By Late September. The equinox passes and I mark it the way I mark all transitions: with food. Specifically, with ohagi — the rice balls coated in sweet red bean paste that Japanese families make for the autumn equinox. Ohagi are the harvest food, the bridge between summer and fall, the acknowledgment that the light is changing and the food must change with it. Fumiko made ohagi every September. I make ohagi every September. The making is the marking. The time passes whether you mark it or not, but the marking is the practice, and the practice is the choice to be present for the passage.
I am revising the book. The publisher sent editorial notes — three pages of suggestions, questions, requests for expansion. The internment chapter needs more context. The miso soup chapter needs more recipe specifics. The Japan chapter (written before the trip I haven't taken yet) needs to be clearer about the dreaming quality, the not-yet-ness of it. I read the notes and the notes are good and the editor is smart and the process is collaborative in a way that the blog is not — the blog is me, alone, sending words into the void. The book is me and an editor and a conversation, and the conversation is making the book better, the way a conversation between miso and dashi makes soup better than either alone.
Miya came home from Saturday Japanese school with a sheet of hiragana she had written. The characters were wobbling, uncertain, the handwriting of a child gripping a pencil too hard and trying too hard and producing strokes that lean like trees in wind. But they were there. The characters were there. "A-i-u-e-o," she read, pointing at each one. The sounds of the language. The first sounds. The sounds that Fumiko made, that Ken made, that I make when I read the recipe cards aloud in the kitchen. Miya is making the sounds now. The chain holds. The chain always holds, even when the links are wobbling, even when the characters lean, even when the five-year-old gripping the pencil does not yet know that she is holding a key.
Ohagi takes time I didn’t have this particular September — the editorial notes were waiting, Miya’s hiragana practice sheet was spread across the kitchen table, and the equinox doesn’t pause for anyone’s revision schedule. So I made these pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies instead: a harvest food in spirit, grain and gourd and sweetness, something to mark the passage of the light with my hands even when the traditional marking isn’t possible. Miya ate two before I could get them onto the cooling rack, which felt, honestly, like its own kind of chain holding.
Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 13 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with the brown sugar and granulated sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes.
- Add wet ingredients. Beat in the pumpkin puree, egg, and vanilla extract until fully combined. The mixture may look slightly curdled — this is normal.
- Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.
- Mix the dough. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Portion and bake. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto prepared baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake for 12–14 minutes, until the edges are set and the tops look just dry. Do not overbake — centers will firm as they cool.
- Cool. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 148 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 22g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 88mg