Sushi, of course, is the ultimate in simple food: mostly just rice and a piece of raw fish, it would seem that anyone with a knife and one functioning hand can make it. But take an impossible eye for detail and apply it to fish—Where did it come from? How long should you age it before serving for best flavor? How long should you massage it to make it tender, but still have texture? Where should you cut a piece from, and at what angle, to highlight the flavors of different parts of the muscle? Since temperature affects aroma, how warm should you let the fish get in your hand before serving it? How hard do you press the fish into the rice to form a bite that has integrity, but is not dense?—and you begin to see where a simple food is not so simple. You don’t have to buy into all the minutiae a sushi master trades in to know that the pleasures of great sushi span from the animal to the emotional and the intellectual, which is a great trick for anything to pull off

Karaoke in Japanese. Am looking for tracks with a karaoke version on YouTube for an event. This old post has some great ideas, but sadly half of them have been removed from YouTube. What Japanese language songs do you sing at karaoke at the moment?! The more contemporary the better

Mr. Daniel

1. SERVE IMMEDIATELY OVER FRESHLY COOKED RICE

2. Eat it all up