Are wine-lovers pretentious, easily-manipulated fools who can't tell Two-Buck Chuck from a pricey Napa cabernet? Eric Asimov inquires.

Urban farmers: now selling at your local farmer's market.

The myths and realities of organics - Curious Cook Harold McGee looks for some real information and comes up kinda empty-handed. Seems everyone has their biases.

The Minimalist does crustless quiche, in cute little ramekins. OMG, the one with sauteed mushrooms sounds so good!

The Culinary Institute of America is having a bit of a mutiny against its president.

A recipe for butter-braised asparagus with peas and tarragon.

Some New York restaurants get cited over new late mandating calorie counts on menus.

It's my final semester of college, and I'm taking Literature of the Great Depression to finish my English major. I think that my professor often feels badly, though, about assigning texts that are just so darn depressing, so she often opens class with a cheerful question like, "What's your favorite type of pie?" or "What's your favorite breakfast?" Recently, she asked us what our favorite thing about Spring is, and I knew instantly that mine is the delicious new food and produce that Spring brings. Clearly, there's no better way to celebrate these bright new ingredients than with entire festivals dedicated to them! This weekend, we have homages to asparagus, seafood, beer, more seafood, seafood and (my favorite) maple.

Read on after the jump to see where to go for the party, and meanwhile check out these lovely photos from last week's Great American Pie Festival.

Spoilers! Spoilers!

Last night's episode of Top Chef finally addressed the question that show has been toying with all season: Is it better to sidestep the rules and create an amazing dish, or to follow the rules and produce something mediocre? Until this episode, it seemed to me that the judges went with whichever answer matched up with the contestant who they wanted to send home (my mom accurately likened it to a card trick where you know the card before the trick starts, then "find" it through whatever means). But now they have finally established that a better dish is more important than one that follows the rules closely, and I hope for the sake of consistency that they stick by this for the rest of the season. Oh yeah, and the Elimination Challenge was nuts.

Speaking of asparagus...Most often, asparagus makes its springtime appearance in The Delicious household simply steamed with a little bit of salt and occasionally, in an omelet or frittata.

However, I will never go back to simple steaming of asparagus, nor to hiding them inside a mask of eggs after having them wrapped in slices of prosciutto and roasted. I realize, of course, that this is not a wildly innovative technique, but it is the first time I've done it and tasted it.

Now different recipes call for slightly different methods -- blanching the asparagus first, tossing them with olive oil, etc. -- but there is no need. Just trim the woody ends, wrap 3-4 stems in prosciutto, and roast in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes. There's no need for oil since the prosciutto's fat will render onto the baking tray, and the salty meat is enough with the asparagus.

There are several standard ways I use up leftovers: an omelet the next morning, fried rice, and of course, just re-heating whatever it was, and eating it as is.

Another thing to do is make a sandwich, and if you have leftover lamb and asparagus from Easter Sunday, throwing them together with a little bit of yogurt-turned-tzatziki makes a great pita-bread-based sandwich. Of course, in my house, we didn't actually have lamb (we didn't have a traditional ham either), and asparagus on the table gets eaten before the salad is served.

Without the leftovers to make the pitas, the only other thing to do is -- gasp! -- actually cook the meal! The California Asparagus Commission has put together a recipe (after the jump), along with a whole list of recipes for asparagus on their website.

Last week, I hinted at my love of asparagus. This weekend I finally got to indulge myself and eat this springtime veggie until I was sated (at least for the time-being). It was on sale at a local grocery stores for $1.48 a pound and I bought three big bunches. Trimming off the woody ends, I tossed the stalks with olive oil, salt, pepper and lots of chopped garlic and roasted it in a 400 degree oven until they were tender. I ate one piece as soon as I pulled the pan out of the oven, standing over the stove, burning my fingers as blew on the tip, trying to cool it down enough to ingest.

The rest got piled into a loaf pan for easy transportation to the home of friends for an Easter lunch. Lucky for me, there were some leftovers, so late last night, I ate the rest straight out of the pan, at room temperature. I went to bed smelling of garlic but feeling totally satisfied with the amount of asparagus I had consumed.

Roasting is by far my favorite way to prepare asparagus. What's your preferred method for cooking this spring-y vegetable?

When I was in college, one of the best things about being on the food service plan was that every Easter, Bon Appetit (the food service company at Whitman) would go all out and put together a fancy brunch for everyone who stayed behind that weekend. It would be held in the lobby of Cordiner Hall and there would be tables of pastries, made-to-order omelet stations and an absolute abundance of fresh, gently blanched asparagus. I would go every year in large part to binge on the asparagus, eating it until I could hold no more.

For some reason, the moment I saw this image of a bouquet of fresh asparagus, this memory of Easter asparagus in college is what my mind immediately conjured up. I don't have much in the way of Easter plans this weekend, but I do believe that I need to add "buy asparagus" to my shopping list.

