Ramps and Asparagus Arrive

On Sunday at the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market, Top Chef competitor Mike Isabella wasn’t the only star on hand (though it’s way cool that his demo was to spit roast a goat).  No, I was actually just as excited about two stars of Mid-Atlantic spring produce showing up: ramps and asparagus.  (No sign of rhubarb yet, as far as I saw, but surely that’ll be next).  I guess because of the hot weather, ramps and asparagus arrived more than a week earlier this year than last year.

Supply was also up.  Last year on the first day of asparagus availability, all stock was depleted after an hour or so.  Yesterday I sauntered in around 11am and there were multiple vendors with plenty of spears left.  If you’ve never tried truly fresh asparagus, you really must.  It’s noticeably tastier.  Sometimes I’ll actually eat it raw – it has a flavor almost like fresh English peas when uncooked.  (One other hint, for those who don’t already know: fat spears are not older or less tasty than thin spears, there’s just a lot of variability in asparagus girth).

Then there are the ramps.  Ramps are a member of the allium family, like leeks and onions and garlic, and they kind of taste like a combination of all three.  I made myself a melange of ramps and asparagus sauteed very quickly on very high heat in browned butter and olive oil, topped only with salt and pepper.  Usually I like to roast asparagus, but this may be my new favorite method since it’s also ideal for the ramps (caramelized and buttery = perfect).  Yum, tastes like spring.

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Sunday Photos: Dupont Farmers’ Market

Okay, there’s no getting around it.  The following photos are pure food porn, taken this morning at the Dupont Circle Freshfarm Market.

Strawberries were everywhere!

Baby zucchini and summer squash.

Herb starts for sale.

This rhubarb was the reddest at the market. I bought some to make preserves and also syrup for cocktails. More on that in another post.

Gelato flavors. I might need to try the thai coconut next week.

Delicate poppies in assorted colors.

Keswick Creamery cheeses. Simply wonderful.

Hothouse-grown tomatoes. Field-grown tomatoes will be here soon!

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So Hard To Say Goodbye

Back in January it felt like spring would never get here.  Now it seems very strange to me that there are crops in my garden whose season has already passed.  The arugula and radishes are totally done, and some of the other early brassica greens (mizuna, bok choy) will be done in the next couple weeks.  At the market, too, the ramps that were piled high at the market a few weeks ago (see picture) are now over and done with.  I think morel season is almost over, and although there was still a lot of asparagus on Sunday, farmers will soon have to let the emerging spears grow into ferns to give energy to the perennial roots.

Eating seasonally means enjoying things while they last and being content to go without them at other times of the year.  But among those go-without periods, I find the time spent anticipating an item much more fun than the time right after the season when I have to say goodbye to it.  I don’t even really like radishes that much, and yet now I wish I had done a second planting!  Ah well.  Peas and strawberries can be my comfort for the next month until the summer onslaught begins.

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Food & Garden Link-o-Rama

For the food and/or gardening enthusiast, there are literally hundreds of blogs that provide content of interest.  There is absolutely no way I’d keep track of all of my favorites without Google Reader.  There have been some especially great food & garden posts around the tubes recently.

Food:

• The writer at The Arugula Files, who is based right here in DC, put together an incredible entry in an Iron Chef-style competition, in which the required theme ingredients were rhubarb and coriander.  Her answer: rhubarb pop tarts and coriander ice cream!
• Chocolate and Zucchini has a recipe for homemade Larabars that I’m looking forward to trying.
• The Kitchn wrote about the Taza chocolate factory, which in my years of living in or near Somerville, MA, I never knew was there.  If only I had known!
• Fat of the Land’s post on clam digging and oyster harvesting makes me miss my native Northwest.
• One of my friends asked if radish leaves were edible and I figured that they weren’t, but Rappahannock Cook & Kitchen is making cream of radish leaf soup!

Gardening:

• Kathy at Skippy’s Vegetable Garden has put in asparagus beds!  I’m very envious – perhaps someday I’ll have the space and permanence to put in a bed of my own.
• Another plant in the when-I-have-more-space category: blueberries.  Calendula & Concrete is putting in blueberry bushes here in DC, so I look forward to learning from their experience.
• Tracey at Life in Sugar Hollow has several posts with absolutely gorgeous photos of spring flowers.
• The Yale Sustainable Food Project blog has an informative post about horseradish, very helpful on the heels of my discovery of an infestation in my garden.
• Garden Rant contemplates some odious machismo on HGTV’s garden makeover show, in which a dude gets his yard redone to include a hot-tub and beer caches so he can “bag some honeys.”  Personally, a yard full of tomato plants would be MUCH more of an aphrodesiac.

