Butter Lettuce Salad

I was going to write about the strawberries at the farmers market. I was going to write about Miya's new favorite word ("spicy," applied to everything from tofu to bananas). I was going to write about the blog reaching three thousand readers. I was going to write about all the ordinary things that make a week a week, the small accumulations that add up to a life.

Then Ken called.

Fumiko died on Tuesday morning. In her sleep. In her apartment in Japantown. She was ninety years old. A pot of dashi was on the stove. It cooked down to nothing by the time the neighbor found her the next morning. The apartment smelled like nothing — not dashi, not soy sauce, not shiso. Nothing. The absence of smell was the first death, the one that happened to the kitchen before it happened to the woman.

I sat on the kitchen floor when Ken told me. I did not cry. Not immediately. The news was too large for crying — it was an ocean and I was standing on the shore watching it arrive and the water had not reached me yet but I could see it coming and I knew that when it reached me I would drown for a while and then I would learn to swim and then I would drown again and this would continue, the drowning and the swimming, for years, maybe forever, maybe for the rest of my life.

Brian found me on the kitchen floor. He did not ask what happened. He sat down beside me. He did not touch me. He did not speak. He sat on the floor and waited. This is the best thing Brian Callahan has ever done in our marriage — not the talking, not the touching, but the sitting, the waiting, the being present without demanding anything of my grief. He waited until I could speak and then I said, "Fumiko," and he said, "Oh, Jen," and the two words contained everything and I leaned against him and the ocean arrived.

I did not cook that night. For the first time in years, I did not cook. The kitchen was dark. The stove was cold. In Sacramento, Fumiko's stove was cold too. We were cold together.

It was four days before I turned the stove on again, and even then I could not face heat. I stood in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and there was a head of butter lettuce I had bought at the farmers market the morning before Ken called — the morning that belonged to the ordinary week, the strawberry week, the week that no longer existed. Butter lettuce felt right: soft, yielding, something you could handle without force. Fumiko would have thought a salad was not a meal, and she would have been correct, and I made it anyway, and I ate it standing at the counter, and the kitchen was no longer entirely dark.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 10 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 large head butter lettuce, leaves separated and gently torn
1/2 English cucumber, thinly sliced
4 radishes, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
2 tablespoons thinly sliced chives
1/4 cup shaved Parmesan (optional)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon honey
1 small garlic clove, finely grated
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

Make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, and grated garlic until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust — it should be bright but not sharp.
Dry the lettuce. Wash the butter lettuce leaves and spin or pat them completely dry. Damp lettuce will dilute the dressing and wilt quickly. Arrange in a wide, shallow bowl or on a platter.
Build the salad. Scatter the cucumber slices, radishes, parsley leaves, and chives over the lettuce. Add shaved Parmesan if using.
Dress and serve. Drizzle the vinaigrette evenly over the salad — start with about 3/4 of it and add more to taste. Serve immediately. Butter lettuce softens fast; dress only what you plan to eat.

Nutrition (per serving)

Butter Lettuce Salad — The First Thing I Made When I Could Cook Again