This chilled Chinese salad makes the most of minimal preparation and five simple ingredients—asparagus, soy sauce, olive oil, black vinegar and toasted sesame seeds. Recipe below.

It snowed Monday night in Chicago. Still, it’s officially spring, and beautifully thin asparagus is starting to turn up in grocery stores—and along some roadsides. So I’m going to turn the kitchen over to Marion and let her tell you (and me) about her foraging adventures before we met.

Asparagus wasn’t my first experience with gathering food from the wild—that would have been mushroom and berry picking, when I was a kid—but it was my first great breakthrough as an adult, when I had half forgotten the experiences of my childhood. That you could wade into all that mixed weedy stuff by the roadside and come out with a handful of tender! young! asparagus! (and for free, I might add) was a revelation. Continue reading “A crisp, lively welcome for reluctant spring: Chinese Sesame Asparagus Salad” →