Ramp-ing Up the Spring Celebration

This past Wednes­day morn­ing was beau­ti­ful and clear, too nice to spend our usu­al hour or so work­ing out in the gym. Eric and I decid­ed instead to walk on our local trea­sure, the North Coun­ty Trail­way. For­mer­ly train tracks, the Trail­way has been paved over for use by walk­ers, run­ners, and cyclists. It pass­es through forests, swamps, and farms, cross­es over a reser­voir on an old tres­tle bridge, and offers easy access to cafes along the way. We had­n’t walked more than 5 min­utes when we ran into my friend Judi. Every year, Judi tells me when ramps (wild onions) are in sea­son (now) and shares her secret pick­ing spot, which hap­pens to be off the Trail­way. I had nev­er gone to find them. But this year, Judi found a new spot and it was close to where we were walk­ing. We picked as many ramps as would fit in Eric’s base­ball cap and head­ed home to do some­thing with them. (My friend Fan­ny was jeal­ous — she says they sell for $18/lb in the farm­ers mar­ket!)

The tim­ing was per­fect for pair­ing them with farm-fresh eggs from Mar­i­o’s Piz­za at the Mt. Kisco train sta­tion. Mario has 100 back­yard chick­ens who lay the most beau­ti­ful eggs. I could­n’t resist tak­ing a pic­ture of the vibrant orange yolks.

Eric scram­bled the ramps and eggs togeth­er but we end­ed up lik­ing the ramps bet­ter as a raw gar­nish. Yes­ter­day, we added them to an Israeli cucum­ber-toma­to sal­ad with za’atar. And we still have plen­ty!