Sustainability:

• Bifurcated Carrots writes about some scary-sounding superweeds that have evolved to resist Round-Up.  Definitely provides evidence that chemical-dependent agriculture fosters an unsustainable arms race.
• I love this video posted on The Green Miles answering a question about recycling beer bottles with lime wedges stuck inside.  Miles Grant is also running for delegate in Arlington.  Were I on that side of the river, I’d vote for him!
• The Ethicurean has a round-up of swine flu news and the connection to CAFOs.  Aporkalypse Now, indeed.

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A Locavore Ladies’ Night

On Sunday I had a bunch of girlfriends over to my tiny apartment and cooked a dinner for them that happened to be about 98% locally sourced.   We started off with kale chips, which are très chic right now, according to the foodie blogosphere.  I also make tzatziki with dill and chives from my garden and cucumbers and zucchini from the farmers’ market (hothouse grown).  The yogurt was from the market as well, I think from jersey cows, which give a high cream content.

Next up was a salad made with greens and herbs from my garden, as well as some extra lettuce my garden mentor Juan gave me (Juan was also my source for the kale).  I didn’t have a big salad bowl, so my tall Le Creuset stock pot had to fill in:

The salad was made with about a pound of greens and herbs, about six ounces of crumbled local goat cheese, and a vinaigrette made from equal parts olive oil and orange muscat champage vinegar emulsified with a little extra goat cheese and salt and pepper.  One fun salad addition: chive blossoms!  They taste spicy, yet floral.  And they’re pretty!

Then I finally was able to make that asparagus and mushroom bread pudding I’ve been talking about, albeit with cremini mushrooms instead of morels.  I followed Barbara Kingsolver’s recipe only in the loosest sense, using ramps instead of spring onions, thyme instead of oregano, and a lot less cheese (but a lot more cream).  Actually, I didn’t even buy cream – these days I buy creamline milk at the market and so I just poured off the top without shaking.  Lots of creamy goodness!  The eggs in the custard, pictured at right, were very good examples of just how truly orange the yolks of pastured eggs can be.  The resulting bread pudding (which in my family we’d call strata) turned out fluffy and tasty and golden brown on top:

Then for dessert I chopped up three fat stalks of rhubarb and cooked them with maybe a quarter cup of sugar until it all turned into a sauce.  The sauce went over this amazing ricotta sweetened with honey and vanilla that I got at the market.

We had a lovely ladies’ night, with delicious wine and scintillating (okay, often silly) conversation.  It was great to cook for people, since usually I’m just cooking something simple for myself.  And without even trying very hard or spending a lot of money, this meal was almost entirely local.  There were exactly six ingredients that came from outside the greater DC area: olive oil, butter, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper.  The rest of the ingredients were sourced from as close as my fire escape herb garden to perhaps as far as the West Virginia panhandle.

I can’t wait to have more dinners when the summer harvest starts rolling in.  Sharing food with your friends is one of life’s great pleasures.  Plus it prompts me to clean up my apartment.  Bonus!

All cleaned up before the guests arrive.

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Another Spring Pasta Dish: Morels, Asparagus, and Ramps

Last weekend at the farmers’ market I bit the bullet and bought some oh-so-tasty but oh-so-expensive morels, along with asparagus and a bunch of ramps. I had thought about making Barbara Kingsolver’s asparagus and morel bread pudding, but the boyfriend preferred pasta, which is really a better mid-week option anyway. Oddly enough, we came up with the pasta idea just before The Kitchn came out with this similar recipe that uses dried morels (and lacks asparagus). Once we started cooking, however, it was clear that I had not brought quite enough vegetable matter, so I added in some cremini mushrooms and a bunch of arugula that my boyfriend had on hand.

Another simple recipe, really. Sautee chopped ramp stems in butter and olive oil, add sliced morels and/or other mushrooms, add chopped asparagus, salt, pepper, and then at the last minute add the ramp leaves and arugula for a quick wilt. Then toss with pasta fresh out of the pot. Heavenly.

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