Almond Rice — The Food Is the Floor

Mid-January. The newsletter subscriber list is growing — three hundred now, from the blog promotion and the cooking class announcements and the word-of-mouth that travels through the community the way the smell of miso soup travels through an apartment: slowly, surely, reaching every corner. Three hundred people who have raised their hands and said: I want the raw version. I want the three-AM version. I want the Dashi.

I made ochazuke — tea over rice, the tired food, the surrender food — because the newsletter preparation is tiring, the writing and the planning and the platform-building all happening alongside the blog and the column and the cooking classes and the parenting and the yoga and the daily miso soup. The ochazuke said: enough. You are doing enough. The tea over the rice is enough. The rest will follow.

The second book — Two Kitchens — is in the final production stage. The publication date is set for this fall. Two books in three years. The pace is the practice applied to publishing: steady, persistent, not rushed but not delayed, the dashi speed, the speed that does not sprint but does not stop. The second book is different from the first — more memoir than cookbook, more personal, more about the space between Japanese and American than about the food that bridges them. But the food is still there. The food is always there. The food is the floor. The rest of the house stands on the food.

I called Barbara to tell her about the newsletter. She said, "A newsletter! Like a newspaper? Will it be on paper?" I explained email newsletters. She said, "That's confusing but I'm proud of you." The pride was genuine. The confusion was Barbara. Both are valid. Both are the mother I have.

The ochazuke said enough, and I listened — but once the tea had done its work and the newsletter draft was saved and Barbara’s proud confusion had made me laugh for the third time that evening, I wanted something a little more substantial, something that still honored the simplicity but added just enough texture to feel like a meal. I made Almond Rice: rice toasted with butter, finished with slivered almonds, the kind of dish that asks almost nothing of you and gives back more than it should. It is not ochazuke. But it lives in the same spirit — the food is the floor, and the floor does not need to be complicated to hold everything up.

Almond Rice

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup long-grain white rice
• 2 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (optional, for serving)

Instructions

1. Toast the almonds. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the slivered almonds and cook, stirring frequently, for 2–3 minutes until golden and fragrant. Watch closely — they go from golden to burnt quickly.
2. Toast the rice. Add the uncooked rice to the pan and stir to coat in the butter. Cook for 1–2 minutes, stirring, until the rice turns slightly opaque and smells nutty.
3. Add the broth. Pour in the broth and add the salt and pepper. Stir once to combine, then bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
4. Simmer covered. Once boiling, reduce heat to low, cover tightly, and cook for 15 minutes. Do not lift the lid.
5. Rest and fluff. Remove from heat and let stand, still covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, taste for seasoning, and top with fresh parsley if using.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 285 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 11g | Carbs: 39g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 420mg