This week in the classroom we discussed the power of seasonality, both in the foods that we eat and in the different community gatherings and holidays that bring people together throughout the year. We read the book Spring is for Strawberries and learned that most fruits and vegetables grown in our local environment are only in season (or at peak ripeness) during specific months. Our current global food system obscures this fact; for example, we can now find strawberries grown in Mexico at the grocery store 365 days a year. But strawberries grown in California usually only become available around the first signs of spring, which happens to be right in this moment!
In the kitchen we made a salad with several ingredients that announce the arrival of spring: strawberries, spring onions, asparagus, sugar snap peas, and baby spinach. We learned a technique for cooking vegetables called blanching, which involves quickly cooking vegetables in salted boiling water, then shocking them in a cold-water bath to stop the cooking process. We had some leftover parmesan from last week’s stone soup, so that made for a popular garnish after we dressed the salad and sat down to eat. In our closing circle, each chef shared their favorite season of the year.
