My sister and her girlfriend had dinner with the Pyrate Queen and I last night. We sat down at Tortuga-on-Venice just around sunset, and it was great. I haven't seen her (my sister) since we went to "Avenue Q" last year, and she looks fantastic, healthy, happy, smiling. I helped them park when they first arrived, and sometime between me walking out to meet them and stepping back inside, the Pyrate Queen arrived and bolted into the bathroom to take a shower. I was so happy that everyone got along - and my sister's girlfriend is super cool, too. They went for a walk in Venice while I made dinner.

I found these flavored skewers at Sur La Table (which is very different from PQ's and my favorite kitchen store, Surreal Table) and used them to make veggie skewers. I had the Indian Mango Curry and Thai Coconut Lime, both of which were delicious, and worked far better than I expected, the food really picked up the flavor very distinctly. I threaded on mushrooms, zucchini, Italian squash, green pepper, red pepper and cherry tomatoes. I also made a couple of skewers with fresh salmon from Mitsuwa on it, which was much harder to cut than you might think. Much respect to sushi chefs! I just introduced the salmon to the grill the tiniest bit, and that's all it took. It was really excellent.

I also invented a risotto dish that turned out well enough that it deserves a scandalous name and sharing the recipe. I made it up myself - so if you go google Japanese fusion risotto dishes and come up with something similar, blow me. I created it, this one's mine. That was the biggest hit on the table, I think, and I'm looking forward to making it again. I also included some spinach in soy-wasabi, a dish that PQ and I invented by accident at the Galley. I still haven't gotten it exactly right, but it was good, and well-received none the less. Weakest of the lot, I suppose, but still sufficient.

After dinner we had some drinks, showed each other ridiculous videos on youtube, and socialized for a while before sister-and-friend packed it in drive back up the 1 to Oxnard. Pyrate Queen and I frolicked vigorously down at the beach for a while, then sat on my front stoop finishing a really excellent bottle of wine out of a very sketchy ceramic pot in which we'd sneaked it down to the beach. It was a happy night, a splendid night. I'm so in love it's ridiculous. I'm so glad I got to meet my sister's lovely girlfriend and she got to meet mine. It was G, my sister's girlfriend who perfected the scandalous name for my recipe, and so to her naming credit is due. Someday I will write a cookbook called "Scandalous Dishes" and include outrageous photographs to go with it.

without further ado:
Nagasaki Missionary Position Risotto

1 cup arborio rice
2 tbsp butter
1/3 white onion
1/2 cup bunashimeji mushrooms
1/2 cup porcini mushrooms
1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
1 cup sake
2 cups vegetable stock.
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp fresh grated ginger

In a separate sauce pan, heat the vegetable stock.
In a heavy-bottomed frying pan, pre-heat the pan, then heat the olive oil. Add butter, and when melted, sautee the onion until it's translucent. (Cooking time from here is about 18 minutes)
Add rice and coat with butter and onion. When it's coated, add sake and mushrooms. When sake starts to reduce, coat mixture with vegetable stock and add teriyaki. Continue to stir over heat. As rice absorbs vegetable stock, it will get stickier and dryer. Continually add small amounts of broth so that rice is just barely covered.
When you add the last of the vegetable stock, stir in half the ginger. Save the rest as a garnish.
You could make this vegan by replacing the butter with some other kind of shortening, or just more olive oil.
Serves 4