A couple weeks ago, our friend Gail brought us some ramps. She had carefully pulled them out by the roots in the woods at the corner of her yard, washed them off, and double bagged them. They sat in our fridge and I wondered what to do! Wild ramps are delightfully potent, sweet and tender but with a good kick, just like the good cousin of a leek would be. In sweet and early spring they are an incredible find. Come late and they will most certainly kick you on your ass. So they sat in the fridge while I thought of pestos and pastas and sauces and stuffings and such things.

I’ve been visiting my Mom in Connecticut. See, we’re enjoying the first crop of asparagus and writing a cookbook together. Yes, that’s right. We woke up one morning and this view came out of nowhere. What do you see when you look at this photo? A field of flowers, dandelions, perhaps? A mowed lawn in dire need of weeding? My Mom, well she sees food. On this particular morning she looked out over the dandelions, their bright yellow heads sprouting up through the freshly cut lawn and said, “Let’s make some dal.” This is my first spring outside of New York and I am just adjusting to pollen, let alone a garden and a lawn. Making a meal of this lawn… a dal at that, sounded like the best food idea I’d heard all year. So the following morning she headed out with a gardening fork and cut that first bed of dandelions and piled them into a basket. They were fresh, young, a bit sweet and wonderfully bitter – so far away from that summer bitterness that makes you gag, and nothing like the matured and metallic farmed variety you find in the store.