Sushi Night at 4-TY

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: mwahmw (pronounced like "mom") = "fish"

Before anyone complains that I’ve neglected you all for the last few days, I should tell you that I’ve been spending them lounging about in my office, reacquainting myself with Minesweeper and Space Cadet Pinball, so there hasn’t been much to report. Nonetheless, here’s the highlights.

Menseng en Rahnsarawi - that is, Sunday morning – the power went out around ten in the morning. This is my second time experiencing what happens when the little numbers on the CashPower box run down to zero point zero. Unfortunately, CashPower itself doesn’t open until one on Sundays - which would have been less unfortunate had I known that. Instead, I believed the random guy in a pickup truck who told me they usually open at ten, and as a result I sat around waiting for an hour in the tropical heat, cursing the “Pohnpeian style” of punctuality. Eventually, I decided to run some errands, and when I came back they were open. Confident the $50 I spent would last a while, I rebelliously blasted my AC for an hour once I got home.

We began checking the meter regularly and writing down the balance on a list stuck to the refrigerator. On Niehd, I was shocked to see we had used some 38 kilowatt-hours (about $19 worth of power) throughout the night, while running only our fans. It soon became clear that some other culprit was at fault, and the only reasonable suspect was the blasted water heater – the fridge barely costs $2 a day to run. I will never figure out how, when the temperature is a constant 85 degrees, it can cost an arm and a leg to heat something, and be virtually free to freeze something … but that’s how it is. So much for the tantalizing dream that was hot showers. Fortunately, since making this discovery and turning the heater off at the breaker, we have been using about $4 a day – at that rate, our power bills will be 20% of our monthly income, which is doable.

In a further attempt to conserve power, I have been going in to my office at COM just to sit in the air conditioning and charge my laptop. This has resulted in some marathon sessions of Solitaire, interrupted from time to time with real work (like typing my syllabi or glancing through my textbooks) when I get really bored.

I’ve also been getting to know my coworkers. Next to me sits Evelyn Tadena, who as I’ve mentioned before is the reason I was chosen for COM. The other day she showed me a picture on her computer of her brother, the one who works at ICBR… I’ve given up attempting to explain how big of a place UF is, and now I just nod and say, “I think he looks a little familiar.” It seems to make her happy.

Across from me is my department head, George Mangonon. He’s an awesome boss, and his only flaw may be that he’s a little too nice – I’m getting tired of being asked how I’m doing or if I need something every time I walk in the door. There’s also Emma, who teaches science and brings in her little girl a lot. Oh, and I finally met Takuya Sunohara, the JICA volunteer who will be teaching math as well – I was excited to see that his English is pretty poor, which means I can trade with him for some Japanese lessons. I invited him over for dinner tonight, and I think I’ll bring it up then.

Pwong en Niehd(Monday night), I finally finished Me Talk Pretty One Day, and I accordingly began looking for my next book to tackle. I tried to start Cormac McCarthy’s The Road again, but I just can’t take a writer seriously when he can’t seem to find either the comma or quotation marks keys on his computer. I finally settled on Tanja’s brand new copy of War and Peace - after all, if I can’t read it when I don’t have cable, when will I ever? At present, I’ve got 65 pages down and only 1493 to go.

On Niare, I realized I’ve been slipping into too much of a routine lately. I had chalked it up to moving, but now that excuse is fading fast and it’s time to start forcing myself to do new and different things. Hence, I set myself to the task of learning to make sushi. I figured that if I’m going to live in the land of cheap sashimi, I ought to be able to get my hands on a decent spicy tuna roll one way or another, and nobody around here seems up to it.

After looking up some instructions on the internet, I began pounding the pavement all over Kolonia looking for the various ingredients I would need. I started at Yoshie, which had just about everything except the bamboo mat you need for the actual rolling. The cheapest bag of sushi rice they had was twenty pounds, so I guess I’ll be doing this plenty of times.

I finally found the mat at INS, near where we used to live – it was good to be back in the old neighborhood, and one kid even recognized me and stopped for a high five and fist bump. Afterwards, I headed over to the fish market near the airport causeway. I found out later there’s one closer to home, but what the hell – I needed the exercise.

I should note here that “fish market” is maybe not the best word to apply to a couple of plastic tables laden with a few yellow fin carcasses and a plastic cooler full of reef fish. Still, at $1.80 a pound for tuna so fresh it practically has a pulse, I’m not complaining. The only problem is that they won’t actually sell you a pound, but rather whatever manageable chunk they can manage to hack the beast into. Thus, I ended up walking home with a four pound plastic shopping bag containing half the tail, including the signature yellow fin.


Now, anyone who’s known me long enough will tell you that I’m not afraid to try insane things when I cook, though my abilities usually fall far short of my aspirations. However, I have to say that this little experiment went off quite well. I started by cooking and seasoning the rice, a process which real sushi chefs in training spend up to three years perfecting. I think I used either too much vinegar or too much sugar, but at least it was sticky and that’s the important part.

Then I started hacking up the tuna, which fortunately cuts like butter and has large meaty sections which are easily identifiable, even to those not versed in ichthyian anatomy. I put some of the pieces in a bowl and mashed them up with mayonnaise, kimchi base, and wasabi. The prep work done, it was now time to get rolling.

My first attempt at it was a pretty dismal failure – I only used half a sheet of nori, and I overstuffed the rolls so they burst open when I tried to cut them. On the second try, I used a whole sheet and let the finished roll sit in the fridge a bit to stiffen up before cutting it, and this definitely did the trick. Before long, I had made two spicy tuna rolls and two with plain tuna and cucumber sticks.




Knowing that this was way too much to eat with just the two of us, Tanja and I invited Andy and Erin to join us for dinner. I was pleased to see that my ad hoc creations were in fact edible; despite the fact that the tangy rice clearly overpowered the fish, the plate I had piled high with bite-sized pieces was soon emptied and compliments were given all around. I was quite pleased with myself, so much so that I did all of the dishes right then and there with a huge smile on my face. I also made another three rolls with the spicy tuna I had left, which will be lunch (and probably also dinner) today.

Today, I’m in for another marathon session of minefield clearing and War and Peace reading, but tomorrow I finally get to start what I came all this way to do. This weekend, I’m going to try breaking up the monotony with a visit to Matt and Lucas down in Madolenihmw, where I will hopefully get to see Nan Madol and Kepirohi Falls. Look for the pictures and videos. :)