Broccolini Almond Pizza

May in Portland and the anxiety has teeth now. I woke up at three AM convinced Miya had stopped breathing. She had not. She was sleeping peacefully in her bassinet, her tiny chest rising and falling with the reliable rhythm of a body that does not know it is supposed to be worrying. I stood over her for twenty minutes, watching, counting breaths, unable to go back to sleep. Brian slept through the whole thing. I wanted to shake him awake and scream: do you not understand that anything could happen? But the thing about anxiety is that the danger is real to me and invisible to everyone else, and trying to explain an invisible fire is exhausting.

I told Brian this weekend that I am struggling. Not just tired — struggling. The anxiety is worse than it has been since my early twenties, worse than the year Dad and Mom divorced, worse than college. He looked at me with genuine concern and said, "Maybe you should try meditation." I said, "Brian, I teach yoga. I meditate every day. This is not a meditation problem. This is a brain chemistry problem." He said, "I just think you are overthinking it." And there it was — the sentence that summarizes everything Brian does not understand about mental illness, delivered with love and complete uselessness.

I called Mom. Barbara Nakamura-Weston, queen of talking things out, said all the right words in exactly the right order and it helped the way a warm blanket helps — it does not fix anything but it makes the not-fixed more bearable. She offered to drive up from Ashland for the weekend. I said no. I said yes. She is coming Friday.

I made gyoza tonight — Fumiko's recipe, from memory, which is the only way I know it because Fumiko never wrote down the gyoza recipe. It lives in my hands: the dough rolled thin, the filling of ground pork and cabbage and ginger and garlic and sesame oil, the pleating that took me years to get right. I stood at the counter pleating fifty gyoza while Miya slept and the repetition quieted my mind the way nothing else could. Fold, pinch, fold, pinch. Each one the same. Each one slightly different. The meditation Brian thinks I need is already happening. It just looks like cooking.

Mom arrives Friday. I am going to let her hold the baby and I am going to sleep. That is the whole plan. Sleep and gyoza and Barbara's voice and the hope that this wave of anxiety will crest and recede the way they always have. They always have. I have to believe they always will.

Fifty gyoza, pleated one at a time while the house was quiet and Miya slept—that kind of repetition doesn’t ask anything of you, and that night, I needed something that didn’t ask anything of me. The next evening I wanted that same feeling but with less precision, less memory, something I could build with my eyes open instead of closed. This broccolini almond pizza was it: dough stretched by hand, toppings scattered without ceremony, ten minutes in a hot oven while I stood there doing nothing at all. It is not Fumiko’s gyoza. It is not trying to be. It is just dinner that let me breathe.

Prep Time: 30 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

1 batch easy whole wheat pizza dough or 1 pound store-bought pizza dough
2/3 cup pizza sauce or marinara sauce or one 32-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and crushed by hand
2 cups shredded low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup (2 to 3 ounces) crumbled feta
1/2 pound (8 ounces) broccolini
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup sliced almonds
Optional garnishes: red pepper flakes and a few fresh basil leaves, torn into little pieces

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit with a rack in the upper third of the oven. If you’re using a baking stone or baking steel, place it in the oven on the top rack. Prepare dough through step 5.
Sauce and top the pizzas. Spread marinara sauce evenly over the two pizzas, or top with drained, crushed tomatoes (crush the tomatoes over the sink to release excess liquid). Divide the mozzarella, feta and almonds evenly over the pizzas.
Prepare the broccolini. Fill a large saucepan with a few inches of water and bring the mixture to a boil. Trim off the tough ends of the broccolini. Cut any stems greater than about 1/4" in diameter in half. Once the water is boiling, toss in the broccolini, bring back to a boil, and cook for 1 minute. Drain the broccolini and pat dry on a lint-free tea towel. Then, toss the broccolini with about 1 teaspoon olive oil, until lightly coated.
Bake and serve. Arrange the broccolini over the pizzas and sprinkle the almonds on top. Bake pizzas individually on the top rack until the crust is golden and the cheese is golden and bubbly, about 12 minutes (or significantly less, if you’re using a baking stone/steel—keep an eye on it). Transfer pizza to a cutting board and sprinkle with red pepper flakes and fresh basil, if using. Slice and serve!

Nutrition (per serving)

Broccolini Almond Pizza — When Repetition Is the Only Thing That Holds You Together