Alright, I think I’ve stretched this series about as far as I (and the season of Spring) can go. So I’ll wrap up with a short and sweet post.

Strawberries are in peak season in the northeast and should be widely available in the rest of the country as well. Served up plain with their tops cut off, strawberries make a surprisingly enticing dessert.

There’s a connection here to last week’s tomato post as well. I had long ago dismissed strawberries because the ones I had were so frequently inedibly sour. Why is this?

Because those strawberries at the grocery store are not grown and picked for flavor and ripeness. They’re grown to withstand shipping over long distances and storage in the supermarket produce section. That’s why they are white and bitter.

So go to your farmstand an give them another try. I think a lot of people have been turned off of fruit by the average poor quality of what’s available at the grocery store. But summertime is here, and a bounty of fruit is available at the farmer’s market. So go check it out.

Ok. Now I promise to get off my locavore high horse for a while and get back to providing some actual tips.

Right after I finish these strawberries.

We’ve seen it with meat, we’ve seen it with spinach, and now we’re seeing it with tomatoes. The practices of industrial agriculture mean that (1) food is more likely to become contaminated and that (2) when food does become contaminated, the damage is much more widespread. For now you can just skip that tomato on your Big Mac, but next week it might be in the special sauce and you just might be the one whose extreme illness or death alerts the mainstream media and begins the recall.

I, however, am not afraid.

Why? Because I wouldn’t touch those tomatoes with a 10-foot pole. To me, tomatoes are the spokesfruit for local eating. Tomatoes bought out of season at the supermarket are GROSS. They are grey-green, hard, mealy, and sour. And now, they’re poisonous.

So, I have to ask, WHY? Why do people insist on putting these bitter slices of wet cardboard on their sandwich? I only eat fresh tomatoes for a couple of months each year, but the tomatoes I eat are big, juicy, and sweet. And the anticipation and deprivation of the rest of the year makes them all the better. That’s one of the real beauties of eating seasonally:Eating is actually a lot more fun when you CAN’T get exactly what you want all the time.

I have never claimed that every single thing I eat is local and organic. The corn chips I had last night were undoubtedly rife with chemicals I don’t care to learn about. My produce, meat, and dairy, however – the things that can really make people sick – I always source carefully. I started doing this to reduce my carbon footprint and because the quality was so much higher. But now I think one of the strongest arguments for shopping and eating this way is safety.

I’m not terribly discreet with my feelings in this area, and I’ll often make a face when I see my friends buying fruit on the street corner. I usually just get a shrug and get dismissed like I’m a sandal-wearing hippie trying to sell my homemade candles.

But if people keep getting poisoned by our food supply, this may change. A few more deaths, and I may not be the crazy one any more.

Anybody want to buy a candle?

You really know it’s spring in New York when you see the foodies elbowing one another at the farmer’s markets to grab up bunches of that elusive and highly seasonal harbinger of spring – ramps.

Ramps are a member of the allium family (onion, garlic, etc.) and are also known as wild leeks. How are they different from regular leeks? They’re awesome. That’s how.

Tasting like a mix between garlic and onion, ramps are great in a number of dishes, many of which involve bacon fat. It’s tough to find ramp recipes in cookbooks as they only grow on the east coast and as they’re so infrequently available, but a quick google search will put you on the right track. But I find it hard to believe you can find anything better than the spaghetti with ramp pesto that I made last weekend. But get to the market soon. These guys won’t be around much longer. And I’ll be there, ready to elbow you for that last bunch.

Spaghetti with Ramp Pesto

1/2 lb ramps (a little more than one bunch as I’ve seen them packaged)

1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

lemon zest

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 lb spaghetti

Parmesan cheese

1. Trim roots from ramps and slip off outer skin on bulbs, if loose. Blanch ramps in a 6-quart pot of boiling salted water, 5 to 10 seconds, lift out of boiling water and transfer to cutting board. Coarsely chop ramps and put in a blender with zest and oil.

2. Add spaghetti to boiling water and cook a few minutes, then ladle out 1/2 cup pasta water and add to blender. Puree ramps until smooth and season with salt. Continue to cook spaghetti until al dente, then ladle out about 1 cup additional pasta water before draining spaghetti in a colander. Return pasta to pot with ramp puree and toss with parmesan over moderate heat for several minutes, thinning sauce with a little pasta water as needed to coat pasta.

3. Stuff face.

Props to http://www.seasonalchef.com/ for the basis of this recipe.