“Spring is here, a-spra-ing is here! Life is skittles and life is beer. I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring! I do, don’t you? ’Course you do” – Tom Lehrer 

Every spring for something north of 15 years I have trucked my little self out to Hadley to grab the grass: I go to a farm and bring the first, most delicious, asparagus I can get to the folks waiting eagerly at home. I have a legacy mailing list and take orders through an old-fashioned Google form. I pick up what I need, generally around seven cases for the list and a couple for my old pal Robert Harris at Season to Taste.

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Hadley is home to some mighty fine asparagus. Some say it is the best in the world. I agree. I hear the queen of England had it brought over especially. 

For me, asparagus is the first moment of farmed bounty in New England. We have only a few months of seriously good growing time here, so we need to come out of the gate running. Toss it on a grill or throw it in an oven for a couple of minutes – please, don’t overcook it. You can eat it raw, so it makes a great salad.

Here is what else is coming up where I am in Massachusetts. If you are a little bit north, you have a little more time; if you are a little bit south, you better look now.

Sunchokes. These bulbous tubers (I love to say that), the foundation of a kind of sunflower, are known as Jerusalem artichokes, because they taste uncannily like artichoke hearts – but you don’t have to deal with the choke to enjoy them. Win win.

Sunchokes are pulled out of the dirt and are often, well, dirty. If they come to you unscrubbed, give yourself a little extra time with a veggie scrubber. If they have black bits, cut those off. You do not necessarily need to peel these puppies, though. The easiest way to eat them is to dice them up and roast them with some olive oil and salt – they hold their shape pretty well when cooked – as a great side or addition to a salad. They are also good sliced raw, very thin, another way they are good on salad, but you can fry those thin slices, too, for a sort of artichoke-y chip.

Fiddleheads. Growing in low, wet and often wooded areas, these are the sprouts of the ostrich fern – and have to be, because something that just looks similar will taste yucky and hurt your tummy. Fiddleheads are cute as pie but take a little bit of work to cook. I’ll walk you through it. 

Like sunchokes, fiddleheads can be dirty; clean them by soaking them in water and rinsing a couple of times. If there is a sort of papery covering, it’s good to get that off; it is a mess, and kind of bitter. Once they are clean, nip the ends off the stems like you would a flower. Get rid of what’s browning or split. You can leave as much stem as is not nipped – it’s totally edible. Now, this part is clutch: Before cooking them to eat, you have to boil them in water and rinse again. If you plan to eat them cold, like in a salad, boil them for 5 minutes. If you plan to cook them again, 3 minutes will do it. This is to remove a chemical that is not good for you. Like, it won’t kill you, but it is “toxic.” (Do not get scared. It’s not like it’s a mushroom or something.)

After you have boiled and rinsed, make them yummy. For a salad I would marinate them in olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic. I also love them pan sautéed with the same enhancements.

Ramps. These are baby leeks growing in similar environments to fiddleheads. If you pull up the roots, you can destroy years worth of growth; cut them above the roots. If you see them for sale with roots on, shake your head gently and pour one out for that stand of ramps that will not be back for a long time. Then you can trim off those roots and enjoy those tender alliums. Ramps, as shallots are to onions, are stronger than scallions. You can use them as you would use scallions. Just mince them finer to make up for the strength.

Rhubarb. My mom grew up in Illinois, and she says they would pick fresh stems off the rhubarb plants that grew everywhere, dip them in sugar and chomp away. Fun fact: Strawberry rhubarb pie is called that not because it has strawberries in it, which are not around for another month, but because rhubarb in a pie mimics the color of strawberries. And I do love it in baked goods – pie, scones or compote, it lends a sour bite that compliments sweetness. (I like to have compote around. That is just when you cook down diced rhubarb stems with a little water and a bunch of sugar, the same way you make a basic cranberry sauce. I love it on yogurt or toast.)

Bonus! You can pickle all of these things and stretch out spring. There are three kinds of pickles: canned, fermented and quick. If you are looking to get into ferments I suggest my friend Alex Lewin’s very good book. Canning, or hot packing, is a big endeavor, though fun. I like a quick pickle, or a “quickle,” and not just because I like to say “quickle.” (Almost as much as I like to say “streetery.”)

Basically, here is how I do it:

First, do some math. How big are your jars? If they are 8 ounces, you will need a few ounces of liquid per jar after they are packed. You might have eight jars, so you can make 2 cups to be safe. That is how I am writing this recipe, but you can scale up.

Find some lidded jars. These can be canning jars of any size and kind – they just need to be glass, with a leakproof lid. Mason jars are pretty, and you can get them everywhere, but you do not have to buy jars to do this. You can use a jam jar. Or whatever. Clean them thoroughly, whatever they are.

Prep your veggies. Blanch the fiddleheads, trim the ramps, slice the rhubarb, snap the asparagus, dice the sunchokes.

Pack your veggies tightly. Fiddleheads and rhubarb pack easily. I like ramps and asparagus to be standing up. You could do a wall of ramps around the outside and fiddleheads in the middle space. Your fiddleheads will be ramp-y, but still delicious. Leave enough space at the top of your vegetables that they will be covered when you pour in the pickling water. As you get later in the season, you can start to pickle blanched green beans and garlic scapes. By then you will be a pro.

Mix 1 part water to 1 part vinegar. Note that in some recipes this would be white vinegar, which is not vinegar. I use cider vinegar. It makes a darker pickle, but I do prefer the flavor, and it is easily obtained from a local source.

Add some spices to the liquid.  Your 2 cups of water-and-vinegar mix gets ¼t of salt and 1t of sugar and some flavor: I often use allspice and juniper berries. Try rhubarb, sliced in chunks of 1 inch or smaller. I might add anise seeds, or cumin seeds, or maple sugar. Star anise will make things licorice-y; use very little. Cover and simmer on low for 10 minutes. Watch for evaporation and add water if levels seem to be getting low.

Turn off the heat and pour the liquid. Pour your spiced mix into the jars, covering the veggies totally – up to half-inch below the rim.  If there is not enough to cover, add hot water to the top.

Screw on the lid, turn them upside down and leave them for several hours. They need to be upside down in room temperature as the liquid cools, but it’s okay if they sit overnight before being refrigerated. Nothing is growing in all that vinegar.

When they are cool, put them in the fridge. Give the jars a week to do their thing. You can totally sample, but these can hang out for a very long time. Months. They will get really pickle-y the longer they sit. Yummy on sandwiches, and beautiful in salads, on cheese plates, etc.

Send cooking questions to JJ Gonson, a personal chef at Cuisine en Locale, at jjgonson@csindie.com.