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support the creative community and, as Rhonda said, “establish the region as an arts destination.” You may love the Cameron Art Museum, the North Carolina Black Film Festival, and Chamber Music Wilmington. All of these organizations become stronger, though, with the support of an arts council, which uses hard facts to appeal to fiscal-minded government leaders. In 2010, nonprofit arts organizations injected $5.7 million in direct expenditures into the local economy. Audiences spent another $15 million themselves. Rhonda’s job is to take those kinds of figures to budget meetings and help ensure that creative enterprises get support and funding. In addition to its role as an advocate, the council also sponsors an evolving exhibition of pedestrian art downtown, coordinates the monthly Fourth Friday Gallery Walks, and awards North Carolina Arts Council grants to local artists. Talk of the arts led to talk of food because suddenly our table was covered with plates. Here’s what I have to say about sushi: I am a purist. I love salmon with cream cheese on a bagel, but don’t let cream cheese go anywhere near my salmon maki. I want to taste the raw fish. So, I looked down at Sunny’s Men in Black Roll (“I love movies,” he told us, explaining the name) with some concern. The ingredients included blue crab, avocado, asparagus and low-fat cream cheese, all of which were “flash fried” (another word for “baked,” I guess) in a rice tempura crust. Could I taste the crab, though? I’m happy to say that the cream cheese did not overpower the fish and, in a certain sense, it actually helped to meld the various ingredients into a single complex flavor, rather than just a bunch of different parts. Plus, that rice tempura shell has a distinct attraction. As Rhonda said, “I love the crunch.” However, I’m still partial to the basic sushi: fish and rice, with maybe a smear of wasabi and some seaweed. Try Sunny’s simple but beautiful eel nigiri, for example. It’s a hunk of perfectly smoked fish, drizzled with house-made soy glaze, on a mound of white rice. Or, taste the slices of fresh salmon, curled around each other on the plate with no other accompaniment. Nothing could be simpler, except that, without extra stuff to hide behind, a chef has to use the finest fish. Sunny’s was luscious. Like me, Rhonda reserved her warmest praise for the fish itself, which was ample and delicious. “Some sushi places,” she said, “just give you ‘essence of’ a certain fish, but, this, I can really taste the crab.” We stared down at the gorgeous disks of sushi in front of us, a rainbow of reds, whites, greens, yellows, pinks and oranges. “This is why I consider the culinary field one of the arts,” Rhonda said. Sunny Sushi and Lounge, 141 North Front Street, Wilmington. The restaurant also serves Thai food and plans to begin serving hibachi and Vietnamese pho soon. At lunch, they offer two sushi rolls for $8.95. You can read more about the Arts Council of Wilmington at artscouncilofwilmington.org. b Dana Sachs’ latest novel, The Secret of the Nightingale Palace, is available at bookstores throughout Wilmington. The Art & Soul of Wilmington
October 2013 •
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