate for sushi, then you ought to know too. Again, sorry for the oversight.

So today, I offer you five choices of sushi dinnerware: the traditional, the green, the cheap, the romantic and the disposable.

All the traditional sushi restaurants serve their sushi on bamboo plates. OK, maybe not all of them. Rectangular ceramic plates are the new avant garde choice, and somewhat tacky places will give you your enormous order in a boat. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you obviously haven’t ordered enough sushi. Eat more!

Amazon offers a traditional bamboo sushi plate for $29.99, which could get pricey if you used one for each diner, but consider using it instead for your serving platter. Or, you could always get the Totally Bamboo Sushi Plate, Small for $12.99 each, one for each diner.

Yes, I suppose you could argue that bamboo plates are a green choice, since bamboo is such a quickly renewable resource. How about some sushi plates that don’t use any new resources? This hammered sushi plate ($12.99 each) is made from recycled glass and is simply gorgeous. They even offer a matching tray.

What? You want something cheap? This neutral-colored ceramic sushi plate is only 6.19, or you can order 10 plates at a discounted rate.

To a couple like Keith and I, sushi says romance (although Scott’s experience watching the awkward couple on a sushi first date says otherwise). More specificallly, it says, “Put Owen to bed and eat dinner on the family room floor in front of the fireplace on your gorgeous sushi-for-two dinnerware set.” My pick, which totally rebels against any color scheme found in our house, yet calls to me anyway, is this brilliant blue sushi set, rustic and striking.

Now, for the lazy sushi dinnnerware. You can’t be bothered to hand wash some of the artsy stuff I’ve highlighted above, and I know you wouldn’t dream of putting hand-glazed ceramics in your dishwasher. You’ll love these square disposable plates — they come in white or black — that are stylish, yet completely tossable.

There! I’ve corrected my bad and made it a good. You’ll now be serving your delicious homemade (or takeout) sushi in style. You’re welcome.

Nori is so beautiful to look at, shiny and green. I figured, how could I not like it? So I bought some. I made sushi rice, tamago, and julienned some carrots and snow peas. Sounds delicious, right?

Then I opened the package of nori, took out a sheet, and smelled it. I realized I had a problem, in the form of an overwhelming fishy aroma. Somehow, even though I had read Debbie’s post about seaweed, in which she specifically states that nori has a fishy taste, I had conveniently forgotten all about that.

I broke off a piece and put it in my mouth. Yep… tastes like fish. And the thing is, I like fish. But if I’m going to eat a vegetable, even if it does come from the same place, I don’t want it to taste like fish. I want it to taste vegetable-y. Or “salty and nutty” which is how every other description of seaweed I’ve ever read says it tastes. Apparently, Debbie is the only one being honest here.

Still, I pressed on, since I had a whole package of the stuff, and rolled up the rice and the fillings in it, sliced it, dipped it in tamari, and took a bite. The tamari pretty much overpowered everything else, but there was still that pesky smell, and by that time, I had a headache from it.

Needless to say, I gave up after that. I took the remaining sushi rice, egg, and veggies, threw them on a plate, mixed it up with some sweet chili sauce, ate them, and that was delicious. After that, I googled “nori” and “fishy taste” to see if I could figure out what the hell was going on, and I came up with this:

As it turns out, in addition to the commercial fishing industry, bycatch is also a problem with the harvesting of seaweed, and they end up getting blended together when it’s being made, which gives it the fishy odor and flavor. Reading this was a completely “DUH,” palm-to-forehead moment for me. Like I said, I do like fish (cooked!), but for the most part, I’ve worked very hard to cut most meat out of my diet so I don’t really want it sneaking in without my knowing.

What I don’t get, is how the guy who wrote the blog post, who is vegan, never bothered to question this in two years of eating the stuff, when I’m not even completely vegetarian and my first taste had me searching for an explanation. I guess it’s just one more reason vegans are ridiculous.

So, chalk it up to experience, but now I have another weird food aversion to deal with. At least this one is easy to avoid.

