The weather this week! It has been of two minds. Likewise my food:
Sunday, it was Spring, so a frittata with actual asparagus. Because it’s here, it’s here, spring is finally coming back for real and asparagus is no-pun-intended springing up nearby! And frittatas are a great and easy kitchen-sink-y kind of meal strategy for when you have produce you don’t know what to do with (method: sauté things in ovenproof skillet, add shredded cheese, beat four eggs and dump ’em in, let the bottom get set, then pop into an oven at 375 and bake until puffed up and golden. Boom!)
Today: practically winter and a decidedly wintry root vegetable chili with some pumpkin biscuits (the pumpkin was supposed to go in the chili, but then my poor dutch oven was thisclose to no-pun-intended-again spilling the beans, so: carbs). My blood sugar while making this chili was so low that I forgot all the spices until it had been simmering for like 20 minutes and couldn’t figure out why it tasted so bland. A-durp durp.
Eating seasonally has all kinds of political, moral, organic-and-crunchy reasons going for it, but the reason I like doing it (besides the fact that I want as much of my food bux as possible to go directly to farmers) is because it’s a way to get in tune with things. Seasons are constantly changing, but they always change predictably, in a cycle. Medievals were up on it! Fortune was a wheel, turning: regnabo, regno, regnavi. Now things are more static, the changes unpredictable jolts, like a windowless office with a flickering fluorescent bulb. When I said today, perhaps with too much glee, that asparagus season was starting, I was met with replies like “I didn’t know asparagus had a season.”
Do people not read the Bible? Or listen to the Byrds? Spring isn’t just when flowers bloom and CVS runs out of Benadryl, it’s when green vegetables finally return and we can stop eating nothing but potatoes and turnips! If you buy all your produce vacuum-sealed at the Megamart, you are missing out, and missing the point. You won’t get excited about the return of spring because inside the produce section, it’s always spring. Which is both boring and eerie, if you think about it.
Anyway, the happy ending is that even though we had a warmish winter, crops don’t seem to be too worse for the wear. I have perused the weekly email from Green City Market, and you guys, microgreens! More asparagus! Rhubarb! Stuff is coming back to life, myself included, and I’m so excited that I have to listen to this movement of Carmina Burana while dreaming about compotes and vegetable tarts. Eeee.