ramps

Go green! There's no better time to make any of these beautiful spring salads, specially selected to be most delicious right now.

From Doug Psaltis, chef and partner of RPM Italian in Chicago, here’s a ravioli recipe that takes full advantage of one of our favorite seasonal ingredients: ramps! Bright, earthy and bold, these spring shoots, which taste like a combination of onions, garlic and awesome, won’t be around for long. Grab a bunch, pair with creamy…

You know those friends of yours who so intensely look forward to the arrival of spring foods at the local farmers’ market that they fiendishly check social media daily to spot the first mention of ramps or pea shoots of the year? Those guys are onto something. Spring brings us some of the most delightful…

Welcome to the afternoon roundup! If it happened in food today, it’s news to us. Here are a few stories that have caught our attention. Peter Chang Watch: Celebrated Szechuan chef Peter Chang is finally returning to Northern Virginia, where he first became famous. His newest restaurant, simply called Peter Chang, is expected to open…

How do ramps get into Mario Batali's kitchen? The Crocs-clad chef shows us how in — in reverse — in this soothing video. The camera follows the seasonal sensation as they go from Batali's cutting board out the back door, to the market and off to the fields. Check it out. OO.ready(function() { OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer', '1icXVxbTpV8nc2eiOGit0aRU7xW1qiEd');…

Ramps have a pretty short season, but when they’re here come spring, they’re on every restaurant menu. Its leaves are versatile, adding a garlicky heat to pesto, vinaigrettes and other sauces. They can also be wilted in a sauté pan with other seasonal goodies like morels, which are also out around about now. The ramp's…

If you’re a garlic fiend, ramp season is your friend. The wild-growing onion-garlic relative is hot stuff from March to about May every year. A few years ago, at my favorite D.C. Italian restaurant Bibiana, I had my first ramp pesto and it was killer — a fresher, more seasonal incarnation of a classic Genovese pesto.…

The rules of spring are set in stone: pray that the groundhog sees his shadow to ensure an expedited arrival of warm weather. Don’t dare to sport white clothing before Memorial Day. But the season isn’t officially in full swing until the first sighting of ramps. There is perhaps no vegetable that is more synonymous…

Handpicked Nation is an awesome food site that's focused on seasonality, sensible cooking and, well, kinda hippie-ish personalities. What do you expect? Founder Craig McCord and Staci Strauss live in the woods in Woodstock, NY. They're also experienced video producers with friends in high places, which is why they were able to convince food writer…

Quick, make this super-secret spaghetti with pesto before all the ramps are gone! Spring vegetable season will be kaput before you know it (bring on the tomatoes!), so harvest at least one more chance to treat its bright, garlicky, peppery bounty right with Dan Kluger's greener-than-green pasta dish. The farm-to-table trailblazer and ABC Kitchen chef…

It's only about two hours from Midtown Manhattan, but the Hudson Valley couldn't feel more different from its urban neighbor to the south. It's all farms and green fields and people who truly, deeply care where there food comes from. One such dude is Wilson Costa, executive chef of Gigi Hudson Valley, a Brazilian-born chef…

There's no denying it, a whopping serving of dark green vegetables will make you feel much better than a heavy, meat-laden, cheese-covered, gravy-smothered...okay, we should stop before we lose our healthy leafy greens train of thought. We rounded up our favorite recipes with leafy greens, like spinach, kale, Swiss chard and seasonal spring treats like…

There comes a point in every food-loving life when you have to face hard questions. Has your passion for seasonality taken a dark turn? Is your commitment to local produce alienating friends and loved ones? Do vendors at your local farmers’ market avoid eye contact when you approach? If so, you may be suffering from…

I never thought it would happen to me. Like most writers and editors, I'm a pretty cynical guy, so I tended to side with chefs like Michael Schwartz and Tyler Kord, both of whom have publicly skewered the ramp craze via Food Republic. Heck, I even took pride in publishing their anti-ramp rhetoric; take that,…

In Denmark, Rene Redzepi and the staff at Noma aren’t on the phone sourcing expensive ingredients for the world's so-called best restaurant from elite vegetable vendors. No, the chefs and their crew are out in the field searching for weeds. Literally. Noma’s website reads, “We comb the countryside for berries and herbs that others would…

Today in the New York Post, the subject of silly cocktails is broached. It's no secret that mixologists are concocting increasingly outlandish creations, but just how far is too far when it comes to potable experimentation? For Dale DeGroff, who is often credited with pioneering the current cocktail renaissance, bacon is where the line should…

Each spring, the brief season for ramps inspires breathless descriptions on blogs and in food magazines, some say to a fault. Still, I was curious to have the full-on hunter-gatherer foraging experience, so I called my friend John Loeffler, owner of the Inn at Gristmill Square in Warm Springs, Virginia. He assured me that the…

A more luxurious version of creamed spinach, and possibly the most flavorful side vegetable you’ll ever have. The pungent flavor of the ramps will stand up to even the strongest cheese, so don’t be afraid to try goat, feta, bleu or another strong cheese. Pairs well with any grilled red meat. Also makes an excellent…

Ramps are one of the most delicate members in the onion family. But we've given them some swagger by adding some heat to their soft demeanor. Chop these up and use with sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers, pasta or just eat a few whenever you need a kick in the pants.

The Huffington Post picks up on the mixed feelings in the burgeoning food community on the onset of ramp season, which reached a head yesterday on Food Republic with chef Tyler Kord proclaiming that “spring is a bummer.” Ah, the humanity. Grist takes a look at how topsoil erosion on Iowa farms is increasing because…

Chef-owner Tyler Kord of Brooklyn restaurant No. 7 and I we were swapping emails a couple weeks ago when he wrote the following: “So, spring is a chef bummer.” Oh no he didn’t! It’s no secret that, just around the time they cut down the nets at the NCAA tournament, chefs start to freak the…