Though invented sometime in the late 19th century, Eggs Benedict is still, in my opinion, the ne plus ultra of brunch foods. But a lot of people (including myself) are put off by making hollandaise and poaching eggs. Well this twist on the classic brunch dish, from Bon Appétit, does away with the hollandaise, replacing it with a gorgeous but unintimidating chive oil. Prosciutto takes the place of Canadian bacon and asparagus adds a springy touch. Serve over traditional English muffins, or skip them in place of something else. We had these for brunch at my parents' this morning (thanks, Dad!), over cornmeal biscuits.

Egg-poaching tips: adding a little vinegar to the cooking water helps the egg white to solidify faster, cutting down on feathering. Make sure the water is simmering, not boiling, when you put the eggs in - vigorous bubbling will break the whites. And use the freshest eggs you can; they spread less.

In the 19th century, bridegrooms were served asparagus in three courses because the vegetable was thought to have aphrodisiac powers. Whatever the reason for the effect, it certainly isn't whatever naturally occurring compound it is in asparagus that gives many of us that little fragrance problem in the bathroom after we eat asparagus. However, given it's shape, asparagus is a highly suggestive food, especially because we often serve them whole. Asparagus contains folic acid and vitamin B which are, for women, important not only for a healthy heart, but also for having healthy babies. OoooOOOoooh, so that's what it is -- preparation for making babies!

• You can make a lot of different things with mangoes.
• This guy makes green beans pickled with soy sauce and wasabi, smokra (which is okra with smokey paprika), and rosemary-scented pickled beets.
• This isn't your typical veggie burger.
• An interview with Barbara Kingsolver about her new food book.
• More books: it's the silver anniversary of The Silver Palate Cookbook.
• This week's recipes: Bulgur Wheat Salad, Imperial Asparagus, Chicken Marbella, Rougaille Beef, and Brownies.

• The allure of tapas.
• Cooking lessons from Rome: Ricotta pudding.
• Green tea: it's the new "bran."
• It's spring, and that means it's time for asparagus.
• This book says to drink olive oil as an appetite suppressent.
• Everyone's eating lunch again (did it ever really go away?).
• This week's recipes: Beef with Cumin, Lemony Chicken Caesar, Homestyle Bean Curd, Cod Salad, and Chunky Dark and White Chocolate Cookies.

I used to hate bread pudding. It was just a bored, budget-minded housewife's way of passing off stale bread as dessert. Then I met a bread pudding that changed my mind and ever since, I've been a big fan. Huge.

But bread pudding isn't just for dessert, as per Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks, who made a savory bread pudding using Spring's springy-est of vegetables, asparagus. Heidi used a mix of sourdough and walnut breads, and though recipes for bread pudding usually say "stale" bread, that doesn't give you license to use rock hard bread that you bought two weeks ago. Use bread that you've let dry overnight, or as Heidi did, left out for a day or two.

Passover begins on Monday at sundown, and Martha Stewart has planned four menus in celebration - a Traditional Seder Dinner, Spring Celebration, Passover Dessert Buffet, and a Passover Brunch.

Even if you aren't planning to prepare kosher food or host a Passover feast yourself, the site is worth checking out anyways as there are a number of absolutely delicious-sounding meal ideas (complete with some pretty fabulous photos) which you could easily incorporate into your own menu planning.

Just a small sampling of her recipes include Gefilte Fish with Fresh Beet Horseradish, (as pictured, above), Grilled Asparagus with Caramelized Shallot Vinaigrette, Matzo Ball Soup, Profiteroles with Caramelized Bananas, and Passion Fruit Mimosas. You can view the full menus via the link below.

(photo credit: MarthaStewart.com, used with permission)

Nicole mentioned a delicious asparagus tart a couple of days ago; what she didn't mention was the current asparagus blogevent being run by Kevin over at Seriously Good.

Usually with these things you get a single round of links across the food blogs. Kevin is now on his FOURTH list of recipes with another round up to come! Truly a 1001 things to do with asparagus (thank you at the back there, but I am talking recipes here!) 

His three round-ups (one, two, three and four) are a mine of superb recipes. Well worth investigating as the asparagus season is so short you don't have much time to enjoy the very best spring vegetable.

The image here is of my contribution; a simple puff pastry tart filled with a mix of mascarpone and parmesan and topped with some parma ham. Presentation may not be that good but it tasted delicious.

Alanna, who writes the column (and blog) Kitchen Parade, has done it again. Even after cooking through a whole year's worth of different vegetable recipes, she still can come up with more! This Asparagus Custard Tart, for example, is a gorgeous example of what to do with fresh, spring asparagus. The tart is much lighter than a quiche and not nearly as eggy, though still very satisfying. It has a short, simple list of ingredients that blend together to produce a brilliant dish. Alanna slices it into eighths and serves it with a side salad as a main course, but with a fruit salad it could also make a lovely brunch or item. Don't be put off by the crust, either. If you're pastry-challenged, you can use Pillsbury refrigerated dough.