Chorizo Pumpkin Pasta

Mid-November. I made the decision about Thanksgiving: small. Just us. Not the Callahans, not Barbara and Gerald, not Ken. Just Brian and Miya and me, in the apartment, with food that is both Thanksgiving and Japanese and Portland and mine. The decision felt selfish and necessary and I made it before Brian could suggest otherwise, presenting it as a fait accompli: "I think we should do a quiet one this year." Brian shrugged. Brian shrugs at most things now. The shrug is his primary form of engagement, and its range runs from "sure, whatever you want" to "I have stopped caring enough to disagree." I cannot tell which shrug this was. Both are equally lonely.

I planned the menu: miso-butter roasted turkey breast (not a whole turkey — there are three of us, and one of us eats mostly rice), kabocha nimono, my delicata squash with pecans and cranberries, rice, a green salad, and miso soup to start, because every meal in my house starts with miso soup, even Thanksgiving. The menu is a map of who I am: Japanese by inheritance, Pacific Northwest by choice, American by obligation, mother by devotion. Every dish is a coordinate.

I visited Ken in Sacramento last weekend — a quick trip, just overnight. Miya stayed with Brian. Ken is seventy-six and aging the way Nakamura men age: slowly, without comment, with a garden that produces despite the gardener's declining enthusiasm. He is lonely since Fumiko died, though he would never use the word "lonely." He would say "quiet." He would say "I keep busy." He would say nothing at all and let the silence speak, because Ken has always trusted silence more than words, and the silence says: I miss my mother. I am seventy-six and I miss my mother. You never stop missing your mother.

He showed me a new recipe he's been making — miso soup. Ken. Making miso soup. The man who ate Fumiko's soup for fifty years and never once made it himself. He called me a month ago and asked, sheepishly, how to make dashi. I walked him through it on the phone. He has been practicing. His dashi is thin and his miso ratios are off and the soup is, objectively, not good. But he makes it every morning now. He makes it and drinks it alone in the kitchen that used to be Fumiko's and the making is not about the soup. The making is about the missing. The making is the closest he can get to having her back.

I came home from Sacramento and hugged Miya so hard she said, "Too tight, mama." Too tight. Yes. Everything is too tight. The love, the grief, the marriage, the apartment, the life. Everything is too tight and I cannot loosen my grip because loosening means letting go and letting go means falling and falling means landing in a life I do not yet know how to live.

After I locked in the Thanksgiving menu — kabocha nimono, miso-butter turkey breast, rice, the whole intentional map of who I am — I kept coming back to pumpkin. Kabocha and pumpkin are cousins in flavor: dense, sweet, deeply savory when fat hits them. This chorizo pumpkin pasta is not nimono, but it carries the same logic: a winter squash, heat, a little salt, and the patience to let something simple become something grounding. On the nights between Sacramento and the holiday, when I needed to feed Miya without ceremony, this was the thing I made.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

12 oz rigatoni or penne pasta
8 oz fresh chorizo, casings removed
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more for pasta water
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan, plus more to serve
Fresh sage leaves or flat-leaf parsley, to garnish

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water before draining. Set pasta aside.
Brown the chorizo. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chorizo and break it apart with a wooden spoon. Cook 5—7 minutes until deeply browned and cooked through. Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate, leaving about 1 tbsp of drippings in the pan.
Soften the aromatics. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Build the sauce. Stir in pumpkin puree, smoked paprika, and nutmeg. Cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly, to caramelize the puree slightly. Pour in chicken broth and heavy cream. Stir to combine and bring to a gentle simmer. Season with salt and pepper.
Finish the dish. Return chorizo to the skillet. Add drained pasta and toss to coat, adding reserved pasta water a splash at a time if the sauce needs loosening. Stir in Parmesan off the heat.
Serve. Divide among bowls and top with extra Parmesan and fresh sage or parsley.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chorizo Pumpkin Pasta — The Comfort of Squash on a Quiet Thanksgiving