How to Make Spam Musubi — The Ultimate Comfort Food

spam-musubiSpam musubi is comfort food in Hawaii. You can pick one up at your local gas station, or make a batch to take to the high school football game. It’s a perfect combination of the sweetness of the katsu sauce, the acrid tang of the rice wine vinegar, the savory meat and the salty/ocean flavor of the nori. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

Note, to make spam musubi you’ll need a musubi press. Some people use the spam can itself as a press, but this is more difficult.

Ingrediments:

1 can Spam
3-3/4 cup sticky rice If you have a rice cooker, make 5 scoops of rice. (5 scoops at 3/4 cup per scoop = 3-3/4 cups of uncooked rice)
4-5 sheets sushi nori (seaweed sheets)
3-5 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp shoyu (soy sauce, for all you haoles)
furikake — your favorite variety, to taste
a little bowl/ramekin of water

Makes 8-10 musubis

Instructions:

Put 5 scoops (3-3/4 cup) of sticky rice in the rice cooker. Add water and push start. It’ll probably take 45 minutes. Go take a half-hour break. You’ve deserved it!

When the rice is about to “pop,” you can begin preparing the Spam. Remove the Spam loaf from the can and turn it on its side. Depending on how “meaty” you like your musubi, you may decide to make 8 or 10 from the loaf. Cut it in half, then divide those halves into either 4 or 5 equal slices.

In a non-stick pan, brown the Spam slices over med-high heat. They should just begin to turn brown. When they’re just about ready, combine the sugar and shoyu (soy sauce) in a small bowl. Turn off the heat and pour the sugar/shoyu mixture over the sizzling Spam. Work fast, because the sugar is going to carmelize quickly! Flip the slices over a few times to make sure they get good and coated. Put the salty-sweet Spam slices aside and wait for your rice finish cooking!

Once the rice is fully cooked, pour 3-5 tbsp of rice wine vinegar over the rice and mix well.

Take your nori (either 4 or 5 sheets, depending on whether you want to make 8 or 10 musubi) and cut the sheets in half with a pair of scissors. You’ll note that the nori is longer on one side. Cut the longer way; that will make the musubi easier to wrap.

Time to assemble your musubi:

  1. Place a half-sheet of nori on a cleanish surface.
  2. Put the musibi press in the middle of the sheet.
  3. Now scoop enough rice to fill about a third of the press.
  4. Push down to compact the rice. If you’ve got less than a third filled, add a little bit. It takes practice.
  5. Shake some furikake on the pressed rice.
  6. Add a slice of fried, seasoned Spam. Mmmmm!
  7. Shake some more furikake on top of the Spam.
  8. Fill up the rest of the press with rice.
  9. Press down to compact. If you want a thicker musubi, add a little more rice and press again.
  10. To remove the outside of the press, hold it down with the plunger and lift the outside form.
  11. Now wrap it up! Bring one side of your nori up and press it against the top of the musubi.
  12. Dip your finger in water and apply to the edge of the nori (kind of like wetting an envelope).
  13. Then bring the other side up to complete the wrap.
  14. Place the finished musubi upside-down on a plate. As the rice cools, the nori will soften and shrink-wrap onto the rice and spam filling.

Finish until you’re out of Spam. Wrap in plastic wrap if you’re taking your musubi “to go.”

musubi

Pro tip: Try adding a couple of squirts of Sriracha hot sauce above at the same time you add furikake.

Post-Impressionist All-Stars (The Bizarre Nexus of Painting and Podiatry)

I’ve been painting shoes since high school. Yeah, weird. I know. It all started as kind of an accident.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had these old blue Vans that were all stained and gross from marching in the mud. Being an idiot, I decided to bleach them in the washer. Thing was, I most likely used too much bleach and probably left them in for way too long, because they turned super white but also kind of disintegrated. After taping them back together, I painted designs on the shoes because what else was I gonna do with them?

The thing was, I thought they were cool, and other people did too.

High School Shoes

Two weeks later, I threw that first pair of Vans in the garbage and picked up some new ones. I painted these on brand-new canvas. If I remember correctly, I used a flag motif. Flags from all nations—the more colorful, the better. If memory serves, I even included a Nazi flag as well as the Confederate battle flag. Not politically correct, for sure. But a mismatched pair of conversation pieces.

And so, painted shoes became a thing—my thing. I painted shoes for friends and for cousins who wanted them. I painted a few to order. When I was a senior, I made a deal with my playwriting teacher: let me drive your brand-new 1987 Honda CRX to the prom and I’ll paint you a pair of shoes. Done.

Exit question: would you let some high-schooler drive your sports car in exchange for a pair of hand-painted shoes? Discuss.

I painted and wore out two or three pairs of shoes during my senior year. Right before graduation, I decided to paint a pair of shoes that would kind of represent my life at that time. And guess what?! I still have them. The paint’s pretty stiff, but otherwise they’re in near-perfect shape. They were kind of a collage of all the things that made me tick way back in 1987.

