I wasn’t too excited, frankly: a little fish, a little seaweed, a little rice. But you know what the best part was to me, then and now? The condiments. The pickled ginger and wasabi. (I guess these would be considered condiments?) Sushi does have some redeemable qualities: You can’t argue about the health benefits — the high-nutrition and low-calorie appeal. That’s probably why we seldom see fat Asian sushi chefs. They’re usually lean, trim and though I don’t know why — blessed with lots of dark, thick hair. Hey! Maybe some of our “healthy” Southern friends need to go on a sushi diet — no names, please.

Bess, a dear friend, has started a sushi girls dining experience, and we meet every other Tuesday for wine, sushi and stimulating conversation. On my first gathering, I proved you can’t take the country out of the girl. For starters, we were served some crackle bread with dip, as well as a bowl of edamame - which tastes similar to boiled peanuts. I’ve read about these green, succulent soy beans, but I’m a Southern girl, after all. Put a bowl of beans in front of me and I assume they’re ready for consumption. Plus, they look similar to sugar snap peas and snow pea pods, which are eaten whole. I picked up a “bean” -- the entire outer pod, that is -- and plopped it into my mouth. Ick! It turned out to be a tough, fibrous, stringy mess, which, yes, needed to be shelled first. Desperate to spit it out, I had no choice but to cough into my white cloth napkin. The waiter caught sight of this, and, in horror, dashed to our table to see if everything was all right.

“Well, no,” I garbled, motioning for a new napkin. He probably imagined this redneck mama would leave no tip. Ha! I fooled him. I may be uninformed, but I do tip well.

I have one question about sushi: How do you eat it with chopsticks? I mean, how in the world are you supposed to grasp that one and one half inch roll of sushi with those awkward, hard-to-handle chopsticks that only open one inch? You can’t cut the roll in half with a knife because a) the restaurant doesn’t give you one, and b) even if they did, you CANNOT cut through that shiny, black, elastic-like seaweed coating. Why does dining have to be complicated?

On a recent trip out of town, I bought some sushi-to-go simply for the practice of using chopsticks. Sitting there alone, I put a rubber band around the sticks like they do for kids in restaurants. It was no use. The sticks went flying and the sushi went rolling!

One last note: What’s up with that green seaweed salad? It does not seem like an edible form of food. It’s one thing to be swirling around in the ocean, surrounded by jelly fish, man o’ war and other flotilla. As open-minded as I am and as adventurous as I can be, I can’t seem to identify the eerie TASTE. It’s not quite salty, but it is slimy. It’s rubbery — and it’s chewy. Oh heck, it’s just plain gross!

Folks, we’ve made some real inroads here in the South when it comes to sushi. This was proven to me recently when several of us attended a dinner party and everyone was asked to bring their favorite dish (homemade or store-bought). My best friend Carolyn didn’t bring fried chicken, deviled eggs or potato salad -- mainstays in the Deep South. Honey, she brought sushi! For real.

Well, the sushi girls are meeting again next week. I’ll try to remember to pop the edamame, get a grip on the chopsticks and skip the seaweed salad. Oh yeah, and most important -- have a good time!