<blockquote><div><cite>Mech__Warrior wrote:</cite>"My name is Ray Poward, Mrs. Whitetails! And I've been in the audience a few times, yes. But I haven't had the courage to come up on stage before until nobody jumped up just now."</div></blockquote><br/><br/>"Well you picked a good time for it. You're going to be the main ingredient in my sushi appetisers." She turned to the audience. "Normally this would be fish, or vegetables, or omelette, but where would the fun be in that?"<br/><br/>The overhead screen started showing pictures as she talked.<br/><br/>"Modern sushi is a fairly recent invention, a form of fast food originating towards the end of the Edo era in Japan, and should be technically called Edo-bay sushi, as that's where most of the ingredients came from. All the forms involve combining pressed vinegared rice, with various toppings. I'll be making three types of modern sushi. Nigiri sushi, so called because it has two ingredients..." The screen showed an oblong block with a sliver of fish on. "... maki sushi, or sushi roll..." The screen showed a barrel shaped piece of sushi, an outer layer of seaweed wrapped around a layer of rice, in turn wrapped around some sticks of sliced vegetables. "... and inari sushi, rice and in this case our featured ingredient, Ray, sealed in a pocket of fried tofu. Inari, the shinto kami of rice and foxes, amongst other things, was apparently also fond of fried tofu, hence the name."<br/><br/>She turned to Ray. "Of course, first we need to wash our ingredients. Ready?"<br/><br/>She made a gesture, and a column of water rose up around him, swirling with little white-caps flowing over the surface. His clothes had somehow vanished, and though he could feel the warm water washing over every inch of him, even flowing down his throat and into some fairly intimat plaes, he found he didn't have any trouble breathing. After about ten seconds, it dissapated with a splash that didn't seem to leave any puddles behind, and he was left, naked but dry and thoroughly clean. His clothes dropped into a basket off to one side of the set.<br/><br/>"A simple washing cantrip with some modifications of my own." She stated. "You're now ready for preparation. You're probably wondering how I intend to make a lot of pieces of sushi, when ther's only one of you."<br/><br/>She gestured, and a large metal baking tray flew across from one of the shelves to land at his feet. "If you'll step onto the tray, you'll find out."<br/><br/><br/>OOC: Mech_warrior, feel free to interject your own comments between mine. I just wanted to get the preliminaries out of the way as fast as possible so we can get to the fun stuff. Chris, interested in becoming the main course, or maybe dessert?