Apricot Cheese Kugel

Salmon running. Joseph on the boat. The freight plane bringing fish to Anchorage. A quiet shift Saturday — appendicitis, a fishhook in a thumb, a college student's alcohol. The quiet was the gift.

Lourdes is 76. She is slower. She still cooks. She still tells me to find a husband even though I have one. Angela came over Saturday with the kids. We cooked. We argued about pancit proportions — she uses more soy, I use more calamansi. We are both wrong, according to Lourdes.

I made pancit Sunday. The long-life noodle. The Filipino default. The dish you make when you do not know what to make.

The blog post on pancit got picked up by a Filipino-American newsletter. Traffic doubled for two days. The traffic was the surprise.

I read for forty minutes before sleep. The reading was the small surrender. The surrender was the rest.

The light was good Saturday morning. I sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and watched the inlet for forty minutes. The watching was the small therapy. The therapy was free.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced a fundraiser for typhoon relief in Samar. I committed to making three hundred lumpia. The number is the number. The number has always been the number. Three hundred is what I make. The math has stopped surprising me.

I cleaned the kitchen Sunday afternoon. I wiped the stove. I scrubbed the sink. I reorganized the spice cabinet. The cleaning was the small reset. The reset was the marker. The marker said: the week is over, the next week begins, the kitchen is ready.

The grocery store had no calamansi. I substituted lime. The substitution was acceptable. The acceptable is the working version of perfect.

Auntie Norma called Sunday to ask if I had a recipe for a particular merienda from Iloilo. I did not. I said I would ask Lourdes. I asked Lourdes. Lourdes had it. The chain.

The break room had cake Tuesday. Someone's birthday. We ate the cake. We did not ask whose birthday. The cake was the cake.

The neighbors invited us over for a small dinner Thursday. They are an Iñupiaq family — Aana and her grandson Joe. We ate caribou stew and rice. I brought lumpia. The kitchens of Anchorage have always been the small UN. The food is the proof.

I sat on the balcony in the cold for ten minutes Sunday night with a cup of broth in my hands. The cold was the cold. The broth was the broth. The body held both.

Angela texted me a photo of the kids. I texted back a heart. The exchange took thirty seconds. The thirty seconds was the keeping.

I taught a Saturday morning Kain Na class on basic adobo proportions for new cooks. Eleven people in the kitchen. Half of them had never cooked Filipino food before. By eleven AM the kitchen smelled the way it should smell. By noon they were all eating. The eating was the lesson landing.

The Anchorage sky was the Anchorage sky. The mountains were the mountains. The inlet was the inlet. The geography was the geography.

I read a chapter of a novel before bed each night this week. The novel was about a Filipina nurse in California. The novel was good. The novel was, in some way, my own life adjacent.

I took a walk on the coastal trail Saturday. The light was good. The body was tired but moving.

A blog reader sent me a photograph of her grandmother's wooden mortar and pestle, used since 1962. The photograph was holy. I wrote her back. The writing back is the work.

I made pancit on Sunday because that’s what I do — the long-life noodle, the Filipino default, the dish that asks nothing of you except that you show up. But the kitchen that week had held more than one tradition: caribou stew with Aana and Joe, cake in the break room with no name attached, three hundred lumpia already promised to the community. The kitchens of Anchorage have always been the small UN, and somewhere in that week I came across this kugel — another culture’s baked noodle, another version of the dish you make when you need the food to do the holding. The apricots are sweet. The noodles are soft. It is, like pancit, the working version of perfect.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 9

Ingredients

8 oz wide egg noodles
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup cottage cheese
3 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 can (15 oz) apricot halves in light syrup, drained and roughly chopped
2 tbsp granulated sugar (for topping)
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (for topping)

Instructions

Prepare the oven and pan. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x9-inch baking dish with butter or nonstick spray and set aside.
Cook the noodles. Boil egg noodles in salted water according to package directions until just tender. Drain well and set aside to cool slightly.
Make the cheese base. In a large bowl, beat the softened cream cheese with a hand mixer or whisk until smooth and no lumps remain. Add the cottage cheese, eggs, sugar, melted butter, sour cream, vanilla, and salt. Mix until fully combined.
Fold in noodles and apricots. Add the drained noodles to the cheese mixture and fold gently until evenly coated. Fold in the chopped apricots, distributing them throughout without breaking them up too much.
Transfer and top. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and spread evenly. In a small bowl, stir together the 2 tablespoons of sugar and the cinnamon, then sprinkle evenly over the top.
Bake. Bake uncovered for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is lightly golden and the center is set with only a slight jiggle when gently shaken.
Rest before serving. Allow the kugel to rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting. Serve warm or at room temperature. Leftovers keep refrigerated for up to 3 days and reheat well.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apricot Cheese Kugel — The Noodle You Come Back To