It seems like sushi is one of those things many of us love—and crave! But we tend to only eat it when we go out. Why is that? I really want to encourage everyone to try rolling their own! It is so simple.
The fabulous thing is that you can keep the primary dry ingredients (uncooked rice and nori/dry seaweed) in your pantry at all times. We keep a small basket in ours where we store those ingredients along with rolling mats (bamboo or silicone) and chop sticks to grab and roll whenever we like. We love to entertain with sushi-rolling parties. It is so fun to get everyone working together in the kitchen!
Locating your local Asian market is your best bet to find fresh sushi-grade fish. Or you can buy pre-made coconut shrimp or imitation crab from your local grocery and add avocado and cucumber to make California Rolls (a guaranteed crowd pleaser). Keep it simple! Keep Reading >
I get a lot of questions about the camera I use for photos on the blog. Most of the time, I’m using a digital SLR (our Canon 6D); but I’d say 75% of the photos I take overall are taken with a smartphone. And it’s amazing how comparable they are!
Thank goodness, too, because it’s about ten times more convenient to pull out my phone when the kids do something cute (and then share it on Instagram). In this case, AT&T let me practice with the new LGG4—which has an especially amazing camera. (And that you have the chance to win, see below!) I was really impressed.
Of course, in light of the old adage, “the best camera is the one you have with you,” here are some tips I’ve picked up for taking better photos with any camera phone.
Have you ever been to Balboa Island in Newport Beach? When I was growing up—in Long Beach, CA—we would frequently drive down the Pacific Coast Highway to go to dinner at the Spaghetti Factory and then get in the line for the auto ferry which would take 3 cars at a time across Newport Harbor to Balboa Peninsula.
My dad would tell me how he spent a summer in a rental on the 0.2-square-mile island and I would try to imagine him there while watching college students pedal around on their cruisers barefoot. We’d head straight to one of the two shops making frozen bananas and Balboa bars (vanilla ice cream dipped in chocolate and rolled in toppings of your choice) and try to eat them without getting the chocolate all over ourselves.
