Vegetarian Spaghetti

The world is on fire. Minneapolis is burning. Seattle is marching. The news is a wall of tear gas and grief and Black bodies and white silence and I am sitting in my Capitol Hill condo ╬ôçö a condo in a neighborhood that is, right now, blocks from the protests on Pine Street ╬ôçö trying to reconcile the fact that I am a woman of color who was raised by white people who never talked about race. Karen and David didn't prepare me for this. They couldn't. They didn't have the language. They loved me in a white house in a white suburb and they thought love was a force field, and it wasn't, and I don't blame them anymore but I feel the gap this week more than I have in years.

Dr. Yoon on Thursday. I told her I feel like a fraud ╬ôçö not Black, not white, not Korean enough, not American enough, occupying a space in the racial conversation that I'm not sure belongs to me. She said, "Your experience of racialization is real. Your parents' inability to address it is real. You don't need to rank your pain against anyone else's to acknowledge it exists." I wrote that down. I'm still sitting with it.

James and I went to the International District on Saturday to pick up groceries from Uwajimaya. Some of the storefronts on Jackson Street had plywood over the windows ╬ôçö precautionary, not damaged, but the sight of it hit me somewhere low. The ID has been struggling since COVID emptied the restaurants, and now this. I bought too much ╬ôçö daikon, gochugaru, doenjang, three kinds of mushroom, enough rice for a month ╬ôçö the panic buying of a woman who processes anxiety through ingredients. James carried the bags without comment. He knows.

I made japchae that night. Glass noodles, spinach, carrots, shiitake, beef, everything julienned thin and cooked separately and then tossed together with sesame oil and soy sauce. Japchae is a celebration dish ╬ôçö birthdays, holidays, Chuseok ╬ôçö but I made it on a Saturday in June because I needed the meditation of it, the hour of quiet prep work, the cutting and blanching and stirring that requires your hands and frees your mind. The noodles were glossy and perfect. We ate them with the windows open and the sound of helicopters in the distance, which is a sentence I never expected to write about dinner in Seattle. The food was beautiful. The world was not. Both things, at the same table.

The japchae I made that Saturday night taught me something I already knew but keep needing to relearn: noodles are the right food for impossible weeks. There’s something about the rhythm of it — the boiling water, the sauce coming together, the way the whole pot asks you to stay present and do the next small thing — that the rest of the world can’t interrupt. This vegetarian spaghetti carries that same quality. It isn’t flashy, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s the kind of dish you make when you need your hands to have something useful to do, and when you want whatever ends up on the table to feel like care made visible.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

12 oz spaghetti
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced
8 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Salt and black pepper to taste
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
Grated Parmesan or pecorino for serving (optional)

Instructions

Start the sauce base. Heat olive oil in a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Build the vegetables. Add the bell pepper, zucchini, and mushrooms to the pan. Season with a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender and any liquid released by the mushrooms has mostly evaporated, about 8–10 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and simmer. Pour in the crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes. Stir in the basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, and sugar. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and the flavors come together. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
Cook the pasta. While the sauce simmers, bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook spaghetti according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water before draining.
Combine and finish. Add the drained spaghetti directly to the sauce. Toss well to coat, adding a splash of reserved pasta water if needed to loosen the sauce. Cook together for 1–2 minutes over low heat so the noodles absorb some of the sauce.
Serve. Divide into bowls and top with fresh parsley and grated cheese if using. Eat with the windows open or closed, depending on the night.

Nutrition (per serving)

Vegetarian Spaghetti — The Meditation of Noodles When the World Won’t Hold Still