This year, we celebrated not tradition but the spirit of it: modern springtime food that need not make up for a winterful of hunger. Also—our little family’s very definition of “special” fare.

I’ve finally mastered the inside-out roll, it appears. I’ve also confirmed that red onion, sliced paper-thin, makes an exemplary stand-in for scallion (featured here in the gingered salmon tartare atop the cucumber-salmon futomaki). As for the sushi meal itself—I’m enjoying it much, much more as brunch than I ever did as dinner, for reasons involving both daylight and digestion. There’s also the complex math of running at least an hour late to get the food on the table (a problem minor at lunchtime but compounded by evening).

We visited family, too, where hearts were heavy with sadness for a loved one who is ill, but the main culinary event was the sushi for two at home.