When I tell most people that I am a sushi chef, their first question is, “Oh, neat! What restaurant do you work at?”
While I have spent 6 years working in sushi restaurants around Oklahoma City, I currently run my own sushi education business! I teach live classes, corporate training events, and educational seminars – in addition to my sushi website and YouTube channel. I absolutely love what I do and I am honored to share my passion for teaching and for sushi with you!
How I got started
I got started in sushi back in 2008. I walked into a local sushi bar (who wasn’t even advertising that they were hiring sushi chefs) and asked if they needed a chef. While I didn’t have any prior professional experience, I was familiar with the rolling process and Japanese terms from my childhood – my family and I used to occasionally make sushi at home.
As chance would have it, they hired me! I worked for 3 months in the back kitchen, washing dishes and making rice, before I was allowed to handle the fish. I worked long hours and made a ton of mistakes early on, but after about 6 months I was finally rolling sushi for customers on a Friday night (usually the busiest night of a restaurant).
In 2011, after working at two different restaurants and deciding to expand my knowledge of sushi even further, I started doing some online research and stumbled upon the term “sustainable sushi.” At this point in my life I was starting to realize how much of a negative impact our populations are having on the environment, but for some reason I hadn’t considered the state of our oceans.
I needed to help educate my clients and customers about sustainable sushi, but in a way that didn’t seem pushy. I decided to make a website to not only teach people how to roll sushi at home, but also to educate them on sustainable sushi practices as well.
You can find my sushi website here: Secrets of Sushi Homepage
I consider my sushi website to be my baby, my pride & joy, my life’s work.
But after a few years, I realized that writing articles wasn’t enough – I needed to teach people in a different way. So I started offering live training events because I was too afraid to get in front of a camera and record myself. During the live training events, I would throw in the sustainable sushi facts and people seemed interested.
What drew them in was the training, but what kept their attention was the sustainable sushi facts…
So I started to talk to my friends and family about sustainable seafood, and they seemed interested, but only when I spoke to them about it. I couldn’t get a single person I spoke with to read my article on sustainable sushi – which is why I decided to work on my fear of being on camera.
That brings us to 2015, when I recorded and published my first YouTube video. While I haven’t published a ton of videos (because, as it turns out, overcoming being camera shy is fairly difficult), recording and editing more videos has been my focus.
Here’s where I’m at now: Secrets of Sushi YouTube Channel
Now, in 2018, I am planning on launching the first premium sushi online course! It will be a complete step-by-step course on how to go from no experience to sushi restaurant quality within 30 days. I’ll be sure to post a link once it’s published!