Acini di Pepe Salad

August. The garden at peak. Five pounds of shiso this week, which is too much shiso, which is exactly enough shiso. Sunday farmers market. Tomatoes, shiso, kabocha when in season, mushrooms in fall. The shopping list is short and exact.

Miya, 9, can shape onigiri without falling apart. She uses wet hands. She knows the order without being told. Barbara called Sunday. We talked for twenty minutes. She told me about the play she is directing. I told her about the kitchen.

Cold tofu with bonito flakes and ginger. The simplest summer protein. A bowl that takes ninety seconds.

Tomi home soon. The kitchen quiet.

Yoga Tuesday morning. The studio in Sellwood. Eight students. The class was the class.

I made onigiri for tomorrow's lunch. Three triangles. Salted plum in the center. Wrapped in nori. The cling wrap. The drawer where I keep them. The system.

Miya is in elementary school. The Saturday Japanese school continues. She still complains. She is still going.

I cleaned the kitchen Sunday afternoon. Wiped the counters. Reorganized the drawer where the chopsticks live. Sharpened the knife. The reset was the reset.

Tomi watered the garden Saturday morning. The shiso was head-high. The shishito peppers were producing. The kabocha was running on the fence.

I drove to Uwajimaya Wednesday. Kombu, bonito flakes, white miso, a small bag of mochiko for tomorrow's project. The store smells like home.

Miya's old room is now my office. The desk is by the window. The shiso outside. The newsletter in progress. The afternoons are quiet.

Made dashi at five-thirty AM. Ten minutes in the kitchen alone with the kombu and the bonito flakes. The day's first prayer.

I texted Miya a photo of the shiso. She texted back a heart and a single word: home.

I wrote at the kitchen table from six to eight. The newsletter was forming. The opening sentence was the hard sentence — they always are. I rewrote it five times. The fifth time was the right time.

I read for an hour Sunday night. A book of essays by a Korean-American writer about food and grief. I underlined a paragraph that said exactly what I had been trying to say in the newsletter for months.

Sunday farmers market in the rain. The vendors knew me. The Hood River apple stand had honeycrisps. I bought four pounds.

A panic flicker Tuesday evening, brief, manageable. I breathed. I drank water. I went outside and walked around the block. The flicker passed. The body did its work.

Coffee with a friend Saturday morning. We talked about books, about kids, about the way our forties became our fifties. The talking is the thing.

The cat was the cat. Mochi at fifteen sleeps most of the day. She still eats with enthusiasm. She still sits at the kitchen window watching the back garden.

The rain in long sheets Tuesday afternoon. I made tea. I watched it from the porch. The cottonwoods on the next block were silver in the wet.

The neighbor's dog barked at nothing for twenty minutes Sunday afternoon. The neighbor apologized. I told him I had been writing through it and the white noise was helpful. He laughed.

Therapy Tuesday. We talked about the wedding. We talked about Barbara. We talked about Fumiko. The hour passed. The work continues.

A reader sent me a handwritten card this week. Her grandmother had cooked Japanese food in 1970s Boise. She had felt alone in it. The newsletter, she wrote, made her feel less alone. I taped the card to the wall above my desk.

I wrote the words “the simplest summer protein” and meant them—this is the season for bowls that take no convincing, no ceremony, nothing more than cold ingredients and a few good minutes. The Acini di Pepe Salad landed in that same register for me: cool, unhurried, something you can assemble on a Sunday and carry forward into the week. After a morning at the farmers market in the rain, a kitchen reset, and an afternoon of newsletter sentences I rewrote five times, this was the kind of recipe I needed waiting in the refrigerator—easy enough to feel like rest, good enough to feel like intention.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 25 min (plus chilling) | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 cup acini di pepe pasta (dry)
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, drained, juice reserved
1 can (11 oz) mandarin oranges, drained
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1 cup frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 package (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut (optional)
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Cook acini di pepe according to package directions until just tender, about 8–10 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water until completely cool.
Make the pudding base. In a large bowl, whisk the instant vanilla pudding mix into the reserved pineapple juice until smooth. Let it sit for 2–3 minutes to thicken slightly.
Combine. Add the cooled pasta, crushed pineapple, mandarin oranges, and marshmallows to the pudding mixture. Stir gently to coat everything evenly.
Fold in the whipped topping. Add the thawed whipped topping and coconut if using. Fold in with a wide spatula until fully incorporated and the salad is uniform and creamy.
Chill. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. The pasta will absorb the dressing and the flavors will settle together. Stir once before serving.
Serve cold. Spoon into bowls or onto plates directly from the refrigerator. The salad keeps well, covered, for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Acini di Pepe Salad — The Bowl That Asks Nothing of You