Spring

It isn't hard to be inspired when your store's refrigerator is bursting with boxes of carefully bunched asparagus all lined up in neat rows. My first reaction is to pair the asparagus with the fresh diver's scallops that have arrived this morning, but I have my whole working day ahead to fine tune exactly what I am going to create for dinner with these two extraordinary ingredients. Something fairly quick and something that causes silence at the table. What is quicker than an risotto and what is faster that pan sear scallops? Ah, dinner in 40 minutes, now I am getting hungry!

I defrost a quart of chicken stock that seems to reproduce in my freezer and chop off the woody asparagus end and simmer the two together to give my risotto a more intense asparagus flavor so I can add the other end of the asparagus later on in the rice cooking process without running the risk of overcooking and losing that bright Spring green. In a two quart pot melt 2 tablespoons of butter and the same amount of olive oil, to this heated fat add 3/4 of a cup of finely chopped onions – I use yellow spanish onion but a red onion would really be beautiful in the finished risotto.

Sustainable. Local. Organic. They've become culinary buzz words. They've caused confusion. What does it all mean? Russ Parsons says there is not even a definition for sustainability. He also cautions that organic is not necessarily synonymous with small farming. He suggests visiting a conventional farm to see what they're doing.

Basically, all the buzz boils down to just eating good food. Good food is the stuff you'll find around the outside perimeter of your supermarket -- fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, fish, meat, milk, butter. It's the great food we find at the farmers' market, grown on small farms by people who care about protecting the earth and protecting the health of humans who will eat the food they grow.

This is the perfect time of year to serve fresh asparagus and one great method for cooking is an indoor grill pan.

I generally prefer the thin stalks for steaming and fat stalks for grilling, but use whatever you want – fat, thin, green or white. Choose bunches with tightly closed tips and no flowering.

Delicious asparagus depends on freshness and proper preparation. Pan grilling gives you slightly charred stalks with delicious brown spots that you get from roasting or barbecuing without having to heat up your oven or grill.

The lemon vinaigrette enhances the dish perfectly and adds to the bright fresh flavor of the asparagus.

I get excited when I see fresh asparagus standing tall in the produce department at the grocery store. It tells me spring is almost here. Although fresh-from-the-garden asparagus probably won't be available around here until sometime in June, I know that when spring hits the produce department it won't be long before we actually feel that season in northern Minnesota. Now, that's something to celebrate.

I've been blanching, steaming, sauteeing and roasting asparagus for the last week. I've discovered I love having blanched asparagus in the refrigerator. I can grab a spear and nibble on it just the way it is or dab it into some of the roasted red pepper and garlic hummus that I whip together in my food processor and store in the refrigerator for a healthful snack.

Asparagus with Hazelnut Crumble is a quick-to-make dish that takes advantage of blanched asparagus. On a recent evening I melted some butter in a saute pan. When it was hot, I added some minced shallot (because I had some in my little garlic basket on the counter) and cooked it just until tender. Then, I added blanched asparagus spears and kept shaking the pan back and forth so that the spears would be totally coated with butter.