Rhubarb Crumble Ice Cream

Daffodils in the front yard. The shiso starts pushing up. 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.

Made spring kimchi this week. Younger flavor, less aggressive. The summer batch will be different.

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

The week held. The kitchen held. The two cultures shared the counter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Wallingford farmers market kabocha and shishito peppers came home with us—as they always do, in embarrassing abundance—but it was the rhubarb at the corner stall that stopped me, those shocking pink stalks that mean only one thing: the season has actually turned. Spring kimchi is a younger, softer ferment, and I wanted the dessert to match that energy: something tart and bright and not yet hardened by summer. Rhubarb crumble ice cream is exactly that—the crumble for the slow Saturday afternoon on the porch, the cold for the rain that didn’t quite feel like winter anymore.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 45 min + freezing | Servings: 8

Ingredients

3 cups fresh rhubarb, trimmed and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 cup granulated sugar (for rhubarb compote)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar (for ice cream base)
4 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Make the rhubarb compote. Combine chopped rhubarb, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and lemon juice in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10–12 minutes until rhubarb breaks down into a thick, jammy compote. Remove from heat and let cool completely, then refrigerate until cold.
Bake the crumble. Preheat oven to 350°F. In a bowl, combine flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Work in the cold butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Spread on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake 12–15 minutes until golden. Cool completely and break into small pieces.
Make the custard base. Warm the heavy cream and milk in a saucepan over medium heat until just steaming. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and 3/4 cup granulated sugar until pale and thick. Slowly pour the warm cream into the egg mixture, whisking constantly to temper. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring continuously, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon (about 170°F). Remove from heat, stir in vanilla, and strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Chill completely in the refrigerator, at least 4 hours or overnight.
Churn the ice cream. Pour the chilled custard into your ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer’s instructions, typically 20–25 minutes, until it reaches a soft-serve consistency.
Layer and freeze. In a freezer-safe container, alternate layers of churned ice cream, spoonfuls of cold rhubarb compote, and crumble pieces. Use a knife or skewer to create gentle swirls. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly against the surface and freeze for at least 4 hours until firm.
Serve. Let the ice cream sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before scooping. Top with any reserved crumble pieces for extra texture.

Nutrition (per serving)

Rhubarb Crumble Ice Cream — The Taste of a Spring That Held