Side

Elote—roasted corn on the cob spiked with salty cheese, creamy mayo, lime, and chile powder—is traditional Mexican street food, slightly exotic but homey enough to anyone who has scarfed roast corn at a state fair. It’s also solid party food: guests can garnish their own, and because the pulled-down husk is used as a handle, it can easily be eaten standing up. Cotija cheese, widely available in supermarkets and Mexican tiendas, is a crumbly aged cow’s-milk cheese, weirdly similar to both feta and Parmesan, and either can be substituted here.

These are good as a savory side or drizzled with honey or sorghum for breakfast.

In this recipe, fish sauce stands in for the salt to make a savory-sweet spicy salad or side dish. If possible, include two or more types of melon for variety. We get most of our melons from Whitted Bowers, a biodynamic orchard and farm just north in Cedar Grove that also offers a spin on U-pick berries: dig-your-own Carolina Ruby sweet potatoes. Cheri Whitted and Rob Bowers grow many melons; my favorites include the musky Emerald Gem (considered the finest melon in the world after it was developed in 1886), Pride of Wisconsin, and Sugar Baby, the icebox-size watermelon.

If you can’t grill the radicchio, just sear it on the stovetop in a cast-iron pan over medium-high heat until it is caramelized and tender.

As traditionally seasonal delicacies like asparagus, strawberries, and peaches have become everyday food, the idea that they are a treat has somehow stuck—but with none of the flavor or meaning. Year-round asparagus has become a stand-in for a kind of perfunctory idea of good eating—the Whole Foods near us recently installed a permanent granite waterfall shrine to asparagus in their entrance—yet is a shadow of its tasty springtime self. When you put just-picked asparagus on a hot grill, they are so juicy they actually jump as they start to cook.

On the first day of the year that is warm enough to open the windows, we all instantly crave spring foods. While the asparagus, peas, and strawberries we hunger for lag many weeks behind, the early tonics of spring—spring onions, green garlic, and ramps—step in to give us the jolt we need to wake up from winter.

Delicate fresh broccoli and cauliflower from a garden or small farm don’t resemble the useful California sorts that are a fixture in our produce drawer the rest of the year, and so we enjoy them while we can. But because broccoli and cauliflower do travel and keep exceptionally well, I make these recipes year-round, just allowing for slightly longer cooking times when dealing with more mature vegetables.