Mango and Blue Cheese Salad

Portland summer. The dry heat. The shiso head-high. Sunday farmers market. Tomatoes, shiso, kabocha when in season, mushrooms in fall. The shopping list is short and exact.

Miya, 10, can shape onigiri without falling apart. She uses wet hands. She knows the order without being told.

Cold tofu with bonito flakes and ginger. The simplest summer protein. A bowl that takes ninety seconds.

Tomi home soon. The kitchen quiet.

I read for an hour Sunday night. A book of essays by a Korean-American writer about food and grief. I underlined a paragraph that said exactly what I had been trying to say in the newsletter for months.

I drove to Uwajimaya Wednesday. Kombu, bonito flakes, white miso, a small bag of mochiko for tomorrow's project. The store smells like home.

Made dashi at five-thirty AM. Ten minutes in the kitchen alone with the kombu and the bonito flakes. The day's first prayer.

I made onigiri for tomorrow's lunch. Three triangles. Salted plum in the center. Wrapped in nori. The cling wrap. The drawer where I keep them. The system.

Coffee with a friend Saturday morning. We talked about books, about kids, about the way our forties became our fifties. The talking is the thing.

A panic flicker Tuesday evening, brief, manageable. I breathed. I drank water. I went outside and walked around the block. The flicker passed. The body did its work.

The rain in long sheets Tuesday afternoon. I made tea. I watched it from the porch. The cottonwoods on the next block were silver in the wet.

The neighbor's dog barked at nothing for twenty minutes Sunday afternoon. The neighbor apologized. I told him I had been writing through it and the white noise was helpful. He laughed.

Therapy Tuesday. We talked about the wedding. We talked about Barbara. We talked about Fumiko. The hour passed. The work continues.

I texted Miya a photo of the shiso. She texted back a heart and a single word: home.

Yoga Tuesday morning. The studio in Sellwood. Eight students. The class was the class.

I cleaned the kitchen Sunday afternoon. Wiped the counters. Reorganized the drawer where the chopsticks live. Sharpened the knife. The reset was the reset.

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

Miya's old room is now my office. The desk is by the window. The shiso outside. The newsletter in progress. The afternoons are quiet.

Miya is in elementary school. The Saturday Japanese school continues. She still complains. She is still going.

I wrote at the kitchen table from six to eight. The newsletter was forming. The opening sentence was the hard sentence — they always are. I rewrote it five times. The fifth time was the right time.

Tomi watered the garden Saturday morning. The shiso was head-high. The shishito peppers were producing. The kabocha was running on the fence.

The cat was the cat. Mochi at fifteen sleeps most of the day. She still eats with enthusiasm. She still sits at the kitchen window watching the back garden.

A reader sent me a handwritten card this week. Her grandmother had cooked Japanese food in 1970s Boise. She had felt alone in it. The newsletter, she wrote, made her feel less alone. I taped the card to the wall above my desk.

Sunday farmers market in the rain. The vendors knew me. The Hood River apple stand had honeycrisps. I bought four pounds.

The cold tofu gets its own ninety seconds, and then the week is still there asking to be fed again — and that’s when I turn to something like this. The mango and blue cheese salad has been in our rotation since a summer years ago when I couldn’t bear the oven and Tomi brought home a mango from the Uwajimaya run almost by accident. Sweet fruit against something sharp and salty: it follows the same logic as the tofu with bonito, the plum inside the onigiri. The contrast does the work so you don’t have to.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

5 oz (about 6 cups) mixed baby greens or arugula
2 ripe mangoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
3 oz blue cheese, crumbled (about 3/4 cup)
1/3 cup thinly sliced red onion
1/2 cup candied pecans or walnuts
2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, torn (optional)
For the dressing:
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
2 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the lime juice, honey, olive oil, salt, and pepper until emulsified. Taste and adjust seasoning. Set aside.
Prep the produce. Peel and cube the mangoes. Slice the red onion thin. If you have a few extra minutes, soak the onion slices in cold water for 5 minutes to mellow their sharpness, then drain and pat dry.
Build the salad. Spread the greens across a wide shallow bowl or platter. Scatter the mango cubes evenly over the top, followed by the red onion and candied nuts.
Add the cheese. Crumble the blue cheese over everything in an even layer. Add torn mint leaves if using.
Dress and serve. Drizzle the dressing over the salad just before serving — start with about two-thirds and add more to taste. Serve immediately; the greens soften quickly once dressed.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mango and Blue Cheese Salad — The Bowl That Asks Nothing of You