Asparagus, you just have to eat one piece.

"You just have to eat one piece. You have to give yourself a chance to like it.", my mother said as she plunked down a plump piece of asparagus drizzled with butter on my plate. I knew she was wrong, but there was no sense in arguing, as my mother's pride in the vegetables she grew in the backyard garden was so strong. A kind little girl didn't want to hurt her mummy's feelings.

Surprise, momma was right.

I would give almost anything about now, to wander out to a garden to pick a nice fresh bunch, to gently steam, crown with a dollop of butter and a sprinkle of salt and a grind of pepper. With a slice of flaxseed toast and a hard boiled egg, this supper is fit for the queen.

These days wilting bunches of asparagus still rest languidly, with astronomical prices tags among the other edible winter exotica, in the larger grocery stores. These delights are shipped from far off warmer climes, at great expense. They are merely a sham and delusion of the real thing.

The real thing beats most other local plants to the table in early spring, with perhaps the exception of the hardy Swiss chard, a vegetable that also requires an acquired taste.

When I was pregnant with each of my children I would slink down to the corner store, in the city for a can of slippery, lank asparagus. Once home, the can was opened and eaten immediately, without so much as a quick visit to the microwave. I had to make do.

In time I discovered the tall, slim bottles of white asparagus in the carriage trade stores, but it was hard to justify buying "far from the real thing" for the price of a nice bottle of wine.

I live in a place where tea sandwiches remain an art form. They inevitably appear at receptions after funerals or other events of import. It is so hard for me not to appear to be the glutton, I can be, when the large heavy laden sandwich plates are brought to the tables. It is so hard to move slowly with a small luncheon plate to pick only one or two of the asparagus swirls or of asparagus rolls, the crustless wonders,
made so delicately and small, by the real ladies of the community.

Thank goodness, in the near future, I'll be able to go out to buy fresh local asparagus to have supper after supper to my heart's content, until the freshness of the following emerging vegetables catch my fancy.

Then it is time for a local specialty, hodgepodge, but that is another story.