The water cycle mandates that rain drop to earth, meander through rivers, evaporate into clouds. Over and over and over. Any student with a blue crayon can sketch the schematic.
But water doesn't care. Lately it's been plummeting from the sky, gushing through the roof, streaming across the floor. It's been pulling down branches, pooling in the flowerbed, rising through the sidewalk. Where's the decorum? What happened to the cycle, with its pause between deluge and steam bath? Where's the garden party? Indoors.
There, sullen and sodden, we think wistfully of the way puddles used to shrink. Pulling out the steamer pot, we build a model: liquid below, fish in the center, lid on top. We spike the groundwater with sake and lemon, letting the science of evaporation carry flavor to and through the salmon.
The result is a dish that's neither dry nor wet, but perfectly moist. We smile at the stovetop ecosystem, hoping someone up there takes note, someone with a sunshine-yellow crayon.
