We bought our house in Umbria ten years ago this past summer.
A couple of months after the sale was completed the former owners, Bruno and Mayes, came over for lunch. And as the lunch lingered, as lunches in Umbria do, Bruno interrupted himself in mid-lecture on the glories of Roman pasta.
“Asparagi,” he said calmly. He got up from his chair, crossed over to the wall of our ancient wood-burning oven and snapped off a pencil-thin spear of wild asparagus that was hiding in and among the other grasses.
“It’s all over the place,” he said. “April is the time. You’ll see hundreds of contadini in the fields and by the side of the road, harvesting them. Here, taste.”
I bit off the end of the slender stalk and chewed on it a bit. It was raw, of course, and a little stringy but the taste fairly attacked me with its vibrancy. Wild asparagus is way wilder than tame asparagus.
“Just imagine,” I thought, “how it’ll make my pee smell.”
With that noble scientific quest in mind, I immediately began to search for more. I looked all around the forno, where Bruno found his and then up the hill toward the olive trees, but there were no more spears to be found.
A couple of weekends ago at the Little Italy Mercato, as I was peacefully sorting through ears of sweet corn, I heard a woman scream, "Oh, my God! I can't believe it!"
Bemidji’s Natural Choice Farmers Market opened for the season yesterday. I was there with my market bag, filling it with fresh butter lettuce, baby turnips, green onions and beautiful rosy red radishes. Oh, and I can’t forget the homemade bread.
I could not possibly have let April go by without sharing this lemony recipe with you. This is one that will become a classic in your repertoire. Trust me. Easy, yet so delicious, this dish is perfect for a small dinner or for a huge gathering. The recipe can be halved or doubled easily (or tripled … believe me I’ve done it).
People say we don’t have seasons in LA. Oh but we do my friends, we do. For example, now is Artichoke Season, a time when (if you’re lucky) you can find a farmer harvesting huge heavy artichokes with a long stem still attached. The artichoke head that we eat is the bud stage of a giant gorgeous purple flower. As the artichoke ages the “leaves” of the bud open ultimately revealing the choke which turns deep lavender. For eating you want the bud pretty tightly closed. And look for heavy artichokes. Heaviness means freshness. When the artichoke is freshly cut it’s cells are full of water. As time goes by the water transpires and evaporates leaving the vegetable light and dry.