Chef’s cutting board

New textbook: Sushi for Everyone

 

Cultural News, April 2008

 

By Andy Matsuda

 

   After two years of hard work, we recently completed the process for publication of Sushi for Everyone, the textbook for the Sushi Chef Institute. The 130-page textbook explains my entire two-month course at the school with color photos on all pages. All the steps of making sushi are photographed.

 

    Sushi for Everyone will be available for sale to the public. The book price will be announced shortly.

 

   Our next instructional materials development project is a DVD called “How to Learn Japanese.”  It will feature common greetings, simple conversations, Japanese names of fishes and vegetables, and the Japanese pronunciation of numbers.  It was created due to a request among many of our students during Sushi Chef training sessions. The first version of this DVD may contain conversational lessons that are about one-hour in length.

 

   Readers may see a lot of my instructions for free on Internet websites.  On the popular video sharing site, www.YouTube.com, ten video clips produced by Sushi Chef Institute can be viewed upon searching the words “Andy Matsuda.” All except one Spanish version are trailers of our DVD. The video clips are informative for sushi lovers.

 

   The British-based “Do It Yourself” website, www.VideoJug.com, is emerging as one of the most popular video sharing sites. Unlike other video sites, Video Jug edits video clips and records their own narrations. We already uploaded “How to Make Chicken Teriyaki,” “How to Make Nigiri Sushi,”  “How to Make Gyoza Dumplings,” and sushi varieties such as chirashi-sushi and hako-sushi. Try www.VideoJug.com by searching “Andy Matsuda.” 

 

    In the real world, we will open a sushi booth at the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival on April 19 and 20 to be held at Barnes Park in Monterey Park. We will be selling sushi boxes from 11 a.m. on both days.

 

     On Sunday, April 20 at 2:30 p.m., I will take on the role of a judge at the Los Angeles SushiMasters regional competition to be held at the Aratani/Japan America Theatre in Little Tokyo. Catch me at Monterey Park or in Little Tokyo. 

 

   Andy Matsuda is the founder and the chief instructor of the Sushi Chef Institute in Los Angeles. For more information about the school, visit www.sushischool.net.

 

  (This text is completed by Shige Higashi)