Spring’s Raw Simplicity

The way storm clouds and rain keep darting in and out, you’d never know spring started six weeks ago. But walking through the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market several days ago, there was no question we are in the new season’s sweet thrall.

Everywhere you looked, tables were stacked with dark red strawberries, the jade-green husks of fava beans and various peas, fat knobs of green garlic and spring onions, and the Easter egg colors of new radishes.

It was one of those feeding-frenzy days. Each thing I tried tasted better than the last and so, of course, I had to have it all. Onions so mild you could eat them plain. Bright-red radishes the size of golf balls that were so sweet they had no bite at all. Sugar snap peas that seemed the very definition of green--sweet and herbal and crisp and juicy all at the same time.

For the first time this year, strawberries tasted the way they should. And after extensive tasting, I have to say the Chandlers from Harry’s Berries are the best in the market again this year.

The result was two armloads of fruits and vegetables and absolutely no plan for what to do with them. In other words: lots of ingredients and no recipes.

In fact, that’s pretty much the way things stayed. When I got all this stuff home and started wondering what to do with it, the dishes that came to mind really seemed too simple to talk about. I nibbled a little more, thought about this and that, looked in more books and still nothing happened.

The problem--and we should all have such problems--is that everything tasted so good on its own. Improvement, I realized, was impossible. The only thing I could add was complication. And if I wanted that kind of food, I might as well go to a restaurant.

So for dinner that night I served a couple of platters of little open-faced vegetable sandwiches arranged around mounds of sugar snap peas.

The sandwiches were incredibly simple. One was nothing more than a slice of good rustic bread slathered with sweet butter and topped with thinly sliced radishes and a sprinkling of coarse salt; the other, bread spread with fresh goat cheese and topped with a garnish of minced onion, parsley and lemon juice (about 1 cup onion and 1 tablespoon each parsley and lemon; if the onions are too harsh, you can soak them in ice water for 30 minutes; just dry them well before mixing).

The sugar snaps I blanched for less than a minute in a big pot of boiling water, then immediately chilled them in cold water. I patted them dry and dressed them with a bit of melted butter and Champagne vinegar.

For dessert, I sliced the strawberries in half and mixed them with a little sugar, fresh mint leaves torn to small pieces and just enough unflavored yogurt to hold them together.

The only thing I didn’t love was the sugar snap peas. It’s not that they tasted bad, it’s just that I still have not found a way to capture in a cooked dish that perfect combination of flavor and texture they have when raw. It could be that the best thing is simply to string them and serve them without any cooking (I have to confess that, as someone with extremely poor impulse control, that that was how I ate most of mine anyway).

And that’s not far from the best English pea dish I’ve had. Sylvia Thompson, a wonderful cook and author of “The Kitchen Garden” and “The Kitchen Garden Cookbook,” as well as a major contributor to the new “Joy of Cooking,” says she learned this from a Jane Grigson book.

Take English peas in the hull--Thompson says to allow about a pound per person--and combine them in a skillet or wok with about an inch of water. Add a little butter (about a tablespoon per person) and bring everything to a rapid boil over high heat. Keep everything moving by shaking the pan and stirring and cook until the pods are just softened, about 2 to 3 minutes. Sprinkle generously with coarse salt and serve.

The way you eat this is to pick up a pod by the stem, stick the whole thing in your mouth and pull it between your teeth. Out pop the peas, and you get a bit of the green from the outside of the pod as well. It’s kind of a British take on edamame--the Japanese soy bean treat--and it is incredibly delicious in a wonderfully atavistic way (Thompson says it should be served only among family and close friends).

But then isn’t that really what spring is all about? Tossing off winter’s chafing restrictions--coats, manners, recipes and the like--and throwing yourself into a little sunny hedonism.