Strawberry Trifle

Wildfire smoke from BC drifted in Tuesday. 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.

Grilled samgyeopsal Saturday — pork belly on the grill. Sesame leaves and ssamjang.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Saturday already had a lot in it — the samgyeopsal on the grill, the rain on the porch, the drive to Bellevue to bring Karen soft food, the kimchi crock doing its bubbling thing in the corner. By the time David showed up for Sunday dinner with those tomatoes from the Bellevue garden, I wanted something I didn’t have to think about too hard, something that looked like I’d tried without requiring the last of whatever I had left. Strawberry trifle is exactly that: layered, generous, a little showy in the dish, and almost entirely forgiving. It felt right for the end of a week that had asked a lot.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 20 min (plus 2 hours chilling) | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 pound fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 store-bought pound cake (about 16 oz), cut into 1-inch cubes
2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar (for cream cheese layer)

Instructions

Macerate the strawberries. Toss sliced strawberries with granulated sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. Let sit for 10–15 minutes until juicy. Set aside.
Make the whipped cream. Beat heavy cream, 3 tablespoons powdered sugar, and vanilla extract in a chilled bowl until stiff peaks form. Refrigerate until needed.
Make the cream cheese layer. Beat softened cream cheese, sour cream, and 1/4 cup powdered sugar together until smooth and fluffy. Fold in half of the whipped cream until just combined.
Layer the trifle. In a large trifle dish or glass bowl, place half the pound cake cubes in an even layer. Spoon half the macerated strawberries (with their juices) over the cake. Spread half the cream cheese mixture over the strawberries. Repeat layers with remaining cake, strawberries, and cream cheese mixture.
Top and chill. Spread or dollop the remaining whipped cream over the top layer. Garnish with a few fresh strawberry slices. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Strawberry Trifle — Something Sweet After the Smoke Clears