Broccoli Scalloped Potatoes

The cottonwood seeds in the air. The annual snow-in-summer. A pediatric burn case Tuesday. I came home and made adobo and did not write a blog post.

Lourdes is 75. She is slower. She still cooks. She still tells me to find a husband even though I have one.

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 this week was about kitchen rituals at Anchorage latitudes. It got six hundred comments.

I went to bed Sunday at nine. I slept for ten hours. The sleeping was the inheritance.

I checked email at the kitchen table while the rice cooked. There were one hundred and twenty unread messages. I closed the laptop. The unread can wait.

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

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.

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 drove home Tuesday evening and the sun set at three forty-five and the highway was already iced at the bridges and the radio was on a station I did not recognize and I did not change it.

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

The salmon in the freezer is from August. Joseph's catch. The bag is labeled in his handwriting — "for Grace." I will use it next week.

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.

I took inventory of the freezer Sunday. The freezer had: twelve quarts of broth, eight pounds of adobo in vacuum bags, six pounds of sinigang base, fourteen lumpia trays at fifty rolls each, three pounds of marinated beef for caldereta, and a small bag of pandan leaves Tita Nening had sent me. The inventory was the proof of preparation. The preparation was the proof of love.

I had a long phone call with Dr. Reeves on Wednesday. We talked about pacing and rest and the way the body keeps a log of what it has carried. Dr. Reeves said, "Grace. The body remembers. The mind forgets. The cooking is the bridge." I wrote the line down. The line is now on a sticky note above the kitchen sink.

Auntie Norma called Sunday afternoon. She is now seventy-nine. She wanted a recipe. I gave it to her. She wanted to know how my week was. I told her, briefly. She told me about her week. The exchange took eighteen minutes. The eighteen minutes was the keeping.

The therapy session this month was about pacing. Dr. Reeves said, "Grace. The pacing is the love for the future self." I am working on the pacing. The pacing is harder than the loving.

A reader from New Jersey wrote in about her grandmother's adobo, which used pineapple. I had never heard of pineapple in adobo. I tried it. It was strange. It was also good. The strange and the good are not opposites.

Pancit is the long-life noodle, the Filipino default — but what I kept coming back to this week, between the phone calls and the frozen highway and the ten hours of sleep I needed more than I knew, was something even slower. Something that goes into the oven and holds its heat and does not ask you to stand over it. Broccoli scalloped potatoes is not a Filipino dish, but it is the kind of dish Dr. Reeves might have been describing when he said the cooking is the bridge — the bridge between the body that carried everything and the body that will wake up tomorrow and do it again. I made this on a Tuesday. The warmth was the warmth. That was enough.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (about 1/8 inch)
2 cups broccoli florets, cut small
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk, warmed
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded, divided
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lightly butter a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside.
Make the cheese sauce. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour and cook for 1 minute until the mixture turns lightly golden and smells nutty. Slowly pour in the warm milk and cream, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Continue whisking over medium heat for 3–4 minutes until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Add cheese and season. Remove the pan from heat. Stir in 1 cup of the shredded cheddar until fully melted. Add garlic powder, onion powder, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Layer the dish. Arrange half the potato slices in an even layer in the prepared baking dish. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Scatter all the broccoli florets over the potatoes. Pour half the cheese sauce evenly over the layer. Arrange the remaining potato slices on top, then pour the remaining sauce over everything.
Top and bake. Scatter the remaining 1/2 cup shredded cheddar evenly over the top. Cover the dish tightly with foil and bake for 35 minutes.
Finish uncovered. Remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes until the top is bubbling and golden and a fork slides easily through the potatoes. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Broccoli Scalloped Potatoes — The Dish That Holds You When the Week Won’t Let Go