By Seven months and counting. Hana is pulling herself up to standing — holding onto the coffee table, the couch, James's pants, anything vertical and stable. She stands with wobbling triumph, looking around from this new altitude with the wonder of someone who has just discovered a second floor. She falls. She gets up. She falls. She gets up. The persistence is relentless and admirable and terrifying for parents who are now babyproofing every surface in the apartment. James has covered every sharp corner with foam padding. The apartment looks like a padded cell. Hana has made our home a padded cell. We live in her world now.
I have been thinking about the house. The condo in Capitol Hill — the one-bedroom I bought with my Amazon signing bonus at twenty-two — is too small. It was too small before Hana. It is impossible now. Hana needs a room. We need a room that is not also the nursery. The kitchen needs to be bigger — I am running a food company from a home kitchen that was designed for a single person who ate takeout. We need a house. A real house, with a yard, with a kitchen that can hold onggi pots and a fermenting station and a highchair and a family. James agrees. We have started looking. Wallingford, maybe. A neighborhood with sidewalks and kids and trees. A neighborhood where Hana can ride a bike and walk to school and grow up knowing that her home has a yard and her yard has a garden and her garden has perilla and green onions and chili peppers, like Jisoo's balcony in Busan.
Karen had a good week. Physical therapy twice. She walked to the mailbox with David, which is a distance of approximately forty feet and which, for Karen now, is a triumph. She called me after and said, "I walked to the mailbox." I said, "I'm proud of you." She said, "I'm proud of me too. Don't tell anyone. I don't want credit for walking to a mailbox." I said, "I won't tell anyone." I am telling you. She walked to the mailbox. The mailbox is forty feet. The forty feet are Karen's Everest. She summited. Nobody tell Karen I told you.
The recipe this week is bossam — the wrapped pork belly from the August box, Grace's ninety-minute version. Pork belly, simmered in a court bouillon (water, doenjang, garlic, ginger, onion, rice wine) for exactly ninety minutes. Sliced thick. Served with butter lettuce leaves, raw garlic, green chili, ssam-jang, and salted shrimp (saeujeot). Wrap the pork in lettuce with the condiments. Eat in one bite. The bite is enormous and salty and porky and spicy and it is the best single bite in Korean cuisine. Grace's ninety-minute pork is tender without being soft, sliceable without being dry. It is correct. Grace's food is always correct. Ninety minutes. Not eighty. Not a hundred. Ninety.
The bossam in the story is all about the lettuce — that butter leaf cradling pork and garlic and ssam-jang into one enormous, perfect bite — and it got me thinking about how much work a good leaf of lettuce actually does. This week, while James was adhering foam padding to our coffee table corners and Hana was practicing her new vertical world, I kept coming back to something simple and green and bright. Not bossam — I wasn’t ready for ninety minutes — but this romaine salad, which I’ve been making on autopilot for years, and which reminds me that the best meals are often the ones that hold everything else together without asking for any credit.
Amazing Romaine Salad with Light Poppy Seed Vinaigrette
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 10 min | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 2 large heads romaine lettuce, chopped or torn into bite-sized pieces
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
- 1/2 cup mandarin orange segments (canned and drained, or fresh)
- 1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional)
- For the Light Poppy Seed Vinaigrette:
- 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon poppy seeds
Instructions
- Make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the apple cider vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard, garlic powder, salt, and pepper until combined. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, whisking constantly, until the dressing is emulsified and slightly thickened. Stir in the poppy seeds. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
- Prep the romaine. Wash and thoroughly dry the romaine leaves — a salad spinner works best here. Tear or chop into generous bite-sized pieces and place in a large salad bowl.
- Add the toppings. Scatter the red onion, mandarin orange segments, and toasted almonds over the romaine. Add crumbled feta if using.
- Dress and toss. Drizzle about half the vinaigrette over the salad. Toss gently to coat, adding more dressing to taste. Serve immediately so the romaine stays crisp.
- Store extras separately. If making ahead, keep the dressing in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Dress the salad only just before serving.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 185 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 17g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 210mg