It has been a strange, interesting, and busy experience returning to L.A., where the story in The Zen of Fish takes place.

I gave talks at four different events to promote the book (two at bookstores and two at Japanese restaurants), and talked my way through seven media interviews (two at a sushi bar).

The most remarkable part of my stay in L.A. was reconnecting with the people I’d written about, including Kate Murray and several of her classmates, pictured here.

At the end of The Zen of Fish, the CEO of the academy and the main Japanese sushi chef depicted in the story, Toshi Sugiura, loses his restaurant and school. Since then, Toshi has reopened the academy in a new location. And more recently, he has just opened a new restaurant in west L.A. called Bar Hayama.

I’d contacted Toshi about the possibility of holding an L.A. book party for The Zen of Fish at his new restaurant, and he’d agreed. When I arrived at Bar Hayama (pictured at left) I didn’t know what to expect.

Writing stories about real people is quite a bit different from writing fiction. When you write about real people, they have reactions to what you wrote. At this party, I would be coming face to face with many of the main characters in the book, for the first time since I completed my research more than a year ago, and for the first time since the book was published.

In addition to Toshi, I’d be encountering Zoran, the militant samurai-like instructor who is a constant presence in the book, and Kate, the young female apprentice who struggles terribly in the book to conquer her lack of self confidence. Several other chefs, instructors, and students I followed closely for three months would also be there.

I arrived early and ran into Kate right away. She was wearing a brave face but looked a bit like a deer in the headlights—which was understandable, considering how much attention was being focused on her. Within minutes, a reporter from National Public Radio arrived and started interviewing Kate.

(I’d warned her this might happen. You can listen to the story that resulted here, on the NPR program “Day to Day.”)

Soon some of Kate’s fellow classmates from her semester at the academy arrived. She sat with them and started to eat sushi, and at that point—I think—she began to relax. (She’s pictured at the top of this entry with them, and here, hamming it up with her copies of The Zen of Fish.)

Next I ran into Zoran, Kate’s hard-ass instructor in The Zen of Fish, who still teaches class every day at the California Sushi Academy,

and who now works in the evenings as a sushi chef at the new restaurant, Bar Hayama. My constant presence in his classroom in 2005 while I was researching the book had strained his patience, I’m sure. But apparently he liked the book, because he greeted me from behind the sushi bar with a copy of it in his hand.

Finally Toshi appeared, along with his family. Toshi seemed to be his charismatic old self, which was nice to see, because in the book I describe how he suffered a stroke behind the sushi bar, and lost his previous restaurant.

Toshi’s son Daisuke, who is now 15, has a cameo in The Zen of Fish. I snapped a photo of Toshi and Daisuke standing next to the original calligraphic artwork that is reproduced on the opening page of The Zen of Fish. The calligraphy was written by the first Iron Chef Japanese, Rokusaburo Michiba, and given to Toshi as a gift. It says: “I am a fish, cuisine is my sea.”

Toshi’s daughter, Ichigo came to the party as well. I put her and her brother in charge of selling copies of The Zen of Fish to the guests—à la a lemonade stand.

The guests arrived, including a woman who’d been a loyal customer of Toshi’s for 20 years, dating back to Toshi’s glory days as the wild and crazy party chef behind the sushi bar at Hama Venice in Venice Beach.

Toshi’s chefs served a multi-course prix fixe dinner that included sushi. Part way through the dinner I gave a talk about the book and introduced Zoran and Kate to the guests. Kate got a lot of applause. And then we had a toast to the success of Toshi’s new restaurant. I hope it works out for him.

After the guests had gotten their books signed and gone home, Toshi sat me down in front of Zoran at the sushi bar and told Zoran to make me something. This is what I love about sitting at a sushi bar with a chef you know and giving him carte blanche.

Here’s what Zoran made me: chopped marinated snail sashimi, along with a shot glass filled with mozuku (a fine, threadlike seaweed) in a cold vinegar broth, topped with globs of sea urchin gonads. Man, was that tasty!

He also served me seared o-toro (super-fatty tuna). Sure, it was rich and luscious. But the other stuff was more flavorful and interesting to me. I’ll say it again: in our obsession with tuna, we’re missing out.

By the time I left I was exhausted. The party had been fun, but these people I’d written about weren’t, in any normal sense, my friends. They were my subject matter. I’d exposed their private struggles to the world. They’d all agreed to be written about, but still ... it’s a strange feeling. I’m sure it’s as strange for them as it is for me.

My revisiting of the people and places in The Zen of Fish wasn’t finished. The next morning I got up early to visit the California Sushi Academy at its new location, to meet a new batch of students, with National Public Radio in tow. Read about that here.