Crispy Cheesy Roasted Broccoli

October leaves on Sellwood streets. The shiso going to seed. Sunday farmers market. Tomatoes, shiso, kabocha when in season, mushrooms in fall. The shopping list is short and exact.

Miya, 9, can shape onigiri without falling apart. She uses wet hands. She knows the order without being told. Barbara called Sunday. We talked for twenty minutes. She told me about the play she is directing. I told her about the kitchen.

Roasted vegetables — kabocha, brussels sprouts, beets — finished with miso butter. The Pacific Northwest fall meal.

The chipped bowl. The chain extends.

Coffee with a friend Saturday morning. We talked about books, about kids, about the way our forties became our fifties. The talking is the thing.

I read for an hour Sunday night. A book of essays by a Korean-American writer about food and grief. I underlined a paragraph that said exactly what I had been trying to say in the newsletter for months.

Sunday farmers market in the rain. The vendors knew me. The Hood River apple stand had honeycrisps. I bought four pounds.

A panic flicker Tuesday evening, brief, manageable. I breathed. I drank water. I went outside and walked around the block. The flicker passed. The body did its work.

Miya is in elementary school. The Saturday Japanese school continues. She still complains. She is still going.

A reader sent me a handwritten card this week. Her grandmother had cooked Japanese food in 1970s Boise. She had felt alone in it. The newsletter, she wrote, made her feel less alone. I taped the card to the wall above my desk.

I wrote at the kitchen table from six to eight. The newsletter was forming. The opening sentence was the hard sentence — they always are. I rewrote it five times. The fifth time was the right time.

Yoga Tuesday morning. The studio in Sellwood. Eight students. The class was the class.

Made dashi at five-thirty AM. Ten minutes in the kitchen alone with the kombu and the bonito flakes. The day's first prayer.

Tomi watered the garden Saturday morning. The shiso was head-high. The shishito peppers were producing. The kabocha was running on the fence.

The rain in long sheets Tuesday afternoon. I made tea. I watched it from the porch. The cottonwoods on the next block were silver in the wet.

I made onigiri for tomorrow's lunch. Three triangles. Salted plum in the center. Wrapped in nori. The cling wrap. The drawer where I keep them. The system.

The neighbor's dog barked at nothing for twenty minutes Sunday afternoon. The neighbor apologized. I told him I had been writing through it and the white noise was helpful. He laughed.

I drove to Uwajimaya Wednesday. Kombu, bonito flakes, white miso, a small bag of mochiko for tomorrow's project. The store smells like home.

I texted Miya a photo of the shiso. She texted back a heart and a single word: home.

I cleaned the kitchen Sunday afternoon. Wiped the counters. Reorganized the drawer where the chopsticks live. Sharpened the knife. The reset was the reset.

Miya's old room is now my office. The desk is by the window. The shiso outside. The newsletter in progress. The afternoons are quiet.

The cat was the cat. Mochi at fifteen sleeps most of the day. She still eats with enthusiasm. She still sits at the kitchen window watching the back garden.

Therapy Tuesday. We talked about the wedding. We talked about Barbara. We talked about Fumiko. The hour passed. The work continues.

The week I wrote about roasting kabocha and brussels sprouts with miso butter, a reader asked me for something simpler — something that required less hunting at Uwajimaya and more reaching into the refrigerator. Broccoli is always there. It is the vegetable that does not ask much of you, and in return it gives you something real: caramelized edges, concentrated flavor, the kind of crisp that only a hot oven produces. Adding cheese felt right this week — a small extravagance, the kind Miya would approve of, the kind that makes a Tuesday feel less like a Tuesday.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 32 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 large head broccoli (about 1 1/2 lbs), cut into florets
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

Preheat oven. Place a rimmed baking sheet in the oven and preheat to 425°F. Heating the pan first helps the broccoli crisp rather than steam.
Season the broccoli. In a large bowl, toss the broccoli florets with olive oil, garlic powder, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes if using. Make sure each floret is well coated.
Roast first round. Carefully remove the hot baking sheet from the oven and spread the broccoli in a single layer, cut-side down. Roast for 15 minutes without disturbing, until the undersides are deeply golden.
Add the cheese. Pull the pan from the oven, scatter the Parmesan and cheddar evenly over the florets, and return to the oven for 5 to 7 more minutes, until the cheese is melted, bubbling, and crisped at the edges.
Finish and serve. Drizzle with lemon juice immediately out of the oven. Taste for salt. Serve straight from the pan while the cheese is still crispy.

Nutrition (per serving)

Crispy Cheesy Roasted Broccoli — The Fall Vegetable That Anchors the Week