Grilled Hummus Turkey Sandwich

Seattle spring — cherry blossoms in the Quad. Amazon this week. Sprint planning Tuesday. Two hours of meetings I could have been a Slack message.

Hana, 2, on a step stool stirring miso into broth. She knows the order. She is bilingual already in food vocabulary. Jisoo FaceTimed Tuesday. We made doenjang jjigae together — me in Wallingford, her in Haeundae. Eleven thousand miles. The same soup.

Doenjang jjigae Tuesday. The fermented soybean paste. Anchovy stock. Zucchini, tofu, scallion. Jisoo's recipe.

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

I FaceTimed Jisoo in the morning. She watched me make doenjang jjigae and corrected my technique. The chain extends.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The week I drove to Bellevue to see Karen, I didn’t want to show up empty-handed, but I also didn’t want to show up with something that required effort from her—nothing chewy, nothing complicated, nothing she’d have to sit up straight to eat. A grilled hummus turkey sandwich was exactly right: warm through, soft enough, filling without being heavy, the kind of food that says I thought about you without making anyone perform gratitude. She ate. That was enough. If you have someone in your life who needs that kind of showing up right now, this is the recipe.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 20 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

8 slices whole-grain sandwich bread
1/2 cup hummus (store-bought or homemade)
3/4 lb deli turkey breast, thinly sliced
1 medium ripe tomato, sliced thin
1 cup baby spinach, loosely packed
1/2 small red onion, sliced into thin rings
1 avocado, pitted and sliced
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

Heat the pan. Warm a grill pan or large nonstick skillet over medium heat. If you have a panini press, preheat it now.
Build the sandwiches. Spread 2 tablespoons of hummus on one side of each bread slice. On four of the slices, layer the turkey, tomato, spinach, red onion, and avocado in that order. Season lightly with black pepper. Top with the remaining four bread slices, hummus-side facing in.
Oil and grill. Brush the outer faces of each sandwich lightly with olive oil. Place on the grill pan and press gently with a spatula. Cook 3 to 4 minutes per side until the bread is golden and has visible grill marks and the filling is warmed through. If using a panini press, press and cook 4 to 5 minutes total.
Rest and slice. Transfer sandwiches to a cutting board and let them rest for one minute before slicing diagonally. The brief rest keeps everything from sliding.
Serve. Serve immediately, or wrap tightly in foil if you’re bringing them somewhere. They hold warmth well for about 30 minutes wrapped.

Nutrition (per serving)

Grilled Hummus Turkey Sandwich — The Soft Food That Shows Up