Spring

Who doesn’t love Spring? With days growing longer, buds turning into blooms and winter produce giving way to spring’s greens, it’s the season of re-birth and renewal.

But in Southern California–with daily highs hitting 80 and nights dipping to 40–spring is also a season of contradictions. (How else could we explain short-shorts worn with Uggs?)  And for those chilly evenings, here’s a soup that’s hot and hearty but still seasonal and skinny: Light and Lovely Spring and Split Pea Soup.

Dried green split peas–high in fiber, protein, B vitamins and complex carbohydrates–are one of the world’s healthiest foods.  But like all dried legumes, once cooked, they have about 300 calories per cup.

And though turning dried peas into soup made with low fat broth can reduce calories, most recipes for split pea soup also tend to have an obnoxious amount of pork and fat. (Paula Deen’s recipe, for example, calls for bacon and sausage and butter and adds up to 1020 calories and 30 grams of fat per 2 cup serving.…almost two-thirds of the calories an average 5’5 woman should have in a day.)

Spying bright yellow Meyer lemons in the refrigerated produce case at my local natural food co-op never fails to give me a lift. This occurrence usually takes place in March, my least favorite month of the year in northern Minnesota with its dull gray skies, dirty slush, and sometimes, snowstorms that, by this time, no one wants to experience.

I grabbed several Meyer lemons last week, brought them home and arranged them in a shallow white bowl with the kumquats that also came home with me.

After enjoying their burst of brightness in my kitchen for a couple of days, I knew it was time to use them up. I was ready to make some little tea cakes, tiny loaves infused with the juice of Meyer lemons.

If you've been hoping to brush up on your stir-fry skills, there's no better time to do just that than now. Spring gives you the best opportunity with so many different vegetables to cook with—and they're all amazing in a stir-fry. There are green beans, broccoli, asparagus, and soon there will be peas, but in the meantime green garlic is what you should be looking for in the farmers' market.

With a much more subtle garlic flavor than mature bulbs, green garlic looks more like scallions or baby leeks. But if you can't tell the difference at the market you'll just have to smell them. The stalks are entirely edible, from the pale white bulb to the dark green leaves. Green garlic is great for soup or used as an alternative to regular garlic. But it's more interesting in a dish that keeps its integrity and makes it the center of attention and this stir-fry does just that.

The recipe also includes another oddity of spring-purple asparagus. Raw it has a glorious purple color but once cooked it turns dark green, losing that deep hue. If you can't find purple asparagus, double up on green. One tip for making this stir-fry: Make sure to have all the ingredients prepped in advance because you don't want to be slicing the asparagus while the garlic is burning.

A couple of weeks ago I experienced a revelation: I tasted my first pea shoot.

I was at the Little Italy Mercato buying Asian produce from The Vangs, also known as Mr. and Mrs. Green. After purchasing Thai basil, fresh ginger and sugar snap peas, I asked, "What do pea shoots taste like?"

She replied, with no sarcasm, "Peas."

She tore a small piece off one of the leaves and handed it to me. I bit into it and suddenly the sun broke through the clouds, harp music began playing, and I floated ever so slightly off of the pavement.

OK, that's not exactly what happened. There was no harp music. It was Spanish music being played by a local band.