Sister, Sister

So I mentioned yesterday that my sister, Leigh, was coming to do some baking adventures with some of the kids at school. She’s a pastry chef for Tru Restaurant here in Chicago, a place that is WAY beyond my budget! I was so excited to have her see where I work, and to meet bunches of my students… but little did I know what a blast we would have!

Earlier in the day, around 11 a.m., Leigh arrived at my school and got to work making pate-a-choux, the doughy stuff used to make cream puffs and éclairs. We ate lunch (Subway!) and then I went off to teach my classes. Next thing I know, groups of kids are RUNNING down to my classroom SCREAMING “MISS O!!! Your sister is AWESOME!!!!!” They had so much fun in class today, and were so appreciative of the different type of lesson. After school, a select number of students stayed after school for a cupcake decorating and cream puff stuffing lesson. Here’s my sister in action:

The kids had so much fun and came out with some gorgeous cupcakes. I gotta say, too, it was really nice having my sister at work with me!

We left school at about 4:30 and headed straight for Daruma for a non-Friday sushi dinner. It was Leigh’s first time at Daruma, so she pretty much told me “Order! I’ll eat whatever!”

We started out with an asparagus beef maki, which was asparagus wrapped with very thin steak, covered in teriyaki sauce:

Food blogger nerd alert: in EACH of these pictures, both Leigh and I were poised with pieces of sushi or appetizer near our mouths and I said “NO WAIT!!! GOTTA TAKE A PICTURE!” I swear the sushi chefs thought I was nuts, and they know me!

We continued with not one, not two, but THREE plates of sushi!

Plate one had From top left, clockwise, a crazy roll with tuna, salmon, yellowtail, scallion, spicy sauce, and lettuce; a Jennifer roll, with tamago (egg), shiitake mushroom, shrimp, and then the whole thing was tempura fried, and a Harumaki, the best spicy tuna roll EVER!

Plate two contained only one roll, the Crunchy Roll. It is a roll with shrimp tempura on the inside, tempura crunchies on the outside, lots of masago (fish eggs) and a drizzle of eel sauce.

Then, plate three was something really special. I asked the sushi chef to “surprise us” with a roll. He came up with this:

We aren’t exactly sure what was in it… but we think it was tuna, asparagus, cucumber, and then each piece was topped with a salad of imitation crab salad with red masago, radish sprouts, and a creamy ginger-miso dressing. We think. It was all SO INCREDIBLE! Thanks Daruma!

Adam had mentioned that he wanted “just a taste” of sushi… I thought about bringing him just one piece of sushi, but I thought better of it and brought him his very own harumaki to the video game store since he’s working until 9:30 p.m. Then, we headed out to the one other place I love that my sister hadn’t been to….

any guesses?

you sure??

Is that your final answer?

Yup! You’re right! YOGEN FRÜZ!!! We found decent parking at the mall where the Früz is, and Leigh was kind of overwhelmed with the choices. She ended up with chocolate probiotic yogurt with cherries blended in. I got my usual: plain soft serve with strawberries, peaches, and mini chocolate chips:

It was such a fun day! I’m glad tomorrow is Thursday, that’s for sure, even though Adam works until 9:30 the rest of the week. Tomorrow *should* have a fun guest post, and then I’ll have a new guest for dinner on Friday! I’ve gotten a few responses about being a guest for dinner… but do YOU want to be a guest? Here’s what I’m looking for:

• a short post outlining in some way what you ate for dinner. It can be a recipe, a description, a how-to, or a combination of all of those.
• a photo of the meal! Everyone loves pictures!
• What did you THINK of your meal? Would you eat it again? Does the recipe have a story?

And that’s it! You can email your guest dinners to mara@imadedinner.net and I’ll get them posted in the order in which they arrive. I’m looking forward to having LOTS of Guests for Dinner!

… and I’m beat

Have a great night!

Tagged as: dinner out, family, sushi