Late starts are weird

I have never had a closing shift before. Well, not in my adult life. And most definitely not in San Francisco. Seriously, guys, this is THE CITY! I'm not a city girl! I'm not quite the face of suburbia, but that's essentially how I was raised! Being in the city at night on my own brings back memories of my parents and grandparents telling me how dangerous everything is and how I will probably get attacked and killed and then they can sadly say "I told you so." But it can't be that bad, and I'm going to trek through it. It does not start the weirdness of late starts.

Unlike many people I know, I am a morning person. I automatically get up at around 6-7am, sometimes earlier, and I'm generally okay with it. No one else is awake at this time and I can technically do whatever I want, but at the same time I don't want to wake anyone, so I sort of just awkwardly stay in bed and pretend I'm asleep. This is, of course, preposterous, but I can't will myself back to sleep, so it actually just sucks. It does not suck when I actually will myself to get out of bed as quietly as a mouse so I can start cooking breakfast. This is something I only do when I know there are other people who will want to eat breakfast, or can be enticed to eat breakfast if it is presented to them. Unfortunately, today was not one of those days. In fact, I woke up horrendously late (for me) - 9:10! Nine bloody ten! Scott was awake before me! How is that even possible?!

But as I said - I've got the closing shift today, which explains why I'm still here, typing away instead of trudging to work. I spent my idle morning making onigiri. I had completely forgotten how easy it is to make these, and I really have no reason to not have lunch ever because they're so simple. Since I wake up early anyway, I think I'm going to get back in the habit of packing a lunch. Yeah, one of those cutesy bento things. And that's simply because I want to do something productive with the time that no one else is awake.

The expression says it all, doesn't it?

Oh yes. Onigiri. Rice balls. With a face, for reasons of "I want another strip of nori to munch on, AND I CAN TOTALLY GIVE THIS THING EYES IN THE PROCESS" and it just seemed like a good idea. What makes me laugh is that when I uploaded this picture, part of the file path says AAAARg which is essentially what this little dude could be saying. Potentially.

So, before I slowly go about my business with getting to work, this is how you will have pretty much no reason not to have lunch the next morning, because onigiri is shamefully easy to make.

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Onigiri

Prep Time: 5-15 minutes
Cook Time: About 30 minutes, depending on your rice cooker
Serves 2. Or one, if you really like onigiri.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of medium grain/sushi rice (I used Kokuho)
• 1 cup of water
• A pinch of salt
• 2 strips or sheets of nori
• Extra fixin's: Furikake, chunks of salmon, whatever you like

Instructions:

1. Wash the rice and put it into the rice cooker. I only wash it a couple of times because if I do it too much, I'll never get the rice cooked. Once it's drained, add the water and cook the rice.
2. Grab a bowl and a piece of cling wrap. Line the bowl with the cling wrap and scoop some nice, hot rice in the center - enough for one person, which is totally dependent on you. You'll be using this to mold the rice into a ball...triangle...thing.
3. Add a pinch of salt to the center. Mix it with the rice well. If you're adding furikake, you can mix that in as well.
4. Wrap the shapeless rice with the plastic wrap and start shaping it. You can shape it into whatever you'd like - just make sure you do it while the rice is still hot so it'll stick to the shape you want.
5. If you're adding things like salmon or a plum, poke a hole in the middle and make sure you're forming the ball around the stuffin'.
6. When it looks good to you, release it from its plastic wrap shell and slap a piece of nori around it, unless you're saving it for later - then refer to the next step.
7. Eat immediately. Or, if you're making it for lunch, wrap the rice ball tightly with that plastic wrap and take the nori separately. That way, the seaweed will still be nice and crisp when you wrap it around the rice. Note: Careful if you're using things with mayonnaise - it's probably not a good idea to let that sit in your bag for hours and hours. You could get sick or something.

Mm, onigiri. There's an excellent article on Just Bento on onigiri with a bunch of tips and tricks on how to make it extra pretty or yummy or how to make sure it keeps well. Definitely have a look. I, unfortunately, have to get ready for work.