Scott Shulman’s back Guest-clacking for us again, after sharing his thoughts about just how super Ina Garten is in his last post….

I was sitting at my go-to sushi place the other night and noticed a man and woman having what can only be described as an awkward first date. The guy (Guy) had rigid lines in his hair creating the tell-tale ‘fresh-haircut-box’ in the back of his head which showed off the noticeable white skin that used to be covered by his unkempt hair. The girl (Gal) wasn’t much better. You could tell she either spent a lot of time shopping for her outfit, or a lot of time making the outfit, because everything matched perfectly.

Honestly, it was probably one of the sweetest moments I’ve witnessed in recent memory. Guy’s trying to schmooze up Gal with the menu, even though he unknowingly has remnants of shaving cream on the side of his neck. Gal struggles with the chop sticks, inadvertently exploding soy sauce and wasabi across the table. All the while everything is sweetly being anesthetized with the combination of Asahi and sake, as it should be. It was all so cute and innocent … until they started bringing out the food.

It looked as though Guy took to the menu a bit too zealously, because when the uni shooters came out, my innate sushi sense started tingling, and I could tell it wasn’t going to go over well with Gal. (Very seldom do you see an apparent sushi novice jump into the deep end with uni let alone uni shooters.)

I saw her lean into Guy, undoubtedly asking what it was, to which he replied, “It’s really good,” (Good job Guy, brace her for the bad news) “It’s a shot glass with some sake,” (Not bad) “some green onions,” (The fuse is lit) “Tobasco,” (Tic) “smelt roe,” (Tic) “uni, which is sea urchin roe,” (Tic) “and a raw quail egg.” (BOOM!) Gal seemed more like Mariah Carey in a diva tantrum than the sweet girl from moments earlier, as she literally convulsed in her seat. (I’ve had a few uni shooters in my day and they really aren’t that bad … utterly uncalled for, but doable.)

Guy was faced with a debilitating conundrum. Do I take two uni shooters and utterly shatter any chance of hooking up with Gal? Or waste roughly thirty dollars on the ovum version of Surf and Turf and order chicken teriyaki? Needless to say, with the current state of the economy, Guy pounded his uni shooters in front of a thoroughly disgusted Gal, and the rest of their dinner ended as awkwardly as it began.

After dinner, the two uncomfortable twenty-somethings walked into the San Fernando Valley night, disappearing back into the depths of eHarmony. I leaned back in my chair and chuckled at the thought of how brash Guy was with his culinary mandates. I mean, you gotta crawl before you can walk, and he should have known better. (But I can’t really talk, considering I was eating dinner alone.) But that’s when I realized I too faced a daunting query. One that has plagued man since the beginning of time…

What’s the best first-date food to eat?

Stay tuned as I investigate.

I always have the best time when my dear friend S. cooks Korean food. I peek over her shoulder constantly, because the flavors and ingredients are so unfamiliar… and delicious! So when S. suggested we make kimbap for dinner one night, I readily agreed, even though I had no idea what it was.

It turns out that kimbap is like Korean sushi. It features the nori and sushi rice that our Debbie loves so well, but the fillings are typically cooked, not raw. We made two kinds of fillings for our kimbap:  spicy shrimp and kimchi and canned tuna and kimchi. S. says her mom also makes kimbap with ground beef cooked with vegetables.

There are recipes all over the web for different types of kimbap. This recipe features frozen spinach and pickled radish, this recipe uses eggs and imitation crab, and this one has beef, fish cake and even lox and cream cheese! Don’t miss this site, which features a video on how to make kimbap with an awesome soundtrack.

But back to our shrimp and tuna kimbap. They weren’t the prettiest ever, but they were so very tasty. The kimchi added a bit of spiciness and complemented the shrimp and the seafood perfectly. The end result was light and flavorful. The only thing we were missing was cold beer to wash them down!

Kimbap with Spicy Shrimp and Tuna

Makes two rolls.

