use real butter

While I am in between X-ray and heart scan, I’m making good use of the wireless network in this part of the hospital. Oooh, someone in medical imaging just gave me a meal voucher! I love this hospital, people are so friendly and upbeat. Unfortunately I can’t eat anything for the next 3 hours, but hopefully I won’t be feeling nauseous when I’m done so I might get myself a sammy.

This blog revolves around food and so does my life. I’m sure I think about food and what I’m going to prepare and eat much more than the average bear. Probably not too much more than the average food blogger :) One thing I wasn’t expecting over the next several months is that I would have to make a few adjustments to my diet. The main kicker: no sushi. *gasp* Honestly, I can forgo anything if necessary. I am not so inflexible.

What better reason to go and enjoy a nice sushi lunch with my sweetheart? There are a lot of places in Boulder to have sushi considering the landlocked status of the state. I haven’t lived here long enough to accept the prices for the quality compared to what I got in So Cal. Okay, but there is one place that has excellent quality and a price tag to match: Sushi Tora.

When Kell asked me what I would want for a last meal, sushi was my immediate answer. I love sushi – California style. That is, not in the traditional Japanese sense only because I haven’t been exposed to the traditional except in New Zealand (go figure). The Chinese are notorious for bastardizing sushi by dousing it with Sriracha and then dunking it in wasabi with a dash of soy sauce. *raises hand – guilty*

Jeremy and I had it good for almost a decade. We had a favorite sushi bar Ai, in South Pasadena. Fumito is the head chef there and he not only treated us to the best sushi, but he became our friend – teaching us to distinguish Good from Bad, sushi. When we moved to Colorado we discovered a handful of decent sushi joints in Boulder, but… price and quality just couldn’t compare to So Cal. They just can’t. We’ll dine out for sushi on occasion in town, but we will more likely make our own at home.

I have a favorite roll from Ai, the Not-So-Special Roll. Fumito has a Special Roll on the menu which is spicy tuna and spicy scallop with avocado, masago, and sometimes cucumber or daikon sprouts all crammed into a cut roll wrapped in halibut… or maybe snapper? I can’t recall because the Not-So-Special Roll omitted the outside fish (just because it got to be incredibly filling). That was my brain child and Fumito was happy to oblige. And that is what we create at home when we start to miss Fumito and all of the regulars at the sushi bar – except Hector and Eddie, those two made me laugh so hard I almost snorted my drink out my nose.

After spending the morning prepping our doors for the winter onslaught and then noodling around the hardware store for Things That Don’t Exist, we swung by Whole Foods to pick up some sea critters. We started with scallop carpaccio, something akin to a small plate I enjoyed with Kell and Jerad at Fish Face in Sydney (awesome place to eat if you’re ever there). I am a sucker for ponzu.

With the trails on the upper mountain closed due to snow (sheesh), we could have attempted another steep trail this morning, except I was tired of the frenetic pace of waking early to hike hard and fast only to return to the timeshare to entertain my parents for the rest of the day. This morning I took my parents to Brandywine Falls, a nearby short hike to what turned out to be the best waterfall I’ve seen in the area.