Cheese-Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

Late August. The summer ends and I feel the turn — the light shifting, the evenings arriving earlier, the particular Portland melancholy that descends when the rain returns and the gray reasserts itself and the city that was a sun-drenched paradise for three months becomes the wet, introspective place that I love more than the sun-drenched version, because the wet introspective version is the one that matches my inside weather.

I made nasu dengaku — miso-glazed eggplant — the late-summer dish that marks the transition. The eggplant is summer's goodbye, sweet and heavy, and the miso glaze is autumn's greeting, rich and caramelized. The dish is a threshold food, eaten in the doorway between seasons, one foot in August and one in September.

I visited Ken in Sacramento. The bimonthly trip. His garden was producing: tomatoes, eggplant, the last of the summer shiso. The Parkinson's is stable — the medication is working, the tremor is managed, the word-finding pauses are no worse than they were six months ago. "Stable" is the best word in the Parkinson's vocabulary. "Stable" means: not better, not worse, just here, continuing, enduring. Nakamuras understand "stable." Nakamuras have been stable for generations. We do not improve dramatically. We do not decline dramatically. We endure. The enduring is the family motto, written in daikon and silence.

I cooked for Ken — Fumiko's recipes, as always — and we ate together at his kitchen table and he said, "The eggplant is good." Three words. The eggplant is good. From Ken, three words is a speech. Three words is a standing ovation. Three words is a father telling his daughter: you have learned what your grandmother taught, and the learning is good, and I see it, and I am saying it, in three words, because three words is all I have, and three words is enough.

Ken’s garden gave more than the eggplant that day—the cherry tomatoes were coming in fast, too small to ignore and too many to leave on the vine. After we finished the nasu dengaku and the table went quiet in the way it only does when a meal has been enough, I picked a bowl of them and did the simplest thing I could think of: stuffed them with something soft and savory, something that required almost no effort and almost no words. That felt right. The eggplant was the ceremony; the tomatoes were the afterglow—easy to make, easy to share, easy to set on the table between two people who had already said everything that needed saying.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 20 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

24 cherry tomatoes
4 oz cream cheese, softened
2 oz fresh goat cheese or feta, crumbled
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh chives, finely chopped, plus more for garnish
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Instructions

Prep the tomatoes. Slice a thin sliver off the bottom of each cherry tomato so it sits flat without rolling. Cut off the top 1/4 of each tomato and use a small spoon or melon baller to gently scoop out the seeds and pulp. Place tomatoes cut-side down on a paper-towel-lined plate and let drain for 5 minutes.
Make the filling. In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, goat cheese, garlic, chives, parsley, black pepper, salt, and lemon zest. Stir together until smooth and well blended. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Fill the tomatoes. Transfer the filling to a small zip-top bag and snip one corner, or use a small spoon. Pipe or spoon the filling into each hollowed tomato, mounding it slightly above the rim.
Garnish and serve. Arrange on a platter, scatter additional chopped chives over the top, and serve at room temperature. These can be refrigerated for up to 2 hours before serving—bring to room temperature for 10 minutes before putting them out.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cheese-Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes — From Ken’s Garden, Three Words Enough