Asparagus Week

Artful, no? I think I remember reading somewhere that white asparagus is just regular asparagus that was kept from sunlight. Thinking over it though, I'm not sure how that could be true because then how would the plant grow at all? I guess it could just be artificial light which for some reason inhibits the chlorophyll while still providing the asparagus much needed nutrients. But if that's true, does that mean we could make anything white by keeping it from sunlight? Could albino broccoli happen? Any alert science minded readers are invited to join this debate. Then again, if that first "fact" is wrong, then I guess its all a moot point.

Moving on...asparagus week had its ups and downs with a bit more emphasis on the downs. I think I'll include more (as in more than none) recipes this week because it has come to my attention I am not alone in not liking asparagus and perhaps I'll seek to change that. Of course, these recipe recommendations would be more compelling if I could in good conscience endorse their output, but I encourage non-asparagus likers to give it a go nevertheless. My family has always been a fan of the tomato asparagus salad which my mother mentioned in the comments. The actual list of ingredients for that is as follows:

• 1 bunch asparagus
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion
• 3 tablespoons nonfat plain yogurt
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon prepared mustard

Mix that together and you have what everyone in my family will tell you is a tasty salad. I thought then that I might enjoy it as well, but I had forgotten that my family members are unabashed asparagus likers all. They even eat it straight! Boiled, no less! So yes, my consensus on the asparagus salad is that you may like it, but I fear that liking asparagus already may be a prerequisite.

I wanted to experiment with different methods of cooking asparagus, but was limited by not having a grill. I did learn that broiling in the oven with some olive oil and salt is superior to boiling. Actually, I still wasn't too fond of it even after broiling, but my friend ate the stalks like candy. In a perfect world, I would try my hand at frying asparagus, but I feel this may be one of those things that only works well in restaurants.

The only truly successful venture was some cream of asparagus soup I made which was actually pretty delicious. So far it seems soups are the only mode of vegetable consumption to never let me down. This gives me hope that should I ever lose all my teeth, I will be able to take it in stride. I'll try to recreate the recipe, but as I have a tendency when cooking to just throw things in without measuring, it may be a little coarse. The short hand for this recipe would be: take asparagus and add copious amounts of butter and cream until a soup is formed. But to break it down further: First, I cut up the some fresh asparagus into 1 inch pieces and boiled them in enough vegetable broth to cover them, but not really that much. In another pan, I melted some butter and then added some flour as a thickener, followed by some (maybe a quarter cup?) of cream and some (a cup?--wow, this is the most useless recipe ever) more broth and cooked that until thickened. Once the asparagus was soft, I combined the two mixtures and let it cook a little longer with a little salt (I also may have added pepper, but its all a little hazy now). Then, because, I don't like chunks of gross things in my soup, I pureed the whole mixture. I garnished with a little Parmesan cheese. So yeah, if anyone is feeling intrepid and wants to try this based on my shakey description--I can say that I fully recommend this. Coming from a general disliker of asparagus, I feel this endorsement should carry some weight.

I'm sorry I can't offer more/better recipes. My readers are so good about offering reliably good fare, but I seldom give back to the vegetable liking community. Next week, I shall endeavor to write something down if I feel like it may turn out to be delicious.

Next week: peas!