Spring

Burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, cole slaw and fresh fruit salads are Memorial Day classics. I look forward to those favorites but to keep them interesting, it's good to add something new and a little unexpected.

When I was growing up, asparagus was one of the fancy vegetables. Carrots, corn and broccoli were the everyday vegetables. Asparagus was saved for special occasions. These days asparagus is affordable, easy-to-prepare and versatile.

Right now asparagus is plentiful in farmers markets. Nutritious, delicious and loaded with healthy minerals, asparagus can be enjoyed raw or cooked, as a salad or a side dish to add zest to a backyard barbecue or afternoon lunch.

Finally, the wait is over! Fava beans are in season. They appeared for the first time last Sunday, and I couldn't be happier. I know how hard the wait has been on you too, but you can rest easy now. Well don't rest too easily. Fava beans have a depressingly short season--usually just 4-5 weeks in April-May.

Fava (FAH vah) beans, like artichokes, asparagus, and English peas are a hallmark of spring time produce. These meaty, chewy legumes are exceptionally flavorful; they're similar in taste to edamame and have the firm texture of lima/butter beans. In general, the larger the pod, the better the bean. So when you see them, buy them, even if they're $3.00-4.00/pound. You won't be disappointed.

And don't worry about what to call them. According to Wiki and Cook's Thesaurus, you're correct if you say Vicia faba, broad bean, butter bean, faba bean, English bean, field bean, horse bean, tic bean, or Winsdor bean. I'm not making this up. I think someone actually wrote a dissertation entitled "The Many Appellations of the Bean, Fava."

So call 'em whatever you want, just don't miss them. And follow these instructions for shelling. They take a little effort because you have to shell them twice, but trust me, they're worth it.

So strawberry season is upon us. These sweet treats have been zipping up I-75 from Florida for a while now and Middle Georgia’s very own crop is coming!

Places such as Lane’s  has a strawberry patch and, well, if by chance one finds themselves pickin’ in the patch, one might as well stay for ice cream! Since spring is upon us, let us enjoy the fruits of the season!

What a perfect name for a lovely drink! Taking the fiery redness of strawberries and blending it with the calming color of cream, one will find the most beautiful pink drink to serve your friends and family.

It isn't hard to be inspired when your store's refrigerator is bursting with boxes of carefully bunched asparagus all lined up in neat rows. My first reaction is to pair the asparagus with the fresh diver's scallops that have arrived this morning, but I have my whole working day ahead to fine tune exactly what I am going to create for dinner with these two extraordinary ingredients. Something fairly quick and something that causes silence at the table. What is quicker than an risotto and what is faster that pan sear scallops? Ah, dinner in 40 minutes, now I am getting hungry!

I defrost a quart of chicken stock that seems to reproduce in my freezer and chop off the woody asparagus end and simmer the two together to give my risotto a more intense asparagus flavor so I can add the other end of the asparagus later on in the rice cooking process without running the risk of overcooking and losing that bright Spring green. In a two quart pot melt 2 tablespoons of butter and the same amount of olive oil, to this heated fat add 3/4 of a cup of finely chopped onions – I use yellow spanish onion but a red onion would really be beautiful in the finished risotto.