If it were a “normal” year, by now we’d have lots of local produce: ramps, radishes, a wide selection of tender herbs, watercress, spring mix, etc., etc., etc. But it is gloomy and chilly yet, the trees in Powderhorn Park just barely showing evidence that leaves will exist again. One hundred years or so ago, we’d have been subsisting on sprouting potatoes and sad storage cabbages left over from autumn harvests, so let’s be thankful for the glory that comes our way from California and other southern locations. The red onions, for instance, are back again, and we have lovely stone fruit and melons filling up about a third of the fruit tables. So, while we wait for the sun to come out and warm up our soil, here are a few particularly delicious treats:

Orange honeydew — Personally, I almost always like orange melon better than green, and at this moment honey is an appropriate term of endearment for these fruits. I’m a bit of a purist, because I don’t think any preparation other than cutting and deseeding improves a melon of any kind. That’s my opinion, though, and a lot of people like to fill the hollow of a half melon with yogurt and berries.

Peas— most of the time there are two choices: sugar snap and snow. Snow peas are flatter and often a little less sweet, and sugar snaps are fat with sweet green peas. The latter are quite versatile — sautéed, steamed, or raw are all delicious; while the former are usually used best in a stir fry. A bowl of sesame scallion noodles with slivered peapods sounds great to me today, or actually any day.

Mexican peaches — It’s amazing to me how early we can source peaches. And these are certainly worth eating. They are smaller and paler than the California ones that come into season later in the year, but the flavor is deeper and more concentrated.

English cucumbers — Most of the time these days we have these guys in stock from Living Waters in Wells, Minn. The skin is tender, which means they don’t need to be peeled, but it also means that they lose moisture very rapidly once harvested, which is why they are always wrapped in plastic. I’ve been cutting them into small cubes and combining them with radishes cut similarly in a miso and scallion dressing. Very healthy and spring-like.

Local herbs — Although the supply of herbs at the moment is much lower than normal, we’ve still been getting a few bunches of mint, tarragon and oregano from Wisconsin Growers. Take it as a sign of hope, and mince the tarragon into eggs, throw oregano into the spaghetti sauce, and make some mint tea. More varieties will be coming in soon.

As a final note, let’s talk about the price of limes. It’s high, getting close to $6/lb. This has come up in conversation outside of work, and I’ve seen a few articles about it in newspapers, so it seems appropriate to address the issue. There hasn’t been much domestic production of limes since 2001 when there was a citrus canker outbreak in Florida, the only area of the United States with a suitable climate for commercial lime growing. Now we get nearly 90% of our limes from Mexico, where, this year, there have been significant weather and disease problems, compounded by supply restrictions caused by drug cartels active in the lime-growing regions. For now, it seems that we will just have to tolerate the high prices. I would suggest that lime juice can be mixed with the much cheaper lemon.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014 –Today, it is 70 degrees outside and sunny, and there is no snow in the ten-day forecast.

Surely, that means that it really is early Spring, which is one of the most challenging and interesting times of the year to work in a produce department like Seward’s. Transition and gap are key words. We’re transitioning from one growing region to another, which can mean gaps in availability.

For instance, the Braeburn apples from Washington that had been in storage since their harvest in the fall have run out, and we won’t have them in again until the South American harvests start to be shipped north, probably mid to late April. If you count back six months from April, you come to October, which is just about when the fresh crop of WA Braeburns was newly available. Makes sense-Chile and Argentina’s seasons are opposite of ours. So, if you’re a die hard Braeburn fan, you’ll be able to get them soon, and in the meantime, there are still lots of other apples available from Washington. Lady Alice has been particularly well loved by the produce stockers this year.

Pear season has been over in the northern hemisphere for six months or so, which means we’ve got the South American crop coming in now. The red Bartletts seem especially soft and luscious at the moment. They are mild, to be sure, but they go well with cheese or walnuts, and are sure to please little children.

Transition and gap isn’t just for fruit-if you’ve been in recently looking for red onions, you’ve likely been disappointed. The storage onion supply from the west coast is clearly dwindling, and they just don’t have enough reds to ship. Local red onions are long gone. But take heart-in the wet rack (top picture, above), you will often find red spring onions. Not to be confused with scallions or green onions, these are simply young, green harvested red onions. If they’d been left in the field they would eventually become the storage onions that you usually see in the root rack. I take the presence of such onions to mean that the onion fields of the west coast are yielding, and we’ll get some in due time. It’s likely that the first shipment of storage reds will come from Mexico, where it is already summer.

There was hardly a gap at all this year between the Wisconsin Growers parsnips that were harvested and stored in the fall and the overwintered ones from the same farms. Parsnips have the lovely quality of being unharmed, and in fact improved, by remaining unharvested in the ground for the winter. The cold makes them sweeter. They have been cleaned thoroughly by the growers, and are creamy white. In my opinion, they are best roasted, but they can also be shredded in potato pancakes or hashbrowns for an interesting variation.

There is a triad of items that will always mean Spring: Living waters English cucumbers, CA fava beans and really tasty berries. We’ve had Living Waters tomatoes for a while now, but the cucumbers come a little later. They are tender and sweet and need no peeling. In fact, to peel an English cucumber is to miss out on a part of the enjoyment of them.

Fava Beans are an unusual bean. Most beans like warm soils, but favas thrive in cool conditions, which is what brings them to market so soon in the year. To eat them, first remove the beans from the large, leathery pod, and then steam them for a few minutes. Heap them in a bowl and eat them with a pecorino or queso fresco, as a snack. The skin of the bean is usually best removed, making them a good finger food to leisurely enjoy with a friend on the picnic table. A glass of white wine would not be a bad idea either.

Berries start to come into season at this time of year, and while Strawberries are a steady occupant of the produce shelves, if you happen to be here on a day when Blackberries are in, you should treat yourself. They should be large and shiny and look as if they are about to burst that dark juice all over the package. If you manage not to eat them all out of hand, throw them in muffins or pancakes, or delicately add them to a fruit salad at the last minute.

Citrus is still good, although it will be transitioning out of season in the next couple of months. The Temple oranges are amazing-they remind me of orange popsicles in the best possible way. They have lots and lots of seeds, which can be a drawback, but they are good candidates for juicing, eliminating that nuisance.