This morning a frightening thought crossed my mind: am I really allowed to eat salad for breakfast? Will this meal end up destroying some sort of fragile cosmic balance? More

Now's the time of year that asparagus is at its absolute sweet and tender best around here, so I've decided to make a whole week out of it. Welcome to Asparagus Week! Each day this week you'll find a new asparagus recipe here that'll hopefully demonstrate the crazy versatility of spring's finest produce. The key to truly fantastic asparagus soup is the same as the key to truly fantastic grilled asparagus or braised asparagus or blanched asparagus or sauteed asparagus: start with truly fantastic asparagus. More

I've never hidden my love for Mapo Dofu, the Sichuan dish of soft silken tofu flavored with beef and mouth-numbing, citrus-y Sichuan peppercorns. But it doesn't have to be a season-less dish. The past few years I've taken to adapting it to the spring by adding in a few big handfuls of sliced ramps, the ephemeral wild spring onions that how up by the bushel at farmers' markets (or if you're lucky, sister's backyard!). More

Here's a game: go up to any chefs and ask them what their favorite season of the year is. Chances are "Spring. Right now," is the answer. Why is that? Well, they might get all poetic and claim that it's because of what spring represents—those first shoots of tender life that burst forth through the ground after the long, cold winter and all that. But here's the truth: Chefs love spring because it makes their job easier. More

There are few vegetables whose arrival is more heralded than the ramp. Part of its appeal is in its timing. It appears right at that moment when the overwintered potatoes, apples and squash have become soft, spotty and entirely unappetizing. Ramps are green, fresh and taste like a randy cross between green onions and garlic. Here's how to pickle them so you can preserve their flavor much longer. More

I love ramps. Unreservedly. They are my favorite vegetable. And I say that about a lot of vegetables, but I really really mean it about ramps. Nothing says spring to me like ramps. Fried in butter, pickled, grilled, their sweet, oniony, grassy flavor is delicious in so many ways, and the season is just far too short. What better way to celebrate its start than with one of your own photos? Slice regular dhorst lost her ramp virginity this year and sent us this photo. More

Spring marks the beginning of my favorite food season of the year, and it's largely due to three of my favorite vegetables all coming out at once: asparagus, peas, and ramps. The best way to showcase these great vegetables is to treat them simply. This spring risotto flavored with broth and Parmesan is an ideal platform to let them shine. More

When I wrote about ramps last week, I completely neglected to include some tasty recipes. Here are three: pickled ramps, ramp dumplings, and fried eggs with ramps with bacon. More

While admittedly, there has been a rather unnatural craze for ramps in the food media for the last couple of years—much of it blamed on chefs and their ubiquitous use of the vegetable on menus during its brief, one-month harvesting season—I believe this is a good thing. Ramps aren't over-appreciated now, they were vastly underappreciated in the past. More

"I grew up in West Virginia with ramps growing all over the place and being called 'weeds.' They made you smell oniony if you slid on them while playing outside, and my parents said poor folk used to eat them during WWII. I would think, 'Those poor people, having to eat smelly weeds!' And I still think that when I see them on restaurant menus. Only now it's, 'People pay to eat the smelly weeds?' And I look at them mucking up my backyard and wonder if I can somehow ship them to NYC and make some money." —ComfyOne More