What's Cooking? The Arrival of Spring

Every year in DC there is one thing that epitomizes the shift from Winter to Spring more than anything else. The cherry trees, the gift of friendship by a Tokyo city mayor in 1912 (with subsequent gifts in the decades following), bloom in the thousands for only a few days. It happens just when the temperature gets warm enough, the days long enough. And these pink and white buds appear on nearly every street in every neighborhood of Washington, DC. Yet, the other plants around town, and within our larger foodshed, don't appear to have gotten the message. We are still chowing down on root vegetables, hardy greens, and cold-stored apples.

So I looked back at some posts from this time during the last two years, and lo and behold there is no (or at least very little) evidence of the springtime munchables to come. In 2012, there were lots of carrots, with carrot souffle, carrot muffins, and even raw carrot cake truffles. Obviously, the orange veggies that are so prominent in my life during winter, continue to prosper. April 2011 already saw asparagus coming out into the limelight, but also some interesting new greens and some trust old apples. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, we will see increasing amounts of light spring fare.

Happy 2013 Tax Day!