An image is worth a thousand words

Here are the promised pictures!














The flan; with sliced peaches, papaya, and lime and a caramel crunch. This is only half of the 9 x 9 version, and it served four. The recipe called for cinnamon in the custard, so it was a nice flavor along with the vanilla and normal custard- caramel flavors. Most custards, such as crême brulée or zabaglione, have strong flavors, but the flan is made even more powerful by the dark caramel coating. This is not for the faint of palate. It's fun to play around with the flavorings you add to the custard. Where the recipe calls for vanilla extract, try a fruit flavor or almond or even chocolate or rum. You want the things to be the same consistency and viscosity of the vanilla, though, so DO NOT use chocolate syrup if you want to mess around with chocolate. Try to find something thinner. If you want, you can also mess with the caramel and add food coloring to the water and not let it get so dark. Just think, purple flan! For the caramel crunch, just make a batch of caramel but don't let it get too dark and then take a forkful of it and fling it onto a greased or non-stick-sprayed plate à la Jackson Pollock (be careful it's messy). It's neat if you can get some ribbons going or some threads. You'll have to work quickly though or keep it on a hot plate to keep it malleable. Caramel coating becomes like GLASS once it cools. To put it on the flan, loosen it from the plate after it has cooled and then place it on top or on the individual servings as you like.














First and second courses combined here!

Appetizer: Tekka Maki (tuna roll) and a Tekka/Kappa Maki (tuna and cucumber). There was also a Spicy Kappa Maki and Spicy Tekka Maki but we ran out before I could take a picture. The S.T.M was made using some of the seared tuna (pictured here). It wasn't too bad. The S.K.M was made by putting some wasabi on the seaweed before adding rice and cucumber and rolling. The wasabi (green Japanese horseradish that is MUCH hotter than what you normally get at the supermarket) that I bought for it was more concentrated than it is normally, so it actually caused my dad, mom and I to turn red and grab the nearest piece of lettuce. My little brother is spicy-food-sensitive, so we didn't give him any. Pepperocinis have nothing on this. Nor do Jalapeño peppers.

Main Dish: Shrimp, asparagus, and sweet potato tempura; seared yellow fin tuna that had been crusted in cracked black peppercorns, a little bit of lemon juice, chili powder, and kosher salt; and bacon-wrapped broiled shrimp.

Garnishes: Pickled ginger, which is traditionally served with sushi as a palate-cleanser; wasabi; and soy sauce.

A good site for sushi recipes and terms is http://sushiday.com.

Okay, I lied, it's more like 533 words... that's about half of what I said it would be worth. I ran out of relevant material. If this were for an English essay, I'd beef it up (pun not intended) and make it at least 1000 words. Good thing it isn't.