Strawberry Rhubarb Dump Cake

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.

Bibimbap Saturday. The rainbow bowl. Carrots, spinach, mung bean sprouts, beef, fried egg. Gochujang on top.

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

The kimchi crock was bubbling. The fermentation was the fermentation.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We bought too much at the farmers market Sunday, as we always do — and the strawberries and rhubarb from the Asian vendor’s stall were sitting on the counter looking at me all afternoon while the rain came down on the porch. I had been still for two hours with my book and my tea, and then I needed to do exactly one thing with my hands that required almost no thought: this cake. It is called a dump cake because that is what you do. You dump. The fruit did the work. The oven did the work. I sat back down with my book.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 12

Ingredients

3 cups fresh rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 box (15.25 oz) yellow cake mix
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into thin slices
Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Preheat. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with butter or nonstick spray.
Prepare the fruit layer. Combine the chopped rhubarb and sliced strawberries in the prepared dish. Sprinkle the sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla extract evenly over the fruit and toss gently to coat. Spread into an even layer.
Add the cake mix. Pour the dry cake mix straight from the box over the fruit layer. Spread it gently and evenly with a spatula — do not stir it into the fruit.
Top with butter. Lay the thin butter slices across the top of the cake mix in a single layer, covering as much surface area as possible. Some gaps are fine; the butter will spread as it melts.
Bake. Bake uncovered for 45 to 50 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling around the edges. If the top is browning too quickly, loosely tent with foil for the last 10 minutes.
Rest and serve. Let the cake cool for at least 15 minutes before serving so the fruit layer can set slightly. Serve warm, with whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you like.

Nutrition (per serving)

Strawberry Rhubarb Dump Cake — The Rainy Saturday That Asked for Something Sweet