How to Make Tako Nigiri
Cooked sushi rice
Sashimi-grade octopus
Wasabi
Nori
A feeling of closeness
A sharp knife
First, you will need to cook sushi rice. On your dad’s chair he balances a donabe rice cooker. He crouches over the bag of rice on the floor, his hair blending into the black clay of the rice cooker. He cuts a slit between the three dancing ladies, grains spilling onto the floor. A few bounce between your chubby toes. You bend over your plump belly to grab them, little golden coins rolling in and around your feet. Your dad brings you over to the sink to fill the rice cooker with water. Four hands rest on the rice as water fills the pot. Water rises in the pot. Water rises above the rice. Water rises just above your fingers. Your dad shuts his eyes, feeling the weight of the rice and water. You just feel little golden coins. Finally, it is ready to be cooked. After 20 minutes, while it is still very warm, add sushi vinegar. Stir vigorously. Steam hits your face and softens your cheeks. Keep stirring. You grow a little older.
Next, catch an octopus. They live in small holes and dens at the bottom of the ocean floor – crevice themselves between rocky bits of technicolor. You read somewhere an octopus has nine brains. It will be hard to find and catch one you think, so you buy one in Chinatown with three gold coins. Its tentacles strain against your woven bag, bruising its skin. When you get home, you stick it in the bathtub. Before dinner you sneak in with your Hello Kitty slippers and feed the octopus snails you found under your dad’s motorcycle. Her tentacles reach out and hook onto your thumb. Rooster, you name her. When your dad kills your little creature, you hold back tears. She must be cut into thin slices with a sharp knife. Go to school. Pass sticky love notes in the fourth grade.
“Do you want to go out with me? Yes, or no?”
Your crush with the cheeks the color of milkweed and caterpillar eyebrows scribbles
back, “Yes.”
You break up the next week. In the fifth grade, learn about lines and circles and rays and angles. Cut the sweet creature’s arm at a 45-degree angle on the handmade bamboo board you got at H-Mart, packaged in cellophane.
In your right hand take about three tablespoons of rice. Sneak a few bites, the sweet grains sticking to your lips. Later, meet your loved one. He tells you an octopus has three hearts. You believe him, remembering your old friend in the bathtub. Four hands squeeze the rice together until it rolls into a firm oval mound. But don’t squeeze too tight! Or they will pull away. Remember how your father used to teach you to make rice – teach the boy in the kitchen with blue eyes.
Assemble the nigiri. On the root of your fingers, balance the slice of octopus. Then spread a pea-sized portion of green wasabi on its underbelly. One lick of the wasabi and heat shoots up your nose, freeing your nasal cavity and stinging the back of your throat. You wonder if the wasabi burns the octopus. Hug the sushi rice and octopus together. Hook a thin slice of nori all the way around. Finally, serve with the small soy sauce dish you were given for Christmas and pickled ginger.
Finally, enjoy.
Milla Chunton is currently studying Writing and Rhetoric and Art History as an undergraduate at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Her work is inspired by the tenderness and burnt ends of nature, family, and heartache.