Eating has always been an incredibly social experience for me. A chef friend calls it the “last bastion of human social interaction”. Who you go to lunch with at work is also part of a complicated social dance. (Though lucky for us it’s pretty easy since there’s only three of us.) It’s time to chat, gossip, and hopefully often have fun. For some people (even a bad cook like myself) cooking together is a way to extend that social experience. At most workplaces cooking means microwaving a burrito from the vending machine. We’ve started doing slightly more than that here at Jackson Fish.

While we don’t have even a kitchenette in our cozy pad, we do have some possibilities. Lately, we’ve taken to once-in-awhile making lunch for ourselves in the office. A quick trip to Uwajimaya for fresh vegetables and raw sashimi quality fish gets us everything we need for a quick sashimi salad. Aside from feeling like we ate something healthy for lunch, there is something about cooking for each other that feels like a natural progression from all the other work we do together.

I know it’s early to be talking about what we’ll do in future office space, but I’m pretty convinced, even after only a couple of these lunches, that we’re going to need our own well-equipped kitchen eventually so that we can really cook some great meals during the day. Who knows, maybe a couple of days a week we’ll even have some guest chefs come in and cook for us. ;) I’ve heard stories of other startups where employees take turns cooking for each other. I’d love to hear more.

Jackson Fish Sashimi Salad

• chopped cabbage
• chopped green onion
• sliced red bell pepper
• large dice of chinese cucumber
• tuna sashimi slices
• salmon sashimi slices
• ponzu sauce
• sesame oil
• Nori Fumi Furakake Rice Seasoning

Mix all the veggies. Each person adds sauces and seasoning to taste immediately before eating. Enjoy!

(If it weren’t work in the middle of the day I would add a small number of paper thin translucent slices of fresh garlic to this salad for little sparks throughout the dish.)