Easy Arugula Salad

Mid-August. Post-birthday. The summer is doing its slow turn toward fall — the light angle shifting, the market berries giving way to early apples, the first hint of kabocha appearing at Carol's booth like an advance scout for the army of squash that will arrive in September. I bought the first kabocha of the season and held it in both hands and felt the weight of it and the weight was autumn, coming, inevitable, the season I love most arriving with its signature vegetable held out like a gift.

I made tomato and shiso salad — peak tomatoes, peak shiso, the last hurrah of summer on a plate. The tomatoes from the farmers market are so ripe they split when you cut them, spilling seeds and juice across the cutting board, and the shiso from the balcony is so fragrant that tearing the leaves releases a smell that stops me, every time, every year, the smell of Fumiko's apartment, the smell of home, the smell of the thing I will never stop smelling even when the shiso dies and the winter comes and the smell is only in memory. Memory smells. Memory is a sense. Memory is the sixth ingredient in every dish I make.

Miya went back to Brian's for the last week of summer. I used the quiet to write — three essays in five days, the words pouring the way they pour when the dam breaks, and the dam was the distraction of summer, of the child, of the daily management of a life that leaves no room for the long, unbroken hours that writing requires. The essays were about: cooking for a father with Parkinson's. The ethics of writing about the dead. The sound of rain in a kitchen at three AM. Three essays, three subjects, one voice. My voice. The voice I spent six years finding and can now use without clearing my throat.

One essay was accepted by a national literary magazine. Not seventy-five dollars. Not four hundred dollars. Eight hundred dollars. The number is not wealth. The number is trajectory. The number says: the voice has value. The market confirms. The practice has produced. The dashi is ready.

That week of solitude — three essays in five days, the dam finally broken — I ate simply and without ceremony, the way I always eat when the writing is going well, as though elaborate cooking would spend energy the sentences needed. This arugula salad was on the table most nights: peppery, bright, dressed with just lemon and good olive oil, the kind of thing that tastes like the season it’s made in. It asked almost nothing of me, and in return it tasted like abundance. Some meals are there to hold the work. This one did.

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 5 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

5 oz baby arugula (about 5 loosely packed cups)
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup shaved Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts (optional)

Instructions

Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and pepper until combined. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
Assemble the salad. Place the arugula in a large wide bowl. Scatter the cherry tomatoes evenly over the top.
Dress and toss. Drizzle the lemon dressing over the salad and toss gently with your hands or tongs, coating the leaves without bruising them.
Finish and serve. Top with shaved Parmesan and pine nuts if using. Serve immediately — arugula wilts quickly once dressed.

Nutrition (per serving)

Easy Arugula Salad — The Quiet After the Words Poured Out