1. Evelyn: "I should cook dinner some day."
2. Family: decides that a Japanese themed dinner would be fun.
3. Evelyn: decides to keep it simple--salad, sushi, teriyaki salmon, and tempura.
4. Parents: receive a little shopping list from Evelyn.
5. Parents: disregard Evelyn's shopping list and go wild shopping for ingredients. Buy hundreds of dollars worth of seafood and sashimi (including 4 kg of salmon for cooking, salmon sashimi, octopus tentacles, tuna, yellowtail, oysters, ...)
6. Evelyn: goes wild preparing dinner. Makes enough food to feed the five thousand.
7. Family: considers inviting the impoverished to partake of the feast. And seriously considers asking the neighbours over for dinner.
On the dinner table tonight:
- Light Japanese salad
- 7 different types of sushi
- 4 types of tempura
- 4 plates piled high with sashimi
- Pan seared teriyaki salmon
- Oyster omelette (think ohr lua, but even better--this may sound sacrilegious, but I think it trumped Chomp Chomp's!)
- yellowtail carpaccio (not Japanese, I know, but still very good)
... and three scalded and blistered fingers. Boiling oil from the tempura :( Very painful. On the bright side, this is teaching me ambidextrosity.
Apart from that: SUCCESS! I am very pleased. It was horribly fun to prepare and tasted fabulous. And I think it's time for a long, long jog.