No, that's not a typo. Sushi may have started out in Japan, but Russians have heartily embraced it as their own. With a Russian twist, of course.

Once upon a time, I lived in New York City, near its Russian neighborhood in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. When the big influx of Soviet émigrés began in the 1980s, the first restaurants to open up on its main street were simple soup and pelmeni places. As the newcomers succeeded, entrepreneurs converted old movie theaters into big catering halls for weddings and parties. The restaurants got fancier--I still have a taste memory of the lamb at one Georgian eatery--and sushi began popping up next to the borscht on the appetizer listings of the beachside restaurants. And yes, you could find caviar on sushi rice.

These kinds of food collisions are not at all uncommon in New York City, though I could never quite wrap my head around the Cuban-Chinese restaurant near 79th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The New York Times had a funny piece on some of the combinations a few years back.

But it wasn't just happening in New York. When I went back to Russia for my second adoption in 2005, I found several sushi places in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. OK, maybe somewhat understandable given the proximity of Sakhalin Island to Japan, and the fact that the island belonged to Japan a few times over the centuries. But when I got to Moscow, the sushi places seemed almost inescapable.

What does any of this have to do with adoption? Well, this past weekend was the birthday of my little guy, who was born on Sakhalin. And when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner, his answer was simple and straightforward: sushi. No, he never had sushi at the orphanage. But it was one of the first foods he latched onto here, and when he feels in particular need of a restorative meal, I can count on hearing "Mom, I neeeed sushi", in a very plaintive voice.

I tried to get him to explain, as he stuffed salmon and eel rolls into his mouth this weekend, what it was about sushi that he so liked. But all I got was a shake of his head and the words "I just like it".

I guess that's enough.

Image credit: priyanphoenix at Morguefile.com