Our family celebrated the Mother’s Day early, on Saturday, and instead of going out to a restaurant and fight the crowd (I heard that Mother’s Day is the busiest time of the year for restaurants), my mother hosted a sushi party for this special day. I think the idea of hosting one’s own celebration is really cool, like hosting your birthday party or, in this case, a mother’s day dinner!

She really outdid herself this year, preparing everything from assorted sashimi, to marinating her own saba (mackerel) with vinegar and sugar, to making fluffy omelet-like eggs (called “atsuyaki tamago”), and even cooking kanpyo (those string thing cooked in delicious soy sauce). She even prepared us natto, fermented soy beans, that we love so much. Natto is definitely not for the faintest of heart — it is, afterall, a stinky, slimy, rotten soy beans — but we Japanese eat it regularly, most commonly in breakfast!  It is so nutritious and very delicious.

Assorted sashimi platter, with yellowtail, tuna, halibut, and salmon, with kaiware radish, and takuan (picked radish)

Atsuyaki Tamago and julianned cucumbers

Mackerel marinated in vinegar and sugar

Natto with the fixings (chopped green onion, mustard, and dashi), perhaps the most underrated food in the world

I am so lucky to have the kindest, the strongest, the most beautiful, most caring, most generous, and the greatest woman as my mother. Happy Mother’s Day … and the same for all the awesome mothers in the world!