Spring! Fully and truly. If only because asparagus were everywhere this morning, bundled and loose. Along with artichokes, ramps and skapes, they are the true town criers of the season.
This morning a dampness hung in the air, left behind by the thunderstorm that washed down the neighborhood at 4 a.m. with a few bold crashes, and bundles of lilacs, wrapped in clear plastic, still dripped. Like the asparagus, herbs — lovage, garlic chives, thyme, oregano, basil, tarragon — were everywhere, in mini bouquets and damp pots of soil for planting. Hydroponic tomatoes in crinkly plastic trays weren't yet tempting, but scallions, spinach, and even onions and potatoes, all looking lush in their dampness, didn't want for attention.
Potted flowers, too — from big, blowsy red ones to tiny daisy-like lavender numbers — were in abundance and tempting. But in a household where pollen is currently enemy number one, we satisfied ourselves instead with baby bella mushrooms from Madura Farms, a multi-grain baguette (blasphemous, by French standards, but easy on someone's stomach) a hunk of young Vivace from the Cato Corner cheese stand and a bottle of Treleaven dry Riesling from the King Ferry winery on Cayuga Lake.
In the end, we went home without the asparagus — which were all the thick, woody sort — unable to reconcile them against the knitting-needle-thin ones we ate in last night's salad at Al Di La, the Italian place down the street, and which, on our walk up to the market, we'd discussed for a third time, declaring it spring on a plate: blanched asparagus, string beans, spring peas, fava beans, ramps, spinach and pecorino. In short, heaven.
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