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 cups short-grained rice (dry), cooked per instructions
• ~1-1/2 tablespoons sugar
• ~1/4 cup rice vinegar
• ~1/2 cup kimchi with liquid squeezed out, chopped
• 4 medium shrimp, cooked (per roll)
• sriracha
• 1 4-ounce can of tuna (in oil or water), drained (per roll)
• nori wrappers

Directions:

• Prepare sushi rice: Mix together rice, sugar and rice vinegar in a bowl, adding sugar and rice vinegar slowly to taste.  Rice will be sticky and slightly sweet.
• Prepare shrimp filling: Finely chop cooked shrimp and add enough sriracha to coat.
• Roll kimbap:
  • Place nori wrapper on a bamboo roller or flat surface.
  • Spread a thin layer of rice over entire wrapper.
  • Add a thin layer of kimchee and shrimp or tuna.
  • Roll tightly.
  • Carefully slice roll into six to eight pieces.

We know we’re in the minority, and that we’re lucky we can still enjoy a sushi dinner with our son — although it was very hard to share at first! I guess it’s a good thing he’s old enough to get his own order now.

In case you love a good sushi dinner, but your kids think it’s gross, you could try a few things to get them excited about the prospect of trying sushi:

I loved the tips from Phillip Yi, an experienced sushi chef.  From making sure the kids get chopsticks to some menu suggestions sure to please, this article is a must-read if you’re craving some sushi and you’ve got no place to dump the kids.

To me, one of the easiest ways to get kids to eat something is to show them what’s in it. This can start at the farm, when they get to see how vegetables grow, or it can be making sushi at home with your kids so they get hands-on into the process. They’ll see the seaweed, the rice and you can even let them choose what fillings they want in their sushi rolls. Ah, the power of autonomy….

Oh, and a word to the Minx who doesn’t believe that kids belong in a sushi restaurant? You haven’t met mine. There’s a big difference in dragging children out to a place they don’t want to be, and bringing a refined, yet small, dinner companion out for an evening of commonly enjoyed food. I agree that kids should never be running around any restaurant (even McDonald’s, though my kid’s never been in one of those), but if they have been exposed to and have an appreciation for the food and have been taught proper table manners then kids have a right to eat wherever they like.

I’m guessing you’ve never had antipasto sushi before. Well, why not? We already know the combination of sweet roasted peppers, spicy salami, tangy marinated artichoke hearts and other typical antipasto plate ingredients are pleasing, to say the least. And really, couldn’t you roll just about anything in sushi rice and nori and enjoy it? I said just about anything….

I really don’t know what made me think of this; I suppose I blame hunger above all else. Or perhaps the luscious, salty Kalamata olives that were in the pasta dish I made this week got me thinking. Either way, I’m pretty proud of my divergent creation. I can just see it served at dinner parties around the globe. It’s certainly a lot easier to eat a maki roll and mingle as opposed to balancing your plate with antipasto offerings, a fork and your drink.

Antipasto Sushi

Add the following ingredients to your maki and roll as usual:

• roasted red pepper strips
• thinly sliced salami
• marinated artichoke hearts, thinly sliced
• Kalamata olives, sliced
• fresh mozzarella or feta cheese, sliced or crumbled

Dip your sushi not into soy sauce and wasabi, but instead into balsamic vinaigrette. Now there’s a fun appetizer. Really. It’s going to be a thing.

What I meant to say is that Mango-Pear Sushi with Pomegranate-Blueberry Wasabi is an inspired creation that transcends sushi boundaries. Basically, it’s a sushi dessert. I’m now imagining a three-course meal consisting entirely of sushi… I can taste it now:

I’d start off with a light appetizer of avocado maki, perhaps with some crunchy sprouts and a little tamago. Then, I think I’d go for the hamburger maki as the main course. You know, a real stick-to-the-ribs kind of sushi. Finishing off with some fruit maki would make the perfect sushi meal.

Note to self: don’t blog about food when hungry. Pardon my digression, once again.

