Protein Ice Cream

Long evenings. Light until ten PM. 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.

Cold tofu with bonito flakes and ginger. The simplest summer protein.

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

James fell asleep on the couch with the kids climbing on him. The household was the household.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The week had been full — Sprint planning, two hours of meetings, therapy, date night, Sunday dinner, farmers market — and somewhere in the middle of all of it I wrote the words “cold tofu with bonito flakes and ginger, the simplest summer protein” and meant it as a kind of exhale. But on the evening I finally had a free hour, Hana was already asking for something sweet and cold, and I wanted something that did both jobs at once: dessert and protein, simple and satisfying. This protein ice cream has become that thing for our household in the long light evenings of a Wallingford summer — three minutes of effort, no churning, no waiting for it to make sense.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 5 minutes (plus 2–4 hours freezing) | Servings: 2

Ingredients

2 cups plain Greek yogurt (2% or full-fat)
1 scoop (approx. 30g) vanilla or unflavored protein powder
2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
Optional mix-ins: 2 tablespoons peanut butter, fresh berries, or a handful of dark chocolate chips

Instructions

Combine. In a medium bowl, whisk together the Greek yogurt, protein powder, honey (or maple syrup), vanilla extract, and salt until fully smooth with no lumps of protein powder remaining.
Add mix-ins. If using any optional mix-ins, fold them in gently now.
Freeze. Pour the mixture into a freezer-safe container or loaf pan. Smooth the top with a spatula. Cover tightly with a lid or plastic wrap.
Set. Freeze for at least 2 hours for a soft-serve consistency, or 4 hours for a firmer scoop. If freezing overnight, let sit at room temperature for 5–8 minutes before scooping.
Serve. Scoop into bowls and serve immediately. Keeps in the freezer for up to 1 week.

Nutrition (per serving)

Protein Ice Cream — The Simplest Summer Protein, Reimagined Cold