Lemon Almond Asparagus

May. The world is green and loud and growing and I am growing with it — the shiso on the balcony, the readership on the blog, the chapters in the book, the Japanese words in Miya's vocabulary. Everything is growing. Everything except Ken, who is becoming smaller, imperceptibly, the Parkinson's not taking him so much as rearranging him, the tremor a comma in a sentence that used to flow without punctuation.

I made sansai gohan — mountain vegetable rice, the spring rice made with foraged wild plants that Japanese cooks have gathered for centuries. Portland has its own version: fiddlehead ferns, ramps, nettles. I found fiddleheads at the farmers market and cooked them with rice and dashi and a splash of soy sauce and the result was earthy and wild and tasted like the forest had climbed onto my plate. Fumiko would not have recognized the ingredients — different country, different forest — but she would have recognized the practice: cook what the season gives you. Cook what the land provides. The land provides. The season gives. The cooking receives.

I visited Ken in Sacramento this month. The garden is in full spring. The daikon is growing. The shiso is tall. Ken's hands tremble when he plants, but he plants anyway, directing Marco, the home health aide, on spacing and depth and the particular angle at which a daikon seed should enter the soil. Marco is learning Japanese gardening from a man who cannot garden alone anymore, and the teaching-while-declining is both beautiful and cruel, the beauty of knowledge transferred and the cruelty of the reason for the transfer.

I cooked for Ken all weekend — Fumiko's dishes, the ones he eats without comment but with an expression that means everything. Miso soup. Nimono. Tamagoyaki. Onigiri. The menu of a Japanese daughter taking care of a Japanese father, the food as language, the language the only one both of them speak fluently. He ate everything. He said nothing. The nothing said: thank you. The nothing said: I am scared. The nothing said: I am glad you are here. I heard all of it. I always hear all of it. The Nakamura frequency. The daughters decode it. The fathers broadcast it. The transmission is silent. The reception is not.

I can’t always find fiddleheads or ramps, and the sansai gohan I made for Ken that weekend was a once-a-season thing—special because it was brief, because the forest made it possible, because it disappeared. But the spirit of it—cook what the land gives you right now, simply, without fuss—that I can hold onto year-round. This lemon almond asparagus is what I make when I want to carry that same feeling into an ordinary Tuesday: spring on the plate, effort worn lightly, the kind of side dish that would have sat quietly and perfectly next to Ken’s bowl of rice without either of us needing to say a word about it.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 17 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb fresh asparagus, tough ends trimmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup sliced almonds
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Optional: flaky sea salt for finishing

Instructions

Toast the almonds. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add sliced almonds in a single layer and toast, stirring frequently, for 2—3 minutes until golden and fragrant. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.
Sauté the asparagus. Add olive oil to the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add asparagus spears in a single layer. Cook undisturbed for 3 minutes, then toss and cook another 3—4 minutes until tender-crisp and lightly charred in spots.
Add garlic and lemon. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add minced garlic and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add lemon juice and lemon zest, tossing the asparagus to coat evenly.
Season and finish. Season with kosher salt and black pepper. Transfer to a serving platter, scatter the toasted almonds over the top, and finish with a pinch of flaky sea salt if desired. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Lemon Almond Asparagus — What the Season Gives, You Cook