As you know if you’ve been reading this blog, I visited our CSA recently for a pick-your-own asparagus harvest. In less than an hour, we picked more asparagus than I’ve probably purchased in my entire life. The past few weeks have been an exercise in preparing this vegetable so as not to bore my husband and kids.

But it’s been more than that. It’s been a reminder about the differences between what I had been doing — which was shopping for and cooking anything we had a taste for — and eating seasonally.

In springtimes past, I’d shop for a pound or two of asparagus with a specific recipe in mind. At $3.99 a pound (or more, depending on where I was shopping), it wasn’t something to buy lightly. But with 11 pounds to go through, I felt free to experiment with new recipes and techniques. I used it in pasta, roasted it with parmesan, ate it cold with white beans and feta, and doused it with soy sauce and dark sesame oil. In short, I felt the extravagance known to farmers but lost on those of us who have long relied on grocery stores for our food.

When you eat seasonally, you learn that when something is in, it’s really IN. And you do whatever you can to savor it, because it won’t be around again for another year.