Fresh Cucumber Salad

Mid-May. The school year is ending. Summer approaches. The cooking projects beckon. Miya is finishing second grade — wait, third grade? I lose track of the grades the way I lose track of the weeks, because the grades and the weeks are the calendar's notation for the passage of time and the passage of time does not slow down for notation, the passage just passes, and the passing is the living, and the living is the practice.

I made cold soba — the transition food, the bridge between spring and summer — and the soba was clean and cold and the tsuyu dipping sauce was tangy and the meal was the hinge between seasons, the food equivalent of the door between two rooms. Spring is behind. Summer is ahead. The soba is in the doorway. I am in the doorway. I have always been in the doorway — between Japanese and American, between grieving and creating, between the past that made me and the future I am making. The doorway is my country.

The book was invited to a literary festival in San Francisco — a food writing panel, three authors, one of whom is me. The invitation is the first out-of-Portland event and the first event that requires a plane ticket and a hotel and the specific logistics of being a writer who travels, which I have never been, which I am now becoming, the way I became a blogger and then a columnist and then an author: one yes at a time, each yes a door, each door a doorway.

I called Barbara and told her about the festival. She said, "San Francisco! I'll come! Gerald and I will drive down! We'll be in the audience!" The enthusiasm was immediate and total and Barbara, which means: my mother will be in the front row at my reading, the way she has been in the front row of my life for thirty-eight years, talking too much and loving too loudly and being, in every way, the opposite of Ken, the opposite of Nakamura, the opposite of silence. Barbara is noise. Barbara is love-as-volume. Barbara will be in San Francisco, in the front row, with Gerald and his binoculars (for the birds, not the reading, although with Gerald you never know).

The cold soba was the meal, but the cucumber salad was the companion — the thing I made alongside it because the season demanded cold and clean and something that required almost nothing from me, which is what transitional weeks require: very little effort, very much reward. Standing in that doorway between spring and summer, between Portland and San Francisco, between the writer I was and the writer I am becoming, I needed food that asked nothing and gave everything. This cucumber salad is exactly that. It is Barbara’s kind of food, actually — uncomplicated, enthusiastic, loud with freshness, love-as-volume in a bowl.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes (including rest) | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 large English cucumbers, thinly sliced
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional, for garnish)
2 tablespoons fresh dill or flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Instructions

Slice the vegetables. Using a sharp knife or mandoline, slice the cucumbers and red onion as thinly as possible. Place them together in a medium mixing bowl.
Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the rice vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, and sesame oil until the sugar and salt are fully dissolved.
Combine and rest. Pour the dressing over the cucumbers and onion. Toss gently to coat everything evenly. Let the salad rest at room temperature for 10–15 minutes, or refrigerate for up to 1 hour, to allow the flavors to meld and the cucumbers to soften slightly.
Finish and serve. Just before serving, toss once more. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with sesame seeds and fresh herbs. Serve cold.

Nutrition (per serving)

Fresh Cucumber Salad — Cold and Clean in the Doorway Between Seasons