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Two pieces of the collage stand out. One is on the toe of the left shoe: a tilted rendition of George Seurat’s L’après-midi dimanche sur l’Île de la Grande Jatte (or A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte). I first became aware of this work via the great art historian John Hughes, who featured the piece in his own magnum opus, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Cameron_Seurat

Here’s my version:

A Sunday Afternoon, ca 1987

Note also that I included portions of Picasso’s Guernica on this senior-year masterpiece:

Guernica, ca 1987

College Shoes: The Lost Works

So I got busy in college, but I wasn’t too busy to paint a pair of shoes. I can’t prove it now, but in college I painted some shoes with Beatles album covers. I have some blurry photos of those somewhere, but can’t put my hands on them at the moment. I wish I knew what happened to them. Probably wore them out. If I ever find the photos I’ll scan them and upload them here.

One of the highlights of my undergraduate experience was a trip I got to take to Chicago, thanks to winning a contest sponsored by the Alpha Chi academic society. My project won me a trip to attend the national convention, where I was able to see A Sunday Afternoon up close and person. Here’s my “Cameron moment” from 1993:

At the Chicago Art Institute, 1993

Post-Impressionism 1994

After I finished my undergraduate degrees and got real job, I had a revelation. I realized I had completely ignored the ultimate in podiatric canvases: Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. These storied high-top sneakers have been in production since 1917. Unlike Vans or Keds, which have the largest amount of paintable canvas on the toes of the shoes, All-Stars feature two triangular-ish sections of canvas that are large enough to really have fun with.

I painted my first pair of All-Stars during the summer of 1994. Since I literally had nothing better to do, I decided I would attempt my most ambitious design to date, covering the shoes with the works of some of my favorite post-impressionist painters. Featured prominently around the left heel is a familiar work: Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon. (Picasso makes an appearance as well, with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.)

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Another benefit of Chucks—one I didn’t realize until two decades later—is that they last a lot longer than Keds or Vans. Seriously. I wore this particular pair forever. Sadly, after over 20 years of service, these shoes finally wore out. Not the canvas, mind you. The painted parts are still pretty vibrant. But the rubber sole on the left shoe cracked. I can still wear them, but if it happens to be raining (or if there’s snow on the ground), my socks get wet. No bueno.

Post-Impressionism 2015

After much soul-searching, last month I decided it was finally time to replace the old Chucks with a new pair. The thing was, I really liked the theme of the previous shoes. I like mixing familiar pieces with others that people might not know as well. I decided that I wanted to do just three major works on each shoe: one on each side, and a simpler painting on each tongue. That meant I needed to pick pieces that (A) were landscape in aspect, rather than portrait, (B) had a composition that would allow a more-or-less triangular slice represent the whole. This limited my options somewhat.

But guess what worked? Two of my old friends: A Sunday Afternoon and Guernica. Adding Van Gogh’s The Starry Night and that left just one panel to fill. I wanted a challenge—something that would require some tricky technique to try to simulate an “oil painting” feel with the acrylic paints I use. I ended up choosing one of Marc Chagall’s few landscape-oriented paintings, The Blue Circus.

For the tongues, I needed two simpler portrait compositions that were either tall or could be extended up and down to fill the tongues. I picked The Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt (of The Kiss fame) and Son of Man by Belgian surrealist René Magritte.

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I’m super pleased with the results. Can’t wait to wear them!

Gallery Tour, 2015 All-Stars

Right shoe:

The Starry Night (1889)
by Vincent van Gogh

Original:

Gogh_StarryNight

On my shoe:

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The Circus (1964)
by Marc Chagall

Original:

Chagall_TheBlueCircus

On my shoe:

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Left shoe:

L’après-midi dimanche sur l’Île de la Grande Jatte (1884-1886)
by Georges-Pierre Seurat

Original:

Seurat_SundayAfternoon

On my shoe:

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Guernica (1937)
by Pablo Picasso

Original:

Picasso_Guernica

On my shoe:

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The Tree of Life (1905)

Original:

Klimt_TreeOfLife

On my shoe:

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Son of Man (1964)
be Rene Magritte

Original:

Magritte_SonOfMan

On my shoe:

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Gallery Tour, 1994 All-Stars

Right Shoe:

The Sleeping Gypsy (1897)
Henri Rousseau

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Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)
Pablo Picasso

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The Starry Night (1889)
Vincent van Gogh

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The Green Violinist (1923)
Marc Chagall

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The Yellow Christ (1889)
Paul Gaugin

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The Dance (1930-1933)
Henri Matisse

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Girl with a Blue Necklace (?)
Wassily Kandinsky

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Left Shoe:

Water Serpents II (1905-1907)
Gustav Klimt

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L’après-midi dimanche sur l’Île de la Grande Jatte (1884-1886)
by Georges-Pierre Seurat

SundayAfternoon-94

The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Salvador Dalí

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