A pair of chopsticks sits beside every plate, while the soy sauce is conspicuously absent at a Bengoshi Bob sushi-making class.
Those chopsticks, though? They’re really just a trick question.
“How many of you are going to use your chopsticks to eat your sushi?” the Cheyenne attorney asked his most recent group, gathered at Vintages for a sushi-making dinner paired with custom wines.
Several hands shot up.
Bob shook his head.
“Don’t,” he said. “Sushi was intended to be a finger food. Does anyone know how sushi originated in Japan by any chance?”
Sushi, Bob explained, was “war food.”
In his telling, vinegar helped preserve the rice longer, while readily available fish made for a portable meal that could be wrapped in seaweed and eaten on the go.
Today, sushi has become more art form than humble lunch. And the customs around eating it have also evolved.
Teaching those customs is part of what Bob’s sushi-making classes are all about.
Bengoshi is Japanese for lawyer, but Bob’s counsel for the night concerns dinner and proper sushi etiquette.
“Most people don’t get to experience sushi the way it’s supposed to be eaten,” Bob told Cowboy State Daily. “That’s what I kind of introduce the class to.”
Beyond that, though, Bob wants people to experience aspects of Japanese culture. He wants them to feel like they’ve been transported to Japan, if only for a few hours.
Skip The Soy Sauce
Bob’s secret weapon for the trip is humor, which he uses to steer his guests away from some all-too-familiar American sushi-eating habits.
At the top of his list is drowning every piece in soy sauce. That’s why he keeps the soy sauce away at first.
“Everything is already prepared to not use soy sauce,” he said. “In fact, Japanese people don’t put soy sauce on their hot rice when they eat it. They just eat it white. That’s a purity thing.”
Bob encourages his students to taste their sushi unadorned first, just as the chef intended. Afterward, if they want to add a little extra sauce, they’re welcome to do so, but carefully.
“If you’re going to put your sushi in soy sauce, do the fish side, not the rice side,” he said. “Because the rice side is just going to fall apart.”
Setting aside chopsticks isn’t about rigid rules, he added.
“I’m freeing you from having to look like you know how to use a utensil like this,” he said, demonstrating with a pair of his own chopsticks. “That’s the long and short of it. I’m freeing you tonight.”
Block Parties To Auction Block
For all his enthusiasm about Japanese food, Bob Walters didn’t grow up eating sushi, even though his mother is Japanese.
He remembers her gathering with other Japanese women whose husbands were stationed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base to prepare traditional New Year’s foods. But he doesn’t recall sushi being among them.
The ingredients weren’t readily available locally, he said. Bringing fresh fish home from Denver meant a drive of two hours or more, and the fish might not be eaten right away.
When Walters lived in California, though, fresh fish was everywhere. He took Japanese language and cooking classes, eventually learning to cut fish and make classic sushi rice.
The first time he made sushi for others, it was for a block party. Potato salad sounded boring, so he made some shrimp nigiri instead.
The hostess remembered it the following year. Her invitation for the annual block party came rolled up in a casual, “If you’d do the sushi again that would be great.”
Walters started making the sushi every year, but he kept it simple. Shrimp nigiri, California rolls, and maybe a basic tuna roll.
Over time, though, he started to improvise. Maybe those California rolls, for example, would be a little better with king crab instead of imitation crab.
“There were a variety of things I could do for a relatively small group,” he said. “I mean, block parties, you’d have anywhere from 30 to 50 people, but not everyone’s going to eat the sushi.”
Still, his generous supply of sushi was usually exhausted. He was clearly on a roll with it. Some even suggested he open a restaurant — but he had no intention of quitting his day job.
Sushi For A Cause
When he returned to the Cheyenne area, a colleague suggested another use for his hobby — a sushi-making class to help an MS bike group raise money.
That led to more classes and then another suggestion, one that eventually put the attorney on the auction block.
Walters was dubious anyone would pay a significant amount for a sushi dinner he prepared. But he was wrong.
The winning bid was $625.
Since then, bids have climbed into the thousands. His highest so far is $4,000 for a group dinner of up to 20 people.
The winning bidder gets a dinner. The nonprofit gets all the auction money. Walters picks up the grocery bill.
Depending on the menu and ingredient prices, that typically means $300 to $500 out of his own pocket, along with the time he spends preparing and serving the meal.
His dinners have helped raise money for organizations like the Cheyenne Animal Shelter, Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra and Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Foundation.
He generally limits himself to no more than four donated dinners a year, just to make sure he’s never stretching his attention too thin. He wants each dinner to be a special occasion not only for his guests, but for himself as well.
“I try to add something new or different every time I do it,” he said.
A Taste Of Japan In Cheyenne
At Vintages, one of the first challenges for the class was getting the rice to stick together without sticking to their fingers.
Walters directed his students to the bowls of water on their tables. They wanted to moisten their hands a little bit, he explained. But not too much or the rice would just fall apart.
Then came shaping the sticky rice, pressing it together firmly enough to hold without completely flattening it.
Bengoshi Bob circulated among the tables, watching everyone’s progress and offering pointers — too much rice here, a little adjustment there.
This reporter thought she might need more rice for her roll, but Walters showed her how to move what was already there around with her thumb.
“Yours is fine,” he said.
Not everyone in the class was interested in making sushi at home, and that was OK with Walters as well.
The point was the journey to a place that felt like Japan, with a little more cultural understanding to take home for the next time sushi was on the menu.
Walters remembers eating sushi with a Japanese client at the foot of Mount Fuji one time, seated by a window overlooking a garden and a pond full of koi.
“It was fresher tasting than anything I had previously experienced in the United States,” he said.
At Vintages, the view is a little different. But with a little rice, a few pieces of fish, and a roomful of people willing to try, Walters can make his guests feel as if they’ve been somewhere new — and remind them they don’t really need the chopsticks to get there.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
