First harvest

Just the other day, I was telling Patrick that, though messy and inconvenient, this is actually a pretty good time of year to redo a kitchen. No canning, yet. Still eating our of jars and freezer bags, for the most part. Nothing in the garden needing to be blanched and frozen. We aren't coring peppers or butchering butternut squash or even peeling cucumbers-- and, given that I have maybe eight square feet of counter space to work with right now, that's a good thing. 
But then.
It began with pointy purple tips nosing up through the dirt. That was sweet and novel and fun, and I was drooling and feeling excited. But the thing about asparagus is... well, there's this THING about asparagus. 
It grows fast.
It grows really freaking fast. When you see a ripe tomato, it says, "Hey, maaan, I'm ready whenever you are, y'know, schedule me in when it's convenient." You see a giant zucchini, it's, "Yo! You! Pick me before I get to baseball bat proportions! But cook me whenever. Just put me on the counter for a few days and I'll be chill." 
Asparagus, you march down a row of foot-tall spears, and you hear a Paul Giamatti in Sideways-type anxious squeak. "RiiIIGHT NOW!" It's demanding stuff. It chastises. It sends you sprinting for your paring knife and harvest basket-- because you are not about to bungle THIS, the first harvest of the season.
The year's first fresh dinner from the garden.
So it was that I found myself cooking on a Friday night. I don't usually cook Friday nights. The fish tacos at the Empire House in town are excellent, and their fries are even better. BUT. I had a pile of asparagus and a handful of scallions that had lived through the winter, and so I made this delicious thing. 

(Picture from last August, when I made it with bok choy.)
And it was worth it. The year is begun, and it feels pretty damn awesome.
Psst! Click here to subscribe to the feed!