On a roll

Friends who have tasted my cooking know that putting me together with raw fish is a rather dodgy proposition. But let it never be said that I back down from a challenge.

When I learned about Birmingham Sushi Classes at Cahaba Brewing Co. roughly once every six weeks, I began envisioning myself as a master chef capable of making delicate sushi rolls covered in delicious sauces. So even though my real cooking skills don’t extend that far beyond boiling water, I contacted class instructor Kelly Viall and signed up anyway.

And in a twist I can either attribute to a great teacher or an actual, real-life miracle, I did successfully make a sushi roll that night.

Viall is a Birmingham resident and has a background in making sushi for restaurants, but she began teaching classes more than four years ago. She said the idea came after customers at sushi bars would ask her to demonstrate at their homes. “Most of them love to eat it,” Viall said of her students. “They don’t know anything about it.”

Since January, she has taken her rolls on the road, teaching classes around the Southeast from Texas and Arkansas to Kentucky, Tennessee and North and South Carolina. 

“Everybody wants to know how to make sushi, not just here,” Viall said.

Between Birmingham and other cities, Viall estimates she has had “almost 4,000 people take this class and 4,000 people have been able to do it [make sushi].” Her location of choice in Birmingham is Cahaba Brewing, and Viall said she typically sets up at similar breweries in other states, as the venues are a comfortable environment for her and the 20 or so people who come to each class.

At the sushi class I attended, most of the participants said they had tried to make sushi at home and failed, while a few had taken Viall’s class before. From the start, it was clear Viall knew she was talking to a room full of beginners, and was confident anyway.

“Y’all are not going to eat at the sushi bar much after this,” she promised before the nearly three-hour class began.

I’m not going to give away Viall’s secrets here — if sushi is something that interests you, this class would be worth the investment. But I will say her lecture covered every aspect of sushi that I could imagine — where to buy ingredients, selecting and handling the fish, sauce ingredients, making sticky rice, rolling the sushi and even how to present the roll on a plate.

There also were unexpected things I learned, like the purpose of ginger — to cleanse the palate between dishes — and why to avoid refrigerated sushi — it ruins the texture of the rice and the nori (seaweed) wrap.

As we learned, I realized sushi might be even more delicate than I had imagined. My fingers felt enormous and clumsy as I tried to shape the sticky grains of rice without mashing them together, as well as when we rolled everything together to make sushi that, as Viall reminded us, needed to be small enough to eat each piece in a comfortable bite.

But throughout the entire process, I never felt like sushi was something unattainable. Viall kept it approachable enough for anyone to make a roll, even if there’s clearly a whole world of sushi techniques more advanced than what I learned.

Having taught thousands of people, Viall said she knows exactly when her students are going to get excited and jump a step ahead, and when they’re going to tune her out completely. For our class, just like all the rest she’s taught, we all lost focus the moment she told us to roll up our sushi. 

And a few moments later, the room was filled with the excited sounds of students unwrapping perfect rolls. I’m unashamed to say I was among them.

“They think that it’s magic,” Viall said as students dressed their rolls with sauces and began perhaps the best part — eating them. “So many people think you can’t do it.”

All it takes, Viall said, is patience and the right teacher. As she cleaned up rolling mats and bits of wasabi sauce after class, Viall expressed the same confidence as she had at the beginning.

“Once these guys go home and do it twice, they’ll be old pros,” Viall said.

Learn more at birminghamsushiclasses.com.