Sushi Satire

Lunch with Dave at Liki. I arrive a few minutes late and become obviously disgruntled as I discover his glass of water has a thin sliver of lemon floating on top, but mine has none. He immediately offers to exchange his glass for mine. I giggle, politely refuse and then point out--and he agrees--that his other beverage, green tea, is heart healthy. He takes a sip while I quickly drain my lemonless water. It's cold and good.

We catch up quickly and somehow drift to the topic of blogs, including this one. He thanks me for "turning [him] on" to B's food blog...comments how bizarre it and he are...and then we crack up. We laugh so hard that it's hard to believe we're not inebriated. I shake my head and say, "I can't imagine now what I was thinking then." He inquires, "You mean because of his gas problem?" I need more water. We wonder if I should satirize that other blog in this post, so, ok, here I go....

We both order from the lunch specials section of the menu. I choose three rolls (spicy tuna, yellowtail and tuna and avocado) for $10.95--a bargain. He orders only two rolls (California and shrimp with avocado) for $8.95, still a good price. Warm miso soup and salad with ginger dressing arrive first. Oddly, the salad has an apple sliver on top--no tomato. Haven't they heard that tomatoes are not, in fact, the culprit of the recent salmonella scare? It's peppers, hot peppers. So why put an apple in the salad? How odd. I desperately want to ask our waitress about this, but her grasp of the English language is poor, so I don't bother. I just accept things as they are and move on. It must be noted, though, that there are two cucumber slices in each salad. Perhaps apples became The New Vegetable when I wasn't looking?

Besides being barely able to speak English, the young Asian waitress is overly eager, frequently checking to see if "you done?" even when we obviously are not. We linger because of the enjoyable conversation. Eventually, the sushi arrives, and I apologize before I begin for the enormous amount of food I will consume. I often overeat at lunch (and then feel bloated and exhausted after....) The sushi is good there--nothing extraordinary but adequate when you have the need, which is something all sushi afficionados understand. I warn, too, that I will eat with my fingers and that I understand that is appropriate in Japan. He agrees and says that he recently discovered that it is also not incorrect to pick up lamb chops with one's digits. Who needs chopsticks and utensils when fingers will do, maaan?

We discuss our mutual middle age and how we both find we have less tolerance now for undesirable people, clients and such, whereas in the earlier years, we were--as he put it--"like whores--but in a good way." That was an earlier time when every person who came through my office door was a perspective client, when I often took clients without retainers, took others with wildly unrealistic expectations and some who just wanted someone to talk to. (Actually....that is a fair representation of the men I usually go out with.) Some wanted a date. Some wanted only to rant with obscenities about their spouses on my answering machine in the middle of the night when the office was dark. It was a different time. A younger time, and my tolerance for such things decreases in direct correlation to the increases in my income and age.

An hour and a half later, we finish and Dave leaves almost a whole roll on his plate which surprises me, and I wonder how anyone can leave sushi on the plate--actually leave it behind--when the need to consume is ordinarily so great?

And of course, there is much juice to drink, and miles to go before I think....