“I started making sushi in the summer of 2000 in Tempe, Arizona. From the very beginning I loved it and new that I had found not just a job but a passion. I moved back to Portland the next summer and opened a sushi bar where I worked for three years. Over 11 years I have made sushi in Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii, and in many different environments. I have done the majority of my training under two Japanese chefs and one Italian! In my 15 years in the service industry I have spent time in hot kitchens and front of the house working essentially every position from dishwasher to management. The diverse nature of my training, being both traditional and unconventional, has allowed me to develop a style which reflects and honors the history and simplicity of sushi and also to evolve with culinary trends. I believe that sushi is not only an ethnic cuisine but an art form. It is a discipline which requires study, practice, and determination. As a woman sushi chef this determination has helped me to push, okay bulldoze, my way into a career which I love.”