By Spring deepens. The rhododendrons are blooming — purple, pink, white — and the roses are budding, and Portland is entering its annual beauty phase with the confidence of a city that knows it has three extraordinary months coming and does not apologize for the nine mediocre ones that precede them. I took Miya to the rose test garden on Saturday and she pointed at every rose and said "smell!" and stuck her entire face into each bloom and inhaled with the full-body commitment of a toddler who does not do anything halfway.
I made a spring pea and shiso risotto this week — not Japanese, not Italian, something in between, something mine. Arborio rice cooked slowly in dashi instead of chicken stock, finished with sweet spring peas, torn shiso leaves, and a drizzle of sesame oil instead of parmesan. The fusion was instinctive — I reached for dashi when the recipe said stock because dashi is my stock, dashi is my default, dashi is the liquid that means home. The risotto was creamy and earthy and the shiso added the herbal brightness that parsley lacks. It was delicious. It was Portland. It was mine.
I realized this week that I have stopped trying to replicate Fumiko's food exactly and have started adapting it. The translations are complete, the techniques are learned, and now the cooking is evolving — from Fumiko's kitchen to my kitchen, from her ingredients to my ingredients, from Sacramento to Portland. The evolution is not betrayal. The evolution is the point. Fumiko did not cook her mother's food exactly. She adapted it for Sacramento, for the ingredients available, for the palate she developed in America. I am doing the same thing one generation later. The chain does not mean identical links. The chain means continuous connection, each link slightly different from the last, each one carrying the weight of the ones before.
The book outline is growing. I have twenty pages of notes, organized by season. The spring section includes: miso soup, sakura mochi, takenoko gohan, and the spring pea risotto — which is not Fumiko's but is mine, and the inclusion of something mine alongside something hers feels right, feels like the book should be not just a memorial but a continuation, not just a looking-back but a looking-forward. The book is about what was lost and what was built from the losing. The book is about the chain. The chain continues.
The spring peas I used in the risotto were so good — sweet, tender, impossibly green — that I kept reaching back into the bag while I stirred. They deserve a dish where they are not the supporting cast but the whole point. This pea salad is that dish: fast, undemanding, and honest about what spring tastes like when you stop complicating it. After a week of thinking about what cooking inherits and what it invents, sometimes the answer is just: buy beautiful peas and get out of their way.
Pea Salad
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 5 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 4 cups fresh or frozen green peas (thawed if frozen)
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, diced small
- 1/4 cup red onion, finely diced
- 4 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- Blanch the peas. If using fresh peas, bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Add peas and cook for 2 minutes until just tender and bright green. Drain immediately and rinse under cold water to stop cooking. Skip this step if using thawed frozen peas.
- Make the dressing. In a large bowl, whisk together the sour cream, mayonnaise, sugar, salt, pepper, and lemon juice until smooth and combined.
- Combine. Add the peas, cheddar, and red onion to the dressing. Fold gently until everything is evenly coated. Taste and adjust seasoning.
- Chill. Cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes before serving to let the flavors come together.
- Finish and serve. Just before serving, fold in the crumbled bacon so it stays crisp. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with a few extra peas or a crack of black pepper if desired.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 210 | Protein: 9g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 15g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 310mg