Cashew Chicken Pizza

Jayden turns ten. March 6th. The double digits. The fire truck boy is ten. He's in fourth grade, reading at sixth-grade level (the reading that started with sounding out "the dog sat on the mat" is now consuming Hemingway — not because Jayden loves Hemingway but because Mrs. Kim assigned "The Old Man and the Sea" for advanced readers and Jayden relates to a man who never gives up, even when the fish is bigger than the boat). He writes: stories, poems (a new development — short poems about fire and bravery and Blaze the cat, published on his section of the restaurant's bookshelf). He plays soccer (midfielder — the position that requires running and Jayden has been training for this position since he ran circles in the apartment complex parking lot at age four).

The birthday party: at the restaurant. Not at the fire station (he'll go back — Rodriguez is a lifelong connection now). At SARAH'S TABLE. Because the restaurant is the family's home base and the home base is where the birthday happens. Diego came. Five other school friends. The cake: Chloe's fire truck, year ten. The decade cake. The cake that has improved annually from "unrecognizable" to "professional" over ten years of practice. This year: a three-dimensional fire truck cake with working LED lights (Chloe embedded battery-operated LEDs in the cake's headlights — the girl is engineering BAKED GOODS). The cake had lights. The birthday cake had WORKING LIGHTS. I have created a pastry engineer.

Terrence came. He brought Jayden a gift: a fire department scanner radio. A SCANNER. The kind that picks up real emergency dispatch frequencies. Jayden can now LISTEN to real fire calls from Nashville. The boy has access to the live audio feed of his future profession. He sat in his room with the scanner and he listened to the crackling voices of dispatchers sending trucks to emergencies and his face was: the seventeen-emotion face. The face from the fire station. The face from the siren. The face of a boy who hears the sound of his future and the future is: real. The future has a frequency. The future crackles.

Birthday chili and cornbread. The constant. Year ten. TEN years of the same birthday meal. The chili that doesn't change. The boy who doesn't change (except in every way that matters: taller, smarter, kinder, still loud, still orange-adjacent, still fire-truck-committed). Ten candles. One wish. He told me this year. He said: "I wished for my family to always eat together." Always eat together. Not a fire truck. Not a siren. Not a scanner (he already has that). He wished for the TABLE. He wished for the FAMILY. He wished for the FOOD. At ten, Jayden Mitchell wished for the thing that Sarah Mitchell has been building for nine years: a table where the family eats together. The wish IS the restaurant. The wish IS Sarah's Table. The wish is the whole thing. And the wish already came true.

Every year I make the chili — that’s Jayden’s law — but the rest of the birthday spread at the restaurant is fair game, and this cashew chicken pizza has become the thing the adults hover around while the kids are distracted by LED cake lights and scanner radio frequencies. It’s the kind of food that belongs on a big table with a lot of people: savory, a little unexpected, gone in twelve minutes flat. Jayden wished for us to always eat together. This is one of the things we eat together.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4 (8 slices)

Ingredients

1 lb pizza dough, store-bought or homemade
1 cup cooked chicken breast, diced or shredded
1/3 cup hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup roasted cashews, divided
1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
3 green onions, sliced
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
All-purpose flour, for dusting

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Set oven to 450°F. If using a pizza stone, place it on the center rack while the oven heats. Otherwise, lightly grease a large baking sheet.
Make the sauce. Whisk together hoisin sauce, soy sauce, and sesame oil in a small bowl until smooth. Set aside.
Shape the dough. On a lightly floured surface, stretch or roll pizza dough into a 12-inch round, about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet or carefully onto the hot pizza stone using a floured peel.
Spread the sauce. Spoon the hoisin mixture evenly over the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge.
Add the toppings. Scatter mozzarella over the sauce. Layer on the diced chicken, red bell pepper slices, and half of the cashews.
Bake. Bake for 12–15 minutes, until the crust is golden at the edges and the cheese is melted and beginning to bubble.
Finish and serve. Remove from oven and immediately top with remaining cashews, green onions, cilantro, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes if using. Slice into 8 pieces and serve hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cashew Chicken Pizza — The Table We Always Come Back To