By The garden is in. Peas first, as always — the advance guard, the brave ones. Then lettuce, spinach, radishes. The tomato seedlings are still on the windowsill, getting stronger by the day under Helen's watchful eye, but they won't go in the ground until after Memorial Day because a late frost in Vermont is not a possibility, it's a promise. You plant tomatoes before Memorial Day at your own risk, and the risk is Helen's disappointment, which is worse than any frost.
I made asparagus from the fence row. The wild asparagus is up — thin spears, tender, tasting like the earth waking up. I sautéed them in butter with garlic and lemon for three minutes. Three minutes. That's all asparagus needs. More than three minutes and it goes limp and bitter and you've ruined something that was perfect when you started, which is a lesson about cooking and also about a lot of other things.
The blog's audience is growing. Two hundred readers now, Helen reports. Two hundred. The number is abstract — I can't picture two hundred people reading about an old man's asparagus. But I can picture Margaret in Michigan, and Gerald in New Hampshire, and Richard in Chester, and the dozen or so regulars who comment every week, and those faces are concrete, those faces are real, and those faces are enough. You don't write for two hundred. You write for the one person who needs to hear it. If two hundred show up, that's a bonus.
Helen planted her flowers. The flower bed along the south side of the house is expanding — more daylilies, more coneflowers, and this year she added lavender, which she says will attract bees. I said we have plenty of bees. She said, "You can never have enough bees." I did not argue. When Helen says something about the natural world, the natural world tends to agree with her. The bees will come. The lavender will bloom. The flower bed will be beautiful. Helen makes things beautiful. It's what she does.
Spring evenings on the porch. The light lasting longer, the air warming, the peepers singing from the pond down the hill. Helen reads. I write. Frost lies between our chairs, equidistant, diplomatically positioned. The porch in April is the best seat in the house. The world is greening. The garden is planted. The writing is steady. The asparagus is perfect. We're here. Both of us. Still here.
Here’s the recipe for the asparagus I mentioned—the wild spears from the fence row, sautéed in butter with garlic and a squeeze of lemon. Three minutes. That’s all. When spring finally arrives in Vermont and the first tender shoots push through, you don’t complicate things. You let the asparagus be asparagus. The garden is planted, the porch is warm, Helen’s lavender is in the ground, and this is what we ate while the peepers sang from the pond.
Sautéed Asparagus with Butter, Garlic & Lemon
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 3 minutes | Total Time: 8 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 pound fresh asparagus, tough ends snapped off
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Prep the asparagus. Wash the spears and snap off the woody ends—they’ll break naturally where the tender part begins. If the spears are thick, cut them on the diagonal into 2-inch pieces. Thin spears can stay whole.
- Heat the butter. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it foams and just begins to smell nutty, about 1 minute.
- Add garlic. Drop in the sliced garlic and stir for 15 to 20 seconds, just until fragrant. Don’t let it brown.
- Sauté the asparagus. Add the asparagus to the skillet in a single layer. Cook for 3 minutes, tossing once or twice, until the spears are bright green and just tender with a slight snap. Do not overcook.
- Finish with lemon. Remove the skillet from heat. Squeeze the lemon juice over the asparagus and scatter the zest on top. Season with salt and pepper. Toss gently and serve immediately.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 75 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 5g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 150mg