More of that Spring!

A girl may be on a diet (well, this girl is), but it doesn't have to be all celery and apples. Even if that's what it feels like!

And, fortunately, it being spring, some of my favourite vegetables are re-appearing.

Such as green asparagus.

Peter and I far prefer green asparagus to the white, and prefer the really thin, whippy stems to the fat ones.

But this time of year, I'll take what I can get. Although I shouldn't have been indulging myself in these yet- I try not to buy anything that comes from further South than Morocco, and definitely nothing that has to be shipped across a major ocean. But, whoops, how did that end up in my shopping? Dammit. I'm going to have to eat it now...

I won't buy any more, though, I'll wait for a few more weeks until the local stuff starts showing up- and I'll be buying it by the kilo then.

What I usually do is boil a kilo quickly, until it's just soft but still got a bite to it (only way of checking that is by taking a spear out and eating it!), then I either drain it, dump it into cold water for a couple of minutes, and put it in a tupperware to be snacked on for the next few days, or, like this evening, drain it, pop some on my plate, drizzle it with balsalmic vinegar (who needs olive oil?), add some fleur de sel, and settle down with a knife and fork.

After which, as nobody else was around, I licked my plate clean before putting it in the dishwasher.

There's half of them left for tomorrow night, and with Peter away, I don't have to share.... that is, if my mother doesn't discover them in the fridge tomorrow morning whilst minding Greta!

In other things, I just booked the Auberge Communale de Collex-Bossy for dinner for Peter and I on Friday night. We need a night out together (I honestly cannot remember last time we had one, it must have been at least January), and his mother has offered to baby sit.

We're very fond of the Auberge. We used to live near there, and we kicked ourselves repeatedly after first going there for dinner one night- mainly as we'd lived 10 minutes down the road for three years already, and hadn't been before! Their specialty is bison, raised in the farm at the edge of the village. I used to walk with Greta past the paddocks, but she won't remember them.

It's pretty damn impressive when they take off running, though. And they're very curious beasts- I'd stop by the side of a field, and they'd invariably come over to investigate and look back at us.

Mm, bison entrecôte on Friday after work...