Matcha Chia Pudding

Mid-August in Portland. The smoke has arrived — wildfire smoke from somewhere east, maybe California, maybe further. The sky turns the color of a bruise and the air quality warnings scroll across my phone and I keep Miya inside, which is its own form of confinement. A three-year-old indoors during summer is a contained explosion. She climbs furniture, builds forts from couch cushions, asks every ten minutes if we can go to the park. We cannot go to the park. The air is poison. I explain this in terms a three-year-old can understand: "The sky is sick today." She accepts this with the pragmatism children bring to things adults find catastrophic.

I made ochazuke — the tea-poured-over-rice dish that Fumiko made when she was tired, when the day had been long, when cooking something elaborate was beyond the energy available. Ochazuke is surrender food, but not the bad kind — the kind where you accept what you have and find comfort in its simplicity. Rice from the cooker. Green tea, hot. Umeboshi, salmon flakes, a few drops of soy sauce, nori strips. You pour the tea over the rice and the steam rises and the meal is done in two minutes and it is enough. It is always enough. Fumiko would say: "When you are tired, cook tired food. The food does not judge your energy."

The smoke cleared by Thursday and we went to the park and Miya ran in circles for twenty minutes, burning off the pent-up energy of three days inside. I sat on a bench and watched her and thought about what my therapist asked last week — what would my life look like if I were happy in it? — and the answer came to me on the park bench, watching my daughter run: my life would look exactly like this. Miya running. Me watching. The sky clear. The absence of smoke. The absence of the thing that makes it hard to breathe. Brian is the smoke. I am starting to know this. I am starting to say it, if only to myself on a park bench, in the private language of metaphor that is the only language I trust.

I got an email from a food magazine — a real one, not a blog — asking if I'd be interested in contributing a personal essay about Japanese home cooking in America. The pay is seventy-five dollars, which is barely money, but the opportunity is real: a byline in a publication that people read, that editors read, that agents read. I said yes before the anxiety could say no. The anxiety said no anyway, about ten minutes later, in the shower, where all my worst thoughts live. But I had already said yes. The yes is out there. The yes cannot be un-sent.

The green tea I brewed for the ochazuke that week left its color in my mind long after the smoke cleared — that particular shade of pale green that means quiet, that means enough. When I said yes to the magazine before my anxiety could stop me, I made this matcha chia pudding the next morning, almost as a ritual: matcha whisked into something that would hold its shape, that would last, that could not be un-made once it was made. It felt like the right food for a yes that was already out there.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 4 hours (or overnight) | Servings: 2

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk (or oat milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons ceremonial or culinary grade matcha powder
2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
1/4 cup chia seeds
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of fine sea salt
Toppings: sliced fresh fruit, toasted coconut flakes, or a light drizzle of honey

Instructions

Whisk the matcha. In a small bowl, combine the matcha powder with 2 tablespoons of the milk. Whisk vigorously until no lumps remain and the mixture is smooth and bright green.
Combine. Pour the remaining milk into a medium bowl or jar. Add the matcha mixture, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and salt. Whisk together until fully combined.
Add chia seeds. Stir in the chia seeds. Let the mixture sit for 5 minutes, then stir again to prevent clumping and ensure the seeds are evenly distributed.
Refrigerate. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight. The pudding is ready when it has thickened to a soft, spoonable consistency.
Serve. Stir once more before serving. Divide into bowls and add toppings of your choice.

Nutrition (per serving)

Matcha Chia Pudding — The Green Tea That Stayed With Me