Coconut Miso Sweet Corn (Vegan) + Nostalgia and Letting Go

Plus, saying goodbye to my childhood home.

Hello my dears,

I’m in Illinois this week helping my parents move from my childhood home into a smaller house with less maintenance (although admittedly they’re hardly letting me help). It’s a been a week filled with nostalgia, and no food brings me back to my childhood faster than sweet corn—shucking the husks in my swimsuit on the back deck with the sprinkler puttering away in the yard, eating salty kernels off the cob and competing to see who had the best typewriter impression (did anybody else do that?), sautéing kernels in butter until golden brown, like my friend Mary taught me (tip: you can’t have too much butter)…

Coconut Miso Sweet Corn

The thing about nostalgia is that, if we’re not careful, we can end up gripping onto something that no longer exists instead of moving freely into the future. Mirriam-Webster defines nostalgia as: “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.” 

Packing up the last of my childhood home.

There’s no going backward in this life, and while we most certainly can carry with us the lessons we’ve learned and the memories that spark joy in our hearts, our work is also to continue letting go, shedding what no longer serves us in order to make room for the new. 

My parents have been huge teachers for me this week, as they’ve let go of so much. While there has been some sentimental sadness, mostly they’ve expressed excitement for what’s to come. They’re ready to move on, which I find brave and inspiring. This isn’t an end, but a beginning. 

This coconut miso sweet corn is its own form of beginning, although I will forever love (and continue to make) my mom’s creamed corn, which is generously splashed with heavy cream and speckled with bacon. Instead of using bacon, I turned to another umami-loaded ingredient when developing the recipe—white miso paste. The miso lends a subtle I-can’t-put-my-finger-on-it savoriness, while canned coconut cream supplies richness without weighing things down. A touch of lime zest and a scattering of sliced scallions wakes everything up. While it’s nothing like the creamed corn I grew up on, it still connects me to the joy of those childhood memories eating sweet corn on my back deck. It’s familiar yet new.

We are constantly creating our lives, no matter our age. We are continuously becoming. Perhaps, if we can bring with us only that which sparks joy, Marie Kondo style, and let go of the rest, we will find far more freedom and excitement on the journey. 

And when the need for comfort strikes, which it will, there are always familiar flavors we can turn to. That’s the beauty of cooking—we experiment and create, expanding our palates and evolving our tastes, but we can also go straight back home with a single bite, even if the home we once knew is no longer ours. 

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This recipe is best made with fresh kernels cut off the cob. You'll need 4 cups, from about 4-6 large ears.

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