Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook!
Today, I’ll be sharing my favorite ways to serve fresh asparagus during the height of the season.
But first, a story:
A few years ago, Mr. Stone Soup and I went on a delightful barge cruise on the Loire River in France. After the cruise, we had no plans, except that we were flying out of Paris 10 days later. It was late spring and the weather was lovely, so what did we care? We got on board a train bound for Strasbourg–we had traveled there years before and enjoyed our stay, so why not? On board, we met a perfectly wretched little architectural historian–very smart and well-educated, but also smug and patronizing, loved the sound of his own voice–you know the type. We had packed wine and snacks for the road, so…we were mostly just amused (and mostly were able to ignore him) as he droned on and on about how smart he was and about this and that architectural marvel that he was trying to tell people about. But at one point, Mr. Stone Soup and I both perked our ears up, when he said that asparagus were still in season in the Alsace region of France.
And that, was that.
After Strasbourg, we caught a train to Alsace and spent the next couple of days gorging ourselves on all manner of asparagus delights. We found asparagus on almost every menu we sat down to, and it was truly our version of heaven! We started almost every meal with a cup of the house asparagus soup. This was followed by another course involving asparagus and if they’d had desserts featuring asparagus, you can bet we would have hopped right on that, too.
As I’ve said many times, asparagus and ham play extremely well together, and we found that combination on almost every menu we encountered. One of our favorite, and simplest ways, to enjoy ham and asparagus is with a side of boiled potatoes, all drizzled with a nice vinaigrette. And trust me–this is a most fruitful marriage!
Click here for the recipe for ham and asparagus.
And just for fun, here’s the recipe for Alsatian style asparagus soup, which features a ham broth instead of chicken broth:
That’s it for today–tune in tomorrow when I’ll be addressing an eternal controversy: Are skinny asparagus better than fat asparagus?
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
