My dearly deployed hubby is experiencing a serious craving for sushi. He sent me an email recently and asked me to please send our entire stash of Earl Grey and Green tea, wasabi, rice wine vinegar, sesame seeds and a bamboo sushi mat. He and some buddies are hoping to scrounge up some grub from the mess hall and make their own sushi.

Simple enough request, I thought … until I couldn’t find our bamboo sushi mat. Quite honestly, I can’t remember the last time we even used it, and it certainly hasn’t been since we moved. Suffice it to say, it has probably gone the way of mismatched socks and last summer’s sunglasses.

I even looked at two different stores to find another one, but to no avail. I did, however, find bamboo skewers, and it gave me an idea: Make my own mat! So, I bought a package of 100 skewers and a couple of spools of khaki thread (though I only ended up needing one).

Making the mat wasn’t difficult; I just had to be sure that the knots were snug. I used about an arm-and-a-half length of thread, doubled it and knotted the ends. Then, I tied the skewers together and reinforced each set of four. I started with a seam down the center and then along the ends, about 1.5″ from each tip so that the thread won’t work itself off during use. I set aside each batch of 16 skewers and pieced them together as I finished another batch. I ended up making five sets of 16, which made the mat about the size of a small place mat – perfect for rolling sushi.

I was pleased with how the project was coming along, so with my 10yo’s help, we made a YouTube video to share our project with the world (or the two or three people in the world who happen to have a hankering for making their own bamboo sushi mat, lol).

Here is a picture of the finished product. I wrapped it up and tied a ribbon around it with a slip of paper tucked inside that reads: “I bid you Good Eating!” to make my hubby smile (we’re big fans of Food Network and Alton Brown, in particular). I think he’ll be pleasantly surprised.