Cucumber, Tomato — Green Onion Salad — The Farmers Market Was Too Much, As Always

Cold snap — twenty-eight overnight. Surprising for Seattle. Amazon this week. Sprint planning Tuesday. Two hours of meetings I could have been a Slack message.

Hana, 1, a small loud animal. She mostly eats rice and bananas. Jisoo FaceTimed Tuesday. We made doenjang jjigae together — me in Wallingford, her in Haeundae. Eleven thousand miles. The same soup.

Galbitang Sunday. Beef short ribs, daikon, glass noodles. Slow simmer.

Drove to Bellevue Saturday. Karen was tired. I brought soft food. She ate.

I sat at the kitchen counter Sunday with a notebook open. The writing came slow. The writing came.

I made coffee at seven. Hana ate cereal at seven-fifteen. Min wandered down at seven-twenty-five. James left for work at eight. The morning was the morning. The standard.

Reading at night. A novel by a Korean-American writer about a family in 1990s LA. I underlined four sentences. The underlining is the marking-of-the-territory of the soul.

James and I had date night Friday. Indian restaurant on 45th. We ate too much. We sat in the car after talking about nothing for an hour. The marriage is the marriage.

I read a thread on the Korean Adoptee subreddit Saturday. Some posts brought up old anger. Most are people figuring it out in real time. We are not unique. We are a community.

A blog reader wrote about her own adoptee experience. We exchanged three emails this week.

I sat at the kitchen counter at six AM with a notebook and a cup of green tea. Writing time before the house wakes. The pre-light hour is the only writing hour I trust.

Sunday farmers market on Wallingford Avenue. The kabocha at the Asian vendor's stall. The shishito peppers. The brokered conversation. We bought too much. We always do.

My Korean is improving. Slowly. Painfully. Conversationally adequate now. I can argue about kimchi proportions in two languages, which is a milestone in any marriage between mother and daughter.

Therapy Tuesday with Dr. Kim. We talked about the parents — the two sets, the one living, the one gone, the one who became real after thirty years and the one who was real my whole life and is now gone. The work is the layered work.

Sprint review at Amazon Friday. Two hours. I could have been on a podcast.

Hana left a Lego on the kitchen floor. I stepped on it at two AM. Standard.

The kimchi crock was bubbling Saturday morning when I checked. The bubbling is the right bubbling. The fermentation knew what it was doing.

Jisoo sent a photo of the dol the kids did for our visit last summer. The photo went on the fridge.

David came over for Sunday dinner. He brought some tomatoes from the Bellevue garden.

Rain on the porch all afternoon Saturday. The Wallingford rain is its own weather. I sat with a book and a tea and did not move for two hours.

Yoga Tuesday morning at the studio. The forward fold released something I had been carrying in the shoulder. The mat is the mat.

I texted Jisoo a photo of the kimchi in the new onggi pot. She replied with the thumb-up emoji and a Korean-language critique. The duality is the gift.

The newsletter went out Sunday morning. The opening sentence took an hour. The piece took five. The piece was what it needed to be.

The Capitol Hill apartment kitchen is small. We make it work.

The shiso on the south fence is fragrant and unruly. I brushed past it taking the compost out and the smell stopped me. The smell is the country. The smell is Jisoo's apartment.

We always buy too much at the Wallingford farmers market — I said as much in this week’s notebook pages — and then David showed up Sunday with a bag of tomatoes from the Bellevue garden, and suddenly the counter was overflowing in the best possible way. This salad is what happens when you stop overthinking and just use what’s there: cucumber, tomato, green onion, a clean dressing. It doesn’t ask anything of you. Some Sundays, that’s exactly the kind of recipe you need alongside the slow-simmered things.

Cucumber, Tomato & Green Onion Salad

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

Ingredients

• 2 medium cucumbers, halved lengthwise and sliced into half-moons
• 2 cups cherry or roma tomatoes, halved or roughly chopped
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Instructions

1. Prep the vegetables. Slice cucumbers into half-moons and place in a medium bowl. Halve or chop the tomatoes and add them to the bowl. Thinly slice the green onions and add those as well.
2. Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, sesame oil, salt, and black pepper until combined.
3. Dress and toss. Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss gently to coat. Taste and adjust salt or vinegar as needed.
4. Rest briefly. Let the salad sit for 5 minutes at room temperature so the vegetables absorb the dressing slightly. The tomatoes will release a little juice — that’s part of the dressing now.
5. Finish and serve. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds if using. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to one hour.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 90 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 6g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 290mg