Sushi With a Smile

Image courtesy of Jonathan Griffin.

You can find art in anything, this much Los Angeles-based art writer Jonathan Griffin knows. When it comes to an on-going tradition with his friend, the artist Tom Woolner: You don’t have to look past your dinner plate. “When making sushi with my kids, we always send Tom a picture for his collection,” Griffin tells Family Style of Woolner’s archive of hundreds of pictures of food faces. The writer’s latest submission? Sushi with a smile.

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Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups sushi rice
• ¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar
• 6 sheets nori
• Whatever you want to fill it with—cucumber, avocado, carrot, tofu, salmon, tuna, cream cheese (barf).

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Instructions

1. Place water and rice (don't rinse first!) in a large saucepan over a medium flame. Once water is bubbling, lower flame and cover pan with lid. 
2. Cook for 13 minutes or until water is fully absorbed.  
3. Add rice vinegar to the pan and stir to incorporate. It might look wet but it will absorb as the rice cools.
4. Place the nori on a mat, shiny side down, then cover with an even layer of cooled, prepared sushi rice. Smooth gently with wet fingers. (Leave a strip of nori along the top.)
5. Lay out your fillings (not too chunky) in a line about a third of the way up the rice.
6. Roll that bad boy up, from the bottom edge of the mat, as tightly as you possibly can.
7. Wet the exposed top edge of the nori, and seal.
8. With a sharp, wet knife, cut the long sausage shape into rolls.