So, as per the course of my foodie-ism, I’d change a few things about the fruit sushi recipe. I’d totally leave out the banana, because banana is generally gross when not eaten right out of the peel (and then there is only a small window of 2-3 days for banana perfection; yeah, I’m quirky that way) unless it’s in banana chocolate chip pancakes. Last wrong turn; now back to foodie lane, I promise.

I’d probably add a little bit of honey or agave syrup to the rice, to make it sightly sweet and more desserty. I might take those raspberries from the picture and pop them inside the maki too. Oh, and how about some yogurt in the dipping sauce, and leave out the wasabi? There are a lot of ways to go with the fruit sushi idea, and I’m guessing they’d all be pretty edible.

What do you think? Fruit sushi — yea or nay?

Literally, the creator of this deep fried giant salmon roll called it a crazy maki, so why wouldn’t we take her word at that? Overflowing with salmon, shrimp, crab, cucumber, cream cheese and tamago… yum. Oh, did I mention she then dips the whole thing in tempura batter and deep-fries it until the fish is cooked? Yep, it’s sushi Paula Deen style.

You can try this at home, because it’s going to be cooked, and I know how squeamish you are about making raw fish sushi at home. The worst that can happen is it falls apart and you sprinkle the whole deal over some lettuce and dress it with a sesame ginger dressing and call it a sushi salad. It will taste just as good even if it is ugly.

Our very own Molly turned me on to this next crazy maki: oatmeal sushi. It’s just a photo, but let’s think about how this could work. I don’t think all of the rice could be replaced by oatmeal; that would make for mushi sushi, heh. But, what if we mixed about 1/4 oatmeal with 3/4 rice? It would be just enough, and heck, I’d stuff the sushi roll with some all-fruit preserves or sunflower seed butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Instant breakfast sushi!

Oh, all this crazy maki is getting to me… who am I kidding? I think I’ll make some of the world’s easiest sushi and call it a day.

We celebrate the egg here at CliqueClack Food: Isabelle the Rookie Cook learned to make eggs over-easy, Bob discussed making Eggs Benedict, we wondered if eggs are just for breakfast, and Heidi Swanson treated us to a Tasty Frittata. It was only a matter of time before we glorified the egg sushi.

Better known as tamago (if you’re a real sushi eater, that is), the “omelet” that is used for the sushi is made from egg, sugar and shoyu. This is a great sushi to make at home for several reasons:

• It’s authentic. You can get the very same thing at a sushi restaurant.
• You don’t have to worry if you aren’t a raw fish type, or if it makes you nervous to create your own sushi with raw fish.
• It’s vegetarian.
• It’s wheat and gluten free if you use the right tamari.
• Embarrassingly easy to make, is the tamago (yes, Yoda really did say that.).

So let’s do it!

Sushi Day has really clear instructions, complete with pictures, on how to make tamago. Once you’ve completed your perfect little omelet, try it on one of these maki roll combinations:

• tamago, avocado, daikon radish
• tamago, scallions and sprouts
• tamago, unagi, cucumber (like in the photo)

You’ve got to serve these in the traditional way, as the flavors of the sweet egg, the sweet and spicy pickled ginger, the salty soy sauce and the nose-burning wasabi play off one another so nicely. This is one of my favorite sushi rolls to make at home.

Before you go getting all grossed out, the ground beef is cooked, and accented with onion and bread crumbs, kind of like a mini meat loaf. It’s also dressed with a dollup of barbeque sauce, so that can’t suck, right? Then, it’s wrapped in rice and nori, like a traditional maki roll.

I grant you that hamburger sushi is anything but traditional, but it would make a fun alternative for the carnivore who shuns fish and veggies. plus, it would be a little heartier than your average sushi roll. You could serve it for dinner with a nice big mesclun salad.

