Spring

Gazpacho, how much do I love you? This cold, raw tomato soup hails from Andalusia, Spain and if I don’t get my butt to España soon I will be forever cranky.  I could easily dedicate an entire blog about the country of Spain, it’s one of my favorite places on the planet that I would gladly pack up and move to tomorrow if I had my druthers.

The only problem is that a) I am an American so there’s that pesky paperwork problem and b) I’d fall asleep at the dinner table each and every night. Oh who am I kidding? I would have been in bed for 2 hours by the time everyone assembles for dinner. Old man, me.

These two recipes for gazpacho come from Chef José Andrés. Whenever I think of him I get warm and tingly and I am thankful that he has chosen to live here in the US. I believe it makes this a better place, for sure.

This is what spring looks like.  Truly.  So why not make a dish that takes the best of those green, grassy, sweet flavors, adds garlic, great olive oil and a hit of salt and serve it up in one dish? The subtle beauty of all these colors of green tangled together help us understand the idea of renewal inherent in the spring holiday celebrations of Easter or Passover.

In Italy it’s called cianfotta, the all purpose dish that changes with the seasons as new vegetables appear and leave the markets.  This saute is one of my master recipes. Serve it as a side dish.  Or to make it a bit more substantial for vegetarians add a handful of toasted pine nuts or almonds.  For a one course dinner add nuts and a bit of soft or aged goat cheese.  

This recipe is a template.  You can add sliced and trimmed baby artichokes or fava beans.  You may omit the mint or use onions instead of leeks.  Some folks leave out the lettuce.  It’s up to you.

How can anyone resist tart and tiny kumquats, sitting so cute and bright in the produce department at the grocery store? They just look happy. I buy them every year as soon as they make their first seasonal appearance. I never have a plan for them when I set them in my basket, but it doesn’t matter. I buy the organic kumquats, rinse them well and, after I’ve cut the stem ends off, I pop them into my mouth one after the other, as if they were orange jelly beans.

Yes, these little cuties are totally edible, although they do have seeds hiding inside that seem large for such a tiny fruit. To remove seeds, slice kumquats in half and squeeze them gently and the seeds will pop out.

The skin is tender and sweet, while the flesh can be dry and very tart, compared with oranges. Kumquats that are soft will be less juicy, but they are perfectly acceptable for most uses. Store them in a plastic bag in the fruit drawer of the refrigerator for up to three weeks. One kumquat has about 12 calories and is a good source of vitamin C.

This really isn't a recipe—it doesn't even involve cooking or assembly. It's just a few simple ingredients brought together in a perfect way: radishes, butter, and salt. Most people don't give radishes a second thought mainly because they don't eat them. As I've shown in recipes before and will show this week, radishes can be made into many different dishes with ones that are even cooked. But the absolute best way to eat them is with just a little salt and butter.



Radishes are a very humble vegetable, so you would never expect to eat them anywhere but home, let alone find them served at a high-end restaurant. But a few years ago at ABC Kitchen I was served radishes with salt, bread, and butter.

I couldn't believe my eyes because it was such a simple presentation but a very effective one that truly represented the restaurant's "green" objective very clearly—it was all about the fresh produce. Besides all the wondeful dishes I enjoyed that evening, the radishes really stood out in my mind and memory—it's why I'm writing about them now.