Let ’em have it
Letter from the editor
I went to the farmer’s market the other day and past the sweet, chatty egg dealer and the perpetually uninterested lettuce guy, there was a huge pile of ombre green leeks. Next to that was a jumble of big, beautiful radishes. And a few tables down were rows of strawberries so bright red it looked like they were using an Instagram filter. You get the idea.
What have you brought home lately and what are you making? Beets and avocados are easy: start with this beet and pomegranate salad recipe, or Justin Chapple’s beet, smoked trout, and radish tartines. Make Kat Odell’s ever-popular avocado pizzas. Sam Smith, of the fantastic Tusk in Portland, OR, wrote this delightful citrus salad recipe which puts blood oranges and mandarins to really good use. Keep those citrus peels to plop into his truly addictive marinated feta.
Asparagus, that most springtime-y vegetable, is a star with kale pesto and a poached egg and a worthy co-star in Chrissy Teigen’s excellent seared steak with same-skillet asparagus. You don’t even need a plan for all the fruits on display: just poach them. Pears, apples, peaches, mangoes, berries. You haven’t lost any of that old spontaneity.
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That said, I get it. There’s a big element of fantasy to the idea that we’re strolling the farmers market, plucking ripe produce to celebrate the season every week. We’re hustling through the grocery store at 5:30pm, grabbing stuff to make quick Thai lettuce wraps or ginger chicken meatballs or these salt cod and egg baked avocados or a big-ass skillet of eggs with choose-your-own-fillings, which goes well with a healthy pour of that chilled Sauvignon Blanc. Make a toast, take a bow. You still got it.
We’re in the freezer aisle buying dough for skillet pizza that we’ll pile with any veggies the kids will eat. Plus lots of cheese. We’re buying pre-cut broccoli for this dairy-free cream of broccoli soup and squeezing avocados to see if they’re ready to become guacamole. (If they are, grab tortillas and rotisserie chicken, an onion, jalapeno, and cilantro to dice into salsa. Grab sour cream and a lime. Done, chicken tacos. Guacamole’s not extra if you make it yourself.)
Whether you’re on a first-name basis with your arugula farmer or on a no-name basis with the Whole Foods checkout staff, find a way to make the best of the season. Cocktails with freshly squeeze fruit juice totally count.
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