Trina Visits for Sushi Success!

My dear friend Trina came to visit me today. She drove down from suave San Francisco all the way to my hick San Jose suburb in her red Mini Cooper. What a friend! I hoped my quiet neighborhood wouldn’t be too mundane for her and sought to make up for it with food. I had shopped in the morning for all manner of Japanese food items to make miso soup, sushi and soba noodles, salad, Yuan-style grilled chicken and a fruit dessert but after two hours of cooking we realized we had already made far more than we could eat so the last three dishes didn't materialize. I had been looking forward to breaking in the new Japanese cookbook my sister Tami had given me for Christmas, and who better to do that with than effervescent Trina?

We played 80's music on a cassette player (for authenticity) and Trina fanned the rice for ten minutes to cool it while simultaneously adding in the vinegar/sugar/salt mixture. (Next time I will put more sugar). She also rescued the kombu out of the rice pot when it started boiling so it wouldn’t make the rice bitter. (Mission successful: no bitterness detected in rice). Trina also rolled the sushi in nori while I made the nigiri-sushi. She made great combinations of shrimp, shiitake mushroom, carrot and cucumber and others with toro and veggies. Everything tasted so good, though the wasabi was strong and she, Manuel and I each got a turn with a wasabi bomb in our noses! It was so intense my eyes even started watering up half an hour later!

She is such a good and dear friend. I met her in the summer of 1983 at high school Band Camp! We were the very youngest (just two weeks apart), the only 8th graders and we were both flute players. She was very savvy and connected, as her older sister Tiffini was already a veteran marching band flutist. I didn’t know anyone, so one day during the first week or so, as we all sat in a row with our instruments across our laps, I pretended to know what she was talking about with someone else and to be "in" on their conversation. It was very dorky of me but she was really sweet and said, "Oh, do you know what we’re talking about?" And I immediately confessed, "No…I was just…," and just like that we were friends. Happily, we stayed friends all through high school, even though one particular person junior year was very jealous of our friendship and tried to make me drop Trina and be friends only with this other person. (You see? I was actually an ok teenager - I didn't fall for it!) ; )

As a matter of fact, I could never have given up Trina. She was genuine and fun and cute and her hair feathered (mine just refused no matter what I did) and she gladly helped me make my campaign tags on her new high-tech Mac when I ran for class Treasurer… or was it Secretary? Anyway, she was great and we had many hilarious and ridiculous times both in class and out. Like the time the Winter Ball was so boring so we took our dates and drove to Alviso (why???) and then had to escape because the dump was stinky that night. Or the time we rapped a Hamlet soliloquy or the time we gathered in her garage and made a huge sign for radio station KWSS because I was sure we would win a prize.

Well, I could go on and on about her perfect medley of polo shirts and 501 jeans with white Reeboks and our many adventures – I visited her in Ohio, she came to see me in SF… how incredibly beautiful her wedding was last October... but this post might never end. What counts is that we are still the best of friends and I admire her immensely and am quite convinced we will always be the best of friends!


"Zen Babies" acrylic by Kimi using techniques Trina taught me!
The babies are from photocopies of her uncle. 2000.