Veggie tales

It’s asparagus season in Eastern Washington. This is truly a cause for celebration. There is no finer vegetable than a tender, slender stalk of asparagus. Throughout spring and early summer we eat it almost every day. I buy it fresh at the local farmer’s stand, just hours out of the ground, and store it upright in a vase with an inch or two of water. It actually makes a lovely bouquet, and reminds me all day how lucky we are to live in such bountiful corner of the world.

I learned how to cook asparagus from my mother. She taught me one way and one way only to prepare it. First, you break off the tough end of each individual stalk by grasping it in two hands and gently bending it until you find the sweet spot, where it easily snaps; too flexible and you’re trying to break off the tender, tasty part, too rigid and you haven’t eliminated enough of the woody base. Then you toss it in a sauté pan with an inch or so of water, cover it and steam it on the stove top for three to five minutes, until the asparagus is bright green, tender and flavorful. Mom always added butter to her vegetables. I throw in a little lemon juice along with it. Delicious.
However, as in so many areas of life, it turns out there is more than one way to cook asparagus. I have several friends who drizzle it with olive oil and a little garlic, roast it in the oven or on a grill, and sprinkle it with freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese. This is delicious, and it sounds simple, doesn’t it? But I screw it up every time. I always seem to end up with the charred and shriveled remnants of my fresh pick. I’m much safer steaming, but even that method can be adapted and changed. I love asparagus cold – steamed for just three minutes, until it’s still a little crisp, then plunged into icy water to stop the cooking process. Served with a dip of mayonnaise and lemon juice, it disappears in a blink of an eye.
Another favorite around these parts is pickled asparagus. This, too, is delicious, and many people pickle their own, although I’m not a big enough fan to take on a project like that. The brine adds a nice little zing, and it’s a tasty way to eat asparagus all year long, but I don’t love it enough to put that kind of time into it. Besides, there are lots and lots of local producers who sell pickled asparagus. You’ll find it at many wineries in their tasting rooms, and at specialty food shops all over the Northwest.
My latest asparagus experiment was a huge success, and extremely simple. But it took me a little while to work up the nerve to try it. Remember, I was raised to believe there is one way and one way only to prepare asparagus, so naturally it follows that there is only one way to eat it – with a thick steak, some fresh-baked crusty bread and a hearty glass of Cabernet. It’s comfort food. Anything else is kind of, well, crazy. But it is spring, the winds are blowing around the hills, tugging caution and the habits of years along with them, and somehow making me a little adventurous. So the other night I took a fresh bunch of asparagus, trimmed each stalk by hand and used my favorite method of steaming, but instead of my old stand-by of lemon butter, I boldly tossed the shoots with some hot chili sesame oil, then sprinkled them with sesame seeds for extra flavor. Delicious, a spicy alternative to the usual, and really tasty paired with garlic shrimp, angel hair pasta and a lovely white wine.

And that’s the really wild part – the wine. I am a red-meat-loving, red-wine-drinking kind of girl. I don’t dislike white wines, per se, but I usually find myself working to finish a glass. But the spicy asparagus dish along with shrimp just screamed for a lighter bottle, so I pulled out a Chateau de l’Aulnaye Muscadet Sevre et Maine, a gift from a French friend who spends a lot of time trying to convince me that French wines outshine our Washington vintages. In a head-to-head tasting between this bottle and a Washington Viognier, I don’t know which would prevail, and it doesn’t really matter. I get tired, so very tired, of reading commentaries on wine that try to pit one style against another. I don’t think a smack-down between regions or countries or even varieties does anything good for wine. But I do know that the Muscadet was delightful. The pineapple and citrus flavors were gentle, smooth and soft, probably enhanced by the low alcohol content of only 12 percent. It made a very pleasant backdrop to a delicious meal. And isn’t that what wine is supposed to do? So for this meal, vive la France. And in the future, I’ll be sipping whites with a whole new outlook.