Spring Fling

The Harbingers of Spring

Spring Fling! Spring has to be the season I most look forward too. There is nothing quite like spring in the Pacific Northwest. A glorious time of year when spring emerges from winter’s cold grey rains. A vast green carpet of miner’s lettuce, stinging nettles, wood sorrel, and wild watercress emerges from deep within the dark forest.

Our farmer’s gardens brim with the season’s first sweet English peas, plump fava beans, AAA white asparagus, and green garlic. As the weather warms, fiddleheads and wild ramps sprout up in enormous fields in the Midwest. Briny emerald green sea beans are gathered along the chilly Washington coastline.

Vignarola, also called Frittedda in Sicily, an Italian vegetable stew that gloriously celebrates tender artichokes, fava beans, sweet peas, spring onions and lettuce braised in a light broth punctuated with fresh mint and lemon.

English Peas

Vignarola is an Italian vegetable stew that gloriously celebrates spring in all her glory. It’s comprised of young, tender artichokes, fava beans, sweet peas, spring onions and lettuce braised in a light broth punctuated with fresh mint and lemon. After reading several variations of Vignarola, also called Frittedda in Sicily, I concluded Italians are a lot like people from Provence: everyone will argue about what is authentic and what is blasphemous concerning recipes. With vignarola, the arguments seem to center around: do you add guanciale or not; is fennel accepted or not; is it even legal to add potatoes?