As much as I like to cook, I’d rather be in the garden on the first warm, sunny days of spring when there are vegetable beds to prepare, flowers to plant and weeds to pull.

These are the days when I’m happy to have a protein-packed salad in the fridge, ready to pull out for dinner.  This lentil salad in the French tradition is a new favorite. Continue reading Lentil salad for the gardener →

Never mind the calendar or even the weather forecast. I know it’s spring when rhubarb shows up in the farmers market.

Those first fuchsia pink stalks are always cause for celebration. After a winter of root vegetables and bitter greens, their tart flavor breathes fresh life into bored palates.

Eaten raw, rhubarb is an acquired taste with a mouth-puckering quality rivaling lemons.  Cook it with a little sugar, though, and it blossoms.  I think it’s best in simple dishes that capitalize on its bright acidity.

Crisps and pies are naturals, but I’ve also made rhubarb into a filling for crepes and substituted it for cherries in a clafloutis.  This spring, I’ve been playing around with a rhubarb upside down cake based on the homey French yogurt cake. Continue reading Rhubarb is true mark of spring →