We’re halfway to Friday! Welcome back to our daily open thread.
I got ramps in my CSA yesterday. Ramps are a much-hyped vegetable that have a really short spring season. I’d only heard about them being a big deal at the farmer’s market, but I’d never actually seen them, much less eaten them—despite my deepest desires, I’m not a “getting to the farmer’s market as soon as it opens Saturday morning” guy. I was really excited to get some ramps, and really nervous I’d screw them up. I made them into a risotto, another risky proposition, but damn it was worth it. Ramps taste like sort of a cross between garlic and onion, with some hard-t0-define flavor that just tastes like spring. It felt like an incredibly fancy, special dinner, even though it was just me sitting on the couch where I spend most of my time now.
It’s a weird time for it to be spring. We’ve had some beautiful days in New York lately. Some sparrows are building nests in the eaves of my building, and there’s a noisy pair of mourning doves that likes to hang out on my air conditioner. Trees are blooming, and there’s lots of flowers—but it feels really stressful to go outside and enjoy it. (Also, I can’t figure out how to wear my cloth mask without fogging up my glasses, so it’s hard to really see all this greenery enough to appreciate it.) I’m more of a fall and winter person, but there’s something lovely about this spring’s sense of renewal, as well as something sort of perverse about it happening amid so much destruction and suffering. I vacillate between appreciating the reminder that life goes on, no matter how bad things are, and shouting “Read the room, nature!” at the budding leaves.
What’s springing up where you live? How’s it going?