Sibling Sushi Date

I've been working hard to get my siblings to have a more cultured taste in food.

In December, Older Sister, Little Brother, and Baby Brother accompanied our mother and I to purchase and consume some Indian food. Older Sister and Little Brother were mildly interested in trying some new dishes. Baby Brother, the pickiest eater on this side of anything, mostly just came along for the ride.

Our mother, however, was determined that Baby Brother should try something new. Over the course of the night, he tried lassi, plain naan with a bit of the sweet dipping sauce they brought with our lamb samosas, and garlic naan.

Surprise! Baby Brother enjoyed the naan.

Baby Brother cackled to me, "Now I can be your naan buddy! Your non buddy!" because apparently that joke never get old.

Then a few weeks ago, Little Sister tried a cannoli, and tonight I took Little Brother with me to a Japanese restaurant so that he could try sushi for the first time.

In the almost-two years since I wrote this post, I have gotten a lot better with my chopstick skillz. Over the summer, I bought two pairs of chopsticks at the summer fest and whenever I get Chinese takeout, I whip out said chopsticks and practice. I rarely drop my sushi now, though I still despair of ever being able to use chopsticks to eat rice.

Little Brother, on the other hand, is completely inexperience with chopsticks. I tried to show him how to use them. Then I showed him how to eat ginger to cleanse his pallet and how to mix soy sauce and wasabi together to make a sushi sauce.

I started to mix the sushi sauce for Little Brother, but he decided to try to be useful by helping to add wasabi to his soy sauce. Which meant that his soy sauce had a lot a lot of wasabi in it. Every time Little Brother dipped a piece of sushi in the sauce, he would get a mouthful of wasabi and act like he was going to die.

After about an hour of this fine dining, two things happened. First, our father texted me, asking us to hurry home so we could go for frozen yogurt with our mother. Second, Little Brother, having consumed four or five pieces of sushi and half a plate of calamari, said that he was getting full. On sushi. Who gets full on sushi? The result of this was that he slowed down eating while we really needed him to hurry up.

Having finished my own sushi several minutes before, I begin to outline to Little Brother the game plan for the rest of the sushi.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Just eat those last two rolls and we'll go.

LITTLE BROTHER: (struggles to pick up roll and accidentally breaks it in half)

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Do you-

LITTLE BROTHER: I WILL NOT USE A FORK!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Then put the pieces in your mouth.

LITTLE BROTHER: (manages to pick up piece of sushi with chopsticks and bring it towards his mouth)

PIECE OF SUSHI: (unwinds and drops onto Little Brother's plate)

LITTLE BROTHER: This is really embarrassing.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Just eat the salmon.

LITTLE BROTHER: (tries to pick up piece of salmon that fell out of roll)

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Stab it with your chopsticks.

LITTLE BROTHER: (stabs salmon like ineffective salmon assassin)

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: A little gentler.

LITTLE BROTHER: (manages to flip salmon off the plate and onto his lap)

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Well, I'm definitely getting my money's worth.