Sushi Thyme

Last night we decided to "experiment" in the kitchen. Some time ago we bought some nori (seaweed for you america-jin) and some sushi rice. You might be able to tell where this is leading. We made some sushi, hooray!
This was our first attempt, so of course there were problems. But we approach sushi with at least two extra disadvantages that may not face other first-time sushi chefs. Number one, we're both white midwesterners. Huge disadvantage. Second, I hate (hate!) vinegar. I can definitely taste it in regular sushi, no matter how light it is. If you've never made sushi, you may not understand why it is important, but un-vinegared sushi is about as sticky as sticky mud.
Our first attempt was our two-roll attempt. We decided to each make our own roll, and use half a sheet of nori each. I put some carrot and zucchini in mine, and Alison's was all avocado. As you might be able to see in the photo, it didn't go well. I overstuffed mine (both with fillings and with rice), and Alison had too much rice. Luckily enough, the rice was so sticky that you could pretty much set a chopstick on top of it and lift it to your mouth. So it was at least easily edible. Further, we don't have a particularly sharp knife, so we kind of mashed our rolls a little bit. I cut mine first, and you may be able to tell that it's a little flat. I did a better job with Alison's.

Attempt number two was a large roll. For this one, Alison put on the rice and we shared filling duties. Then, she rolled it and my job was cutting, which I did slowly and patiently. The results, as you can see, are much better. This roll contained carrot, zucchini, and avocado. The only problem we had was apparently not quite stuffing it fully enough, as you can see a little bit of spiraling in the nori.

The final attempt for the evening was another carrot, zucchini, and avocado large roll (it doesn't take much vegetable to make filling, as we used a single carrot and a very small zucchini for the four rolls, plus an entire avocado somehow). This one we approached the same way, with Alison ricing and filling, and me cutting. We even did a better job with getting the roll almost the correct size, so there is very little spiraling.

I am going to quit school after this semester is over, and become a sushi chef. While I expect to be good at making and rolling sushi, the fact that it was not very good at all may be a larger problem.