Salad with Vinaigrette -- The Meal That Assembles Itself, Course by Course

Late March. The cherry blossoms are fading and the season turns toward the real spring — the growing spring, the planting spring, the spring that means business. I planted shiso seeds on the balcony, the annual ritual, the seeds saved from last year's plants, the lineage that runs from Fumiko's windowsill in Sacramento to my balcony in Portland, unbroken, seven years of planting, seven years of the same DNA in different soil, the herb carrying itself forward the way families carry themselves forward: through repetition, through devotion, through the stubborn refusal to stop growing.

I made takenoko gohan — bamboo shoot rice — because the shoots appeared at the market, because April is bamboo shoot month, because Fumiko made it every April, because the calendar is a recipe and the recipe says: now. Cook the thing the season provides. The bamboo shoots were sweet and earthy and the rice absorbed the dashi and the apartment smelled like spring in Japan, which is a smell I have never smelled in Japan but know intimately from a kitchen in Sacramento and a recipe card in Fumiko's handwriting.

The Portland magazine published a profile of me — a short piece, five hundred words, titled "Portland's Miso Soup Writer," with a photograph of me in my kitchen holding the chipped bowl. The photograph was taken by a photographer who asked me to look at the bowl and I looked at the bowl and the photographer said, "What are you thinking about?" and I said, "My grandmother," and she said, "Stay there," and clicked, and the photograph is the most honest image of me that has ever existed: a woman looking at a bowl, thinking about a dead woman, the grief and the love visible in the exact same place on her face.

An editor at the Portland magazine asked if I'd be interested in writing longer pieces about food and identity. I said yes. The editor said, "We've been reading your blog for two years." Two years. The blog has been working in the background, the way dashi works in the background: invisible, essential, the thing beneath the thing, the flavor that you don't notice until it's gone. The blog is the dashi. The book is the soup. The magazine pieces will be the garnish. The meal is assembling itself, course by course, without a plan, which is the best way to assemble a meal: with instinct, with the ingredients available, with trust that the cooking knows what it's doing.

The takenoko gohan was the meal that mattered that day, but it’s this salad—quick, honest, and built entirely from what the season offers—that I keep coming back to when I need to feel like things are coming together without forcing them. After the photograph, after the phone call with the editor, after the strange, grateful vertigo of realizing that something you’ve been tending quietly has been quietly tending you back, a bowl of spring greens dressed in something sharp and simple is exactly right. It doesn’t ask anything of you. It just assembles itself, course by course, the way the best things do.

Salad with Vinaigrette

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 6 cups mixed spring greens (such as arugula, butter lettuce, and watercress)
• 1 cup thinly sliced cucumber
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced radishes
• 1/4 cup shaved Parmesan
• 2 tablespoons toasted sunflower seeds or pine nuts
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar (or rice wine vinegar for a lighter finish)
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• 1 small garlic clove, finely minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, and minced garlic until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust acidity or sweetness as needed.
2. Prepare the greens. Wash and thoroughly dry the mixed spring greens. Arrange in a large salad bowl or on a wide, shallow platter.
3. Add the vegetables. Scatter the sliced cucumber and radishes evenly over the greens.
4. Dress the salad. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad a little at a time—you may not need all of it. Toss gently to coat, keeping the greens light and uncrushed.
5. Finish and serve. Top with shaved Parmesan and toasted sunflower seeds. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 145 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 6g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 115mg