In 2002, I experienced my first-ever New England winter. According to my Ipswich-native roommate, it was one of the coldest ones in recent history. “Even we don’t get weather this bad,” she would mutter as the two of us sat in our thermals on the bathroom windowsill, running all three showers to build up steam so that we could thaw after a long day. We both bought smokers gloves (with the fingertips cut off) for doing our homework, and, like twins, we wore twin braids and a toque (then called a ski cap in my American-only vocabulary) every day, and she went so far as to wear thermal long underwear under her jeans. It was cold.
Spring came eventually, and on the first sixty degree day, a Sunday, we spent the afternoon in t-shirts, doing our homework on the lawn. Yes, it was cold, but damn, I could walk around without shoes on and not get frostbite, so I would! It felt like summer to my warmth-starved body, and so that evening at dinner, as we clambered in from the lawn holding our shoes in our hands, I fixed myself a bowl of sticky rice and soy sauce. I know… bizarre, but allow me to go on another extremely long tangent and explain.
My father has done every fad diet known to man. Some were annoying, like the grapefruit diet, and others I enjoyed, like one that had him eating sugar-free Jello and Cool-Whip and chunks of nutty Parmegiano-Reggiano. I have yet to completely understand what that particular diet was all about.
My favorite, however, is a recurring one. Every summer, when we go out to Long Island, Noda-San comes back. Noda-San, also known as “Mr. Sushi” runs a four-seat sushi bar in Westhampton Beach. It’s the second best sushi I’ve ever had (the first best, also eaten with my father, was in a strip mall in LA somewhere near Studio City. Go figure.) Anyway, every summer, when Noda-San comes back from Puerto Rico and opens up the sushi bar again, my father decides that a diet consisting solely of sushi, grilled fish and seaweed salad is just what he needs. Sure enough, it usually ends with him losing about twenty pounds, all of which he slowly regains over the winter months. My sister and I are his usual dining companions, and I, the only one with drivers’ license, am rewarded with sushi money if I make the drive to pick up his typical Japanese breakfast of seaweed and rice vinegar.
All this to say that, to me, soy sauce and sesame are possibly the flavors that best exemplify summer. Which is why, even though I had a spaghetti Bolognese dinner planned for this evening, I changed my mind as soon as I saw the clear blue sky and smelt the spring. I don’t care what that damn Groundhog says. I don’t care that I still nearly froze in my bed last night, or that I’m still wearing two pairs of socks and nursing big cups of hot tea. Today, there was a hint of spring in the air. It smelled like fresh grass and mulch… like that day so many years ago when the ice and snow finally started to melt, and we sat by rapidly shrinking snow drifts to work on chemistry homework. This is why I abandoned the package of ground veal for another day, and went out to buy some salmon, to be served with lime, soy, spinach and rice, a food I never, ever eat, unless it’s with soy sauce and sesame, as soon as I can start to see the beginning of spring.
Lime-Honey-Soy Salmon
2 salmon fillets
2 limes
2 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp mustard
salt and pepper
vegetable oil
Season the fillets on both sides with salt and pepper, and add to a “screaming hot” (as Rachael Ray says) skillet with vegetable oil. Cook for two minutes per side, until the outside is crisp and brown, and the inside is cooked through but still moist. Remove from skillet and keep warm. Add the other ingredients to the skillet and cook down for one minute, stirring constantly. Drizzle the glaze over the fillets and serve. We had it over rice and reheated frozen spinach, and it was divine.
