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THE BRIGHT GREEN TASTE OF SPRING There's a moment each year when the taste of bright newness enters the greenmarket. No longer are we dealing only with the hardy survivors of winter, great as they are. Spring is coming: we taste freshness, tartness and sweetness. Today for lunch I ate one of the most delicious green soups yet - a bowlful of spring. Anyone who drops in on this site knows that Green Soup is a beloved staple in my kitchen. It's a regular on the home menu, and goes out to parties and potlucks as well. Each batch is a little bit different, changing with the farmers' market. I can track the seasons in my soup pot. Saturday I bought small, newly dug potatoes, young leeks, fennel stalks so slender that their bulbs were barely rounded. I also got baby spinach, with leaves about the size of eggs. And though I've had turnips all winter, I couldn't resist the golf-balll sized ones I saw this time, with their luxuriant, shiny green leaves bunched above them - the very leaves I wanted for my soup. The particular batch of soup I made when I came home was no different than any other in proportion or technique - it was the springtime leaves that made the difference. Mostly it was turnip greens and beet greens, the leaves you throw away later in the year, when they're big and battered. These were small, firm and shiny. I added baby spinach to them, and then - this was essential! - the feathery green tops of the fennel, which added a subtle, springlike sweetness to the soup, and gave it a mysterious quality. Sunday and I had guests in the house, so brunch was in order. The main feature was a frittata made with an array of all those spring vegetables - new potatoes, fennel, leeks, Irish peas, and chives. I topped the frittata with a sprinkle of crumbled queso fresco, that dryish white curd cheese that sort of goes with everything. Instead of flipping it over in the pan, I finished it under the broiler, letting the cheese get toasty and brown. Served hot with some fresh bread, Gaviota strawberries, and just-squeezed orange juice, it made a swell spur-of-the-moment meal, and my son (one of the surprise guests) made off with all the leftover frittata when he left to go back to college - so I knew it was a hit. To savor the best of this season, keep it simple. The delicacy and lovely flavor of spring vegetables doesn't need much more than a nudge from the cook. My neighbor brought over freshly picked snap peas from her garden, and we ate a huge platter of them raw, with dabs of a soft-ripened goat cheese. Great. A plateful of lightly steamed vegetables, perhaps a combination of baby carrots, pink beets, wedges of fennel, and pea pods, would be a delight with nothing more than a pat of butter, some lemon juice, salt and pepper, and maybe a sprinkle of chopped fresh chervil. Thin asparagus, very lightly dressed with olive oil and salt, and roasted for half an hour or so in a hot oven, is one of my all-time favorite finger foods. And when it comes to spring salads, don't forget that herbs can be part of the salad itself, not just part of the dressing. I love to throw in liberal amounts of snipped chives, tufts of newly srpouted dill, bits of fennel top, and chervil or tarragon, and toss the herbs with the tender lettuces that are so perfect at this time of year. A green salad like this should never have a heavy dressing - just a careful drizzle of olive oil or walnut oil, and a mere whiff of wine vinegar or lemon juice. To turn this salad into lunch, add a nice, fat round of chevre on top, and a chunk of your favorite bread. Spring is brief and wonderful. Here in southern California, we always long for the rains to continue. Everything is so soft and lush and green now, that it's hard to imagine that in a matter of weeks it will turn golden, and then golden brown. But we know it will - so we have learned to enjoy the bright green while we have it, outside and in the kitchen. THE HUMBLE VEGETABLES You wouldn't know it from the weather here, but I remember that it's winter when I go to the farmers market. Roots, bulbs and cruciferous vegetables rule. Where juicy tomatoes and peaches reign in the summer, alongside sugary corn, fragile zucchinni blossoms, and brilliant red raspberries, now there are mountains of turnips, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, and endless winter squash. Of course there are other things, too - all the cool weather greens, the bounty of citrus, the snap peas and the early crops of strawberries - because this is California, where it's easy to say "eat seasonal." But what if you don't live in California? Is it to be nothing but cabbage and roots from now till April? I took this idea to heart, not only because I feel for the folks east of the rockies. My family came from a cold, northern place, where cabbages, potatoes, onions and turnips had to get you through the winter, with the crocks of salt-cured pickles you had filled in August, and the mushrooms that you dried in the fall. I really do love the humble vegetables of winter, and in their own way they are the most beautiful things in the market right now. For starters, don't dis cabbage. I've been buying large, sweet green cabbages from a Hungarian lady at my local Sunday market. (I figured if she didn't know her cabbage, no one did.) They are flavorful, crisp and pale green when raw, but golden, buttery and tender when cooked slowly on a winter afternoon. I've made a wilted cabbage slaw with mustard seed and raisins - it's good warm or cold, and makes a great accompaniment to a toasted cheese sandwich. I've made pasta with cabbage and mushrooms and cream, lovely with a glass of red wine. And I've made a perfect winter soup of cabbage, onions and apples, all caramelized and simmered together until the perfume is seductive, the flavor irresistable. I've also been buying a lot of root vegetables. There are already recipes in the archive for roasted root vegetables, with suggestions about how they can be used in risotto, soup, salad, and so on. But I got a bunch of parsnips in my basket from Peter the other day, along with very sweet carrots and new turnips, and they brought a whole new feel to my roasted vegetables. The parsnips were a revelation - they had a sweet and nutty flavor when they were roasted, with nothing but a light touch of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. I had overlooked parsnips before, but I won't neglect them again. And I was reminded how much I like turnips when I went to a Scottish party and ate the traditional "neeps and tatties" - that would be turnips and potatoes to the rest of us. They were simply prepared, mashed, creamed and buttered, served seperately in earthenware bowls. Delicious. Eating them together, I thought how wonderful a gratin of potatoes and turnips would be, sort of like scalloped potatoes with half the potato slices replaced by turnip slices. Try it with some Gruyere, or one of the hard, aged Basque cheeses grated over the top. One day I decided to combine all the root vegetables in my refrigerator, and instead of roasting them I stewed them with Moroccan spices. Garlic and green chilies gave them some heat, cinnamon, cumin and turmeric produced an exotic perfume, and plump raisins added sweetness. The sturdy vegetables - carrots, turnips, parsnips, potatoes, butternut squash, onions - all simmered slowly, softening into a stew of melting tenderness and rich flavor. At the end, I added a squirt of lemon juice and a handful of chopped cilantro. Served over couscous, this could be the centerpiece of a wonderful cold-night supper. I can't leave off without talking about kale, the darkest of the dark, leafy greens. I had two generous bunches of different kinds of kale last week, and they made one of the best green soups of the season. Starting with black kale and dinosaur kale, I added a small amount of spinach, some fennel tops, and green onions. I simmered the greens as usual with caramelized onions and one potato, and that tough, almost leathery kale transformed into a velvety soup with a deep, slightly sweet flavor. Humble perhaps - but heavenly. Don't despair. The more voluptuous produce of spring and summer is still far away, but the rewards of winter vegetables are great. Cook slow, cook easy, and enjoy the comforting, nourishing, satisfying vegetables that can take you through the winter beautifully. You will find recipes for Sweet and Sour Cabbage Slaw, and for Stewed Root Vegetables with Moroccan Spices in this month's New Recipes.
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