Zesty Sugar Snap Peas

April. The cherry blossoms open and I take Miya to the waterfront and she opens her mouth to the petals and the gesture is the gesture and the gesture is the tradition and the tradition is the love made visible in a child's open mouth reaching for falling flowers. Every year the same. Every year different — a year taller, a year older, a year closer to twelve, a year closer to Japan. The blossoms are the clock. The clock is pink.

I made hanami bento — the flower-viewing lunch box — and we ate under the trees on a blanket and the lunch was onigiri and tamagoyaki and edamame and strawberries, the same foods I pack for school bento, arranged with the same care, the same love, the same precision. Fumiko would approve of the bento. Fumiko approved of precision in lunch packing. "A sloppy bento is a sloppy heart," she said, which is extreme but also true — the care you put into packing a lunch for someone is the care you put into loving them, and the care is visible, in the way the rice is shaped and the tamagoyaki is sliced and the strawberry is placed, just so, in the corner of the box.

I visited Ken in Sacramento. The bimonthly trip. His garden is in full spring production — daikon emerging, shiso seedlings visible, the California soil doing what California soil does: producing, abundantly, with the unconscious generosity of land that has been tended for decades. Ken's Parkinson's is stable. The medication is working. The tremor is present but managed. He gardens with Marco and the gardening is the therapy and the therapy is the food and the food is the daikon and the daikon is perfect, always perfect, because Ken's daikon is the one thing that the Parkinson's cannot touch. The disease can take his hands. The daikon will still be perfect. The perfection is in the soil, not the gardener. The gardener is just the intermediary.

When I packed that bento under the cherry trees — the edamame bright green against the white rice, the strawberry placed just so — I kept thinking about Ken’s garden and how spring announces itself in pods and shoots before it announces itself anywhere else. These zesty sugar snap peas are the side dish I started making after one of my Sacramento visits, when Ken handed me a bag of snap peas so crisp they popped between my teeth, and I thought: this is what spring tastes like when someone has tended the soil with decades of care. They’ve become a permanent resident in Miya’s bento box, right next to the tamagoyaki.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 pound fresh sugar snap peas, trimmed and strings removed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sesame seeds, for garnish

Instructions

Prep the peas. Rinse the sugar snap peas, trim the stem ends, and pull away any tough strings along the seams.
Heat the oil. In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers.
Sauté the garlic. Add the minced garlic and red pepper flakes, stirring constantly for about 30 seconds until fragrant.
Cook the snap peas. Add the sugar snap peas to the skillet and toss to coat in the oil. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring frequently, until the peas are bright green and crisp-tender.
Season and finish. Remove from heat. Toss with lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and pepper. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Nutrition (per serving)

Zesty Sugar Snap Peas — The Spring That Grows Between Two Gardens