Spring has finally arrived! What foods do you crave this new season? Market shopping, dining out? Please share…
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Amazing!
I love fava’s. Strawberries, even though they are year round i don’t start craving until mid April! Spring garlic. Apricots in late spring. The best Asparagus! Has such a short season
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All harbingers. Here, the Bleheim apricot variety comes on in early July, but is well worth waiting for. And YES, the first strawberries always seem to be the best of the season,
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In our CSA box we’ve been getting excellent lettuce, spring onions, green garlic, leeks, chicory, escarole, kale, fantastic carrots, and too many mandarins.
At the farmers markets I shop at, the first strawberries are the worst.
I"m eating it anyway, but lamb season is more like May. In March they’re mostly little bitty babies. In our long-gone favorite restaurant in Rome in the 80s, they once served us a leg of agnellino di latte (milk-fed lamb) that would have made a decent entree for one person.
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Local asparagus and local morels.
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That tiny lamb is what I search out. IMHO, we harvest too late in California. In France, Easter lamb is hardly bigger than a respectable cat. We were at the lamb market in Espolette and saw tiny animals en route to Easter plates. (Husband intervenes to remind me that a major buyer had a truck outfitted with three tiers of cages. When the bottom layer was full of lambs, he would one-handedly toss lambs into the second layer. That tier full, he would toss them into the third layer. This gives you an idea of size. He was not a large man.) For this reason, I really prefer NZ lamb to local. Super tender and mild. Other tastes differ.
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Be still, my heart!
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Oh yeah. When we lived in Reno a chef friend had some that someone had foraged after a fire and brought to him. He made us a morel risotto. And here in Seattle there was a vendor who had them. All I do is slice them in half lengthwise and saute’ in butter and a little s&p. Pure heaven, aren’t they?
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We have a local meat ‘purveyor.’ I should ask them about young lamb.
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You are all making me so hungry! Here on the East Coast, we have been enjoying asparagus and looking forward to a lamb and morel fix. Ramps, too. Though it may not be seasonal, my yearning for fish and seafood increases this time of the year…
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RAMPS! Now that’s playing unfair! Not only do they not grow here, they are simply not available to the best of my knowledge. But if anyone knows of a Bay Area source…
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Ramps and fiddlehead ferns
Berkeley Bowl always has ramps and fiddleheads in season.
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Wish it were my local. I get there every year or so.
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Can’t get enough of the escarole and frisee.
I once asked Nathan McCall (who worked at Arzak a long time ago) about gettin the kind of baby lamb they served in Spain. He just shook his head - not legal here.
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Where is here?
We have a local “meat purveyor.” I wonder if he can buy them rancher to meat cutter.
Can’t hurt to ask. Could be that it’s not technically illegal but hard enough to get that it’s not worth the potential backlash from customers over having baby lamb on the menu
This is a place, Beast and Cleaver, that primarily sells meat but a couple of times a month they have dinners. So I’m wondering if I ask…