Blueberry Desserts -- The Simplest Summer Sweet, for When the Week Has Been Enough

Salmonberry in the alley. The shiso head-high. Amazon this week. Sprint planning Tuesday. Two hours of meetings I could have been a Slack message.

Hana, 2, on a step stool stirring miso into broth. She knows the order. She is bilingual already in food vocabulary. Jisoo FaceTimed Tuesday. We made doenjang jjigae together — me in Wallingford, her in Haeundae. Eleven thousand miles. The same soup.

Cold tofu with bonito flakes and ginger. The simplest summer protein.

Drove to Bellevue Saturday. Karen was tired. I brought soft food. She ate.

James fell asleep on the couch with the kids climbing on him. The household was the household.

A blog reader wrote about her own adoptee experience. We exchanged three emails this week.

I texted Jisoo a photo of the kimchi in the new onggi pot. She replied with the thumb-up emoji and a Korean-language critique. The duality is the gift.

Therapy Tuesday with Dr. Kim. We talked about the parents — the two sets, the one living, the one gone, the one who became real after thirty years and the one who was real my whole life and is now gone. The work is the layered work.

The Capitol Hill apartment kitchen is small. We make it work.

Jisoo sent a photo of the dol the kids did for our visit last summer. The photo went on the fridge.

I read a thread on the Korean Adoptee subreddit Saturday. Some posts brought up old anger. Most are people figuring it out in real time. We are not unique. We are a community.

I sat at the kitchen counter at six AM with a notebook and a cup of green tea. Writing time before the house wakes. The pre-light hour is the only writing hour I trust.

My Korean is improving. Slowly. Painfully. Conversationally adequate now. I can argue about kimchi proportions in two languages, which is a milestone in any marriage between mother and daughter.

Yoga Tuesday morning at the studio. The forward fold released something I had been carrying in the shoulder. The mat is the mat.

David came over for Sunday dinner. He brought some tomatoes from the Bellevue garden.

The kimchi crock was bubbling Saturday morning when I checked. The bubbling is the right bubbling. The fermentation knew what it was doing.

Reading at night. A novel by a Korean-American writer about a family in 1990s LA. I underlined four sentences. The underlining is the marking-of-the-territory of the soul.

Sprint review at Amazon Friday. Two hours. I could have been on a podcast.

James and I had date night Friday. Indian restaurant on 45th. We ate too much. We sat in the car after talking about nothing for an hour. The marriage is the marriage.

Rain on the porch all afternoon Saturday. The Wallingford rain is its own weather. I sat with a book and a tea and did not move for two hours.

The shiso on the south fence is fragrant and unruly. I brushed past it taking the compost out and the smell stopped me. The smell is the country. The smell is Jisoo's apartment.

The newsletter went out Sunday morning. The opening sentence took an hour. The piece took five. The piece was what it needed to be.

Sunday farmers market on Wallingford Avenue. The kabocha at the Asian vendor's stall. The shishito peppers. The brokered conversation. We bought too much. We always do.

Hana left a Lego on the kitchen floor. I stepped on it at two AM. Standard.

I made coffee at seven. Hana ate cereal at seven-fifteen. Min wandered down at seven-twenty-five. James left for work at eight. The morning was the morning. The standard.

Cold tofu on a Tuesday, miso on a Wednesday, doenjang jjigae across eleven thousand miles — this week’s food was mostly savory and mostly purposeful, and that is usually how I want it. But Saturday afternoon, rain on the porch, two hours of stillness, I wanted something sweet and unhurried that would fill the kitchen with a smell that had nothing to do with any of it. The farmers market blueberries had been sitting on the counter since Sunday, and a crisp is the kind of thing you make without a recipe, which is to say it is the kind of thing I wrote down anyway, because I am who I am.

Blueberry Crisp

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 4 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed and picked over
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• Vanilla ice cream or plain yogurt, to serve (optional)

Instructions

1. Heat the oven. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lightly butter an 8-by-8-inch baking dish or equivalent.
2. Prepare the filling. In a medium bowl, toss the blueberries with the granulated sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, and cornstarch until evenly coated. Pour into the prepared baking dish and spread in an even layer.
3. Make the topping. In a separate bowl, combine the oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add the cold butter pieces and use your fingertips to work the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse, clumpy crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Do not overwork it.
4. Assemble. Scatter the topping evenly over the blueberry filling, covering it loosely without pressing down.
5. Bake. Bake for 33—38 minutes, until the topping is deep golden and the berry filling is bubbling around the edges. If the topping browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil for the final 10 minutes.
6. Rest and serve. Let the crisp rest for at least 10 minutes before serving. It will slice more cleanly and the filling will thicken as it cools slightly. Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a spoonful of plain yogurt.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 50g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 105mg