Posts Tagged ‘asparagus’
Love in the Spring: Asparagus 4-Ways
You have to like asparagus if you are in Italy in the spring. There is no escaping the spears, they are in every mercato, every supermarket, on every menu. Occasionally you’ll spot an exotic white or purple asparagus display, but for every day eating, it’s green asparagus.
In our mercato, you get a tightly rubber banded “mazze” or bundle of asparagus and it has spears from slender and tender to stocky and woody. Which means you can’t cook them all at once, on the same night, in the same dish, because each spear of asparagus deserves to be treated according to its girth.
Lemony Spring Asparagus Soup
Asparagus are everywhere. Wild, cultivated, in the market and in grocery stores; there is no escaping asparagus at this time of year.Let bygones by bygones, and let’s get on with the soup recipe! This is a soup you can have as long as you have fresh asparagus.
Read MoreBreaking News about Fruits & Vegetables: Is being healthy good enough?
News Flash: Until fruits and vegetables taste good, and are affordable people won’t eat them.
How do we create the desire in people to eat more vegetables? How do we make vegetables sexy and in demand? Who does PR for the artichoke? Who speaks for the carrot? And silly, childish, cartoon vegetables are not the answer. And neither are shrill spokespeople who intone the wisdom of plant eating from a pillar of self-congratulation.
Pasta in Primavera with Asparagus
Pasta Primavera means “pasta in the springtime”. Its more about what you have on hand, than it is about being tied to a recipe. If you are just getting home from work, put the tomatoes in the oven, then go change your clothes, walk the dog etc. When you come back into the kitchen it will already smell good and you’ll be in the mood to make dinner.
Read MoreMarket Mojo
Euro 1,50 I may have arrived back in Italy on Monday, but I had to wait until Wednesday’s Market before it felt like I was truly back.
I was looking forward to all things spring at the Umbertide market: fresh fave beans, artichokes, good oranges, getting a big hunk of parmigiano, abundant flowers, radishes, peas, asparagus….and I was not disappointed.
I was, however, disappointed in my marketing skills. It’s an acquired skill to muscle your way up to a crowded vegetable stand, choose your produce and then get to pay for it. The old ladies will either stab you with an elbow, or simply lob their bag over your bag and you go to the back of the crowd, in disgrace.
Mustardy Mashed Potatoes
Spell check says that ‘mustardy’ isn’t a word, but I think it is. Our kitchen is bare after not being in NY for a month. I had planned to do a good grocery shop yesterday, but being on a bicycle in a snowstorm with heavy groceries didn’t sound like the best of ideas. Jeff kindly…
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