Eating Fleshy Slugs

You guys get to know who got the Classic Post Award on Friday. I've got something to tell you today.

I...don't like Sushi.

There. I said it. 

It's not that I haven't tried. I've tried so many times to like it, and it just never seems to work out. 

I think my biggest issue is that I really don't enjoy any kind of seafood. I mean, I think lobster is okay and I'll eat fried catfish as long as you tell me it's chicken, and I'll even eat calamari so long as it's chopped up and not fried whole body together so that when I pick it up there's a little body that looks like it should be in the ocean playing with Nemo and not sitting on my plate, but I really can't stand eating things that look like they could just jump off of my plate and swim away. Like shrimp, and lobster, and crab.

And my OTHER biggest issue with Sushi (aside from the raw fish factor) is that they combine everything together, but separately, so that each distinct flavor hits you separately. I am a stubborn believer in separate foods staying separate. If they aren't blended together in a homogeneous way, I don't want it touching. My macaroni does not touch my mashed potatoes and gravy, which does not touch my chicken, which does not touch my dinner roll, which doesn't touch my salad. A lot of times this requires separate dishes, but that's fine with me. I don't want it touching. 

Sushi is all one piece of avocado with one piece of crab and wrap that in rice and then wrap that in seaweed. I seriously can't stand that because, when it comes down to it, chewing all of those flavors together so that I get hit with the raw taste of crab by itself is revolting. In fact, when I tried that California Roll with my lunch yesterday I gagged and spit it back out onto my soup spoon. 

I tried. These things are just...not for me.

The combination of everything wrong with Sushi plus my own thought that ew, it's raw fish makes it pretty difficult to enjoy it. In fact, even the dessert course was difficult for me because on the one hand I loved the three different sauces the dessert was covered in, and I loved the breading and the cream cheese...but when I bit into the crab I had to fight the urge to gag. I seriously sat there, chewing, alternating between oh my god, this is so delicious and ew, I'm going to be sick. I'm going to gag! 

Dizzy found it extremely entertaining, but even just looking at what he was eating made me want to gag.

This is what he ate, and it looks like fleshy slugs. Yuck!

Yesterday I came home and told Padawan, "I think today was my last ditch attempt to open myself up to the idea of Sushi. I'm seriously done trying it this time. I will never like it."

"That's too bad. I love Sushi."

"Yes, I know. But we can still go to Sushi restaurants. I'll just order something with chicken. All Sushi restaurants serve cooked things for us picky eaters."

Padawan has opened me up to a lot of things I didn't eat before. I like lobster (cut up so I don't have to feel bad) and I like calamari because of him. But my ability to eat seafood has a definite stopping point: I want my seafood cooked, thank you.

Which is interesting considering that I will not eat steak if it is cooked above medium rare, and the truth is I like it just browned on the inside and just warm enough in the center that it doesn't bleed all over my plate in a way that will make me nauseous. My steaks are pretty much raw but I won't even entertain the notion of eating tuna that raw.

At least I can say I tried, and on more than one occasion. I'm just one of those people for whom Sushi is not a good idea. But I'll keep trying with carrots. Maybe one day I'll like them.