Plus, you’ve just opened up a whole new world of eaters to sushi. Heck, this could be the appetizer at your next Super Bowl party, pack it tailgating, serve with with the hot dogs at your summer barbeque. Your friends and family probably already think you’rw a little weird anyway, so what have you got to lose?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Is this a fun concept, or what? A restaurant in Austin, Texas called Maki has found its niche, to be sure — you can design and roll your own sushi roll there. There’s a connection between this restaurant and this column, too … wait for it….

Maki is attempting to make sushi more accessible and less pretentious, which is something I am all for. So many people either think that sushi is gross, expensive, or both. But by allowing people to stuff their own sushi roll with what they find appetizing, and keeping prices reasonable, it seems that Maki is onto something.

It reminds me a bit about what I am trying to do with this column — you really can stick anything you want into a nutritious sheet of nori and enjoy it.

There could be drawbacks too, though. When Maki came to my attention, I immediately thought of Fire and Ice, a chain restaurant in the northeast (and then some) in which you can select your own meats, veggies and sauces, bring them to a grill in the center of the restaurant and stand there as a chef cooks up your meal.

Man, this was great fun when it was novel, but we never, ever go eat there anymore. Why? I really want someone else to serve me when I go out to eat now. I don’t want to stand at a hot grill while my food is cooked; I want to enjoy the company of my dinner companions and have my courses brought to me. Cooking at home is one of my favorite hobbies, but so is being waited on at a restaurant!

So I’m not sure how I’d feel about Maki after a couple of visits there. I’m pretty sure I’d be ready to have the expert sushi chefs prepare my sushi and serve it to me.

Aside from the delightful taste — a little salty, a little fishy, but in a good way — nori is actually jam-packed with nutrition. So beyond enjoying the taste, you can be satisfied in knowing that you are doing something good for your body too.

You want trace minerals? Seaweed’s got ‘em. According to the nutritional information on my package of nori, you’ll get potassium and iron from nori. That’s not all: the minerals in sea vegetables are all of the minerals found in human blood, seaweed is chock-full of phytonutrients and lignans, and are rich in iodine (for thyroid function) and vitamin K (for blood clotting).

Heck, there’s even a little protein in that beloved nori, and a whopping 40% RDA of vitamin A as beta carotene.

So what are you waiting for? You know you’ve been wanting to try a real California Roll, or maybe something vegetarian. All you need is nori, rice and your imagination, so get to it and enjoy your nori and the nutrition that it offers you.

But strangely enough, the California roll has become somewhat of a traditional sushi roll, a paradox in itself.

You can make a real California roll; you don’t have to use the fake crab stuff, and you can add some things that are distinctly California to make a sushi roll that the Golden State would be proud to call their own.

The Real California Roll

Ingredients:

• sushi rice (we use short grain brown rice)
• nori sheets
• avocado slices
• real crab meat, either from the seafood case or canned in the tuna aisle
• broccoli sprouts
• julienned carrots
• julienned cucumbers
• sesame seeds

(Notice the lack of mayonnaise; I’m from the school of thought that mayonnaise shouldn’t be in anything, let alone a delightful sushi roll.)

Follow the instructions that came with your sushi mat to roll an inside-out roll (rice on the outside), stuffed with the goodies above in your favorite proportions. You can even add the mayonnaise if you don’t tell me about it. As always, serve with wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce.

You will be amazed at the difference in taste, texture and overall quality of a California roll with real crab meat and the addition of the sprouts. Enjoy, and let us know in the comments how you like it.

One of our favorites is avocado, lots of delightfully ripe and mushy avocado, squishing out the sides of the nori, just waiting to be licked before it spills out and makes a permanent oil stain on my favorite shirt … OK, avocado has its disadvantages too.

But if you just pop that sucker into your mouth before it mushes, then you’re golden. And avocado is the perfect filling with which to hide other healthy little tidbits, which brings me to the sushi roll combination of the week, in the proportions of your choice:

• avocado
• broccoli sprouts
• red pepper
• fresh spinach leaves
• sesame seeds

Be sure to serve this one traditionally, with wasabi, soy sauce and pickled ginger.

How do you feel about vegetarian maki? It’s not bad, right?