The very first thing I think of when someone says “asparagus” is that it makes your pee smell funny. I swear. These words actually pop out of my mouth on a regular basis at the grocery store during asparagus (“it makes your pee smell funny”) season – usually only from February to June (too short!). I think that someday I’ll be at a really eccentric, exclusive place, hob-nobbing with the rich and famous, where they’ll serve asparagus and those very words will tumble out of my mouth before I have the opportunity to corral them by clamping my hand over my mouth. I’ll be shunned. It will be horrible.

It isn’t that I don’t like asparagus (“I’m not going to say it”), in fact I really do quite enjoy those gorgeous, gangly green stalks. With a little butter and lemon, flash fried in a cast iron skillet they are fantastically spring-like. On a bed of risotto with few accoutrements, they are delectably divine. Grilled on the BBQ with a wrapping of pancetta and some blistered red and yellow grape tomatoes…oooohhhhhh, now that’s just a little piece of heaven.

Asparagus (“…”) is just so versatile – it goes with practically everything and looks quite attractive, perched on the plate in its glorious green (and bits of purple) splendor. It is so utterly effortless to cook and uncomplicated to eat – rather mild and completely non-threatening - it really is the prince of very-early-spring vegetables. And when you are able to get those thick, young, still-soft stalks that don’t have long woody ends you should consider yourself extremely lucky – you have to get up pretty early in the morning around here to capture those babies on a Saturday morning.

On Thursday night when I finally wandered home from work I was dead tired. So much so that my poor eyes were crossing themselves in their feeble attempts to remain open and functioning. I decided then and there that soup was the best course of action for dinner. What better way is there to ease an aching head and sate a fatigued body than a bowl of bright green soup…? It was delicious – and totally hit the spot. Following my bowl of cream of asparagus soup I went to bed early, dreaming of summer and fields of fresh-smelling green grass.

Asparagus fleets, n. Roman emperors were so fond of asparagus, which probably originated near the Mediterranean, that they kept special boats for the purpose of fetching it.