Eating Seasonally

I have fresh strawberries in the refrigerator waiting to be devoured with some shortcake and fresh vanilla ice cream. As soon as strawberries are in season, I buy them up and make all those treats that taste best with fresh berries.

There is much talk these days about eating seasonally with fresh ingredients. It may seem simplistic, you wouldn't eat pumpkin pie in the spring, and everyone likes strawberries at peak season, right? But eating seasonally means more to your diet than what will fill your pie.
It's an important focus in light of the popularity of convenience foods. Looking for those fresh, seasonal ingredients provokes us from the inside aisles of our grocery stores and to the perimeter-where the fresh, preservative free foods live. Right now, I'm on the lookout for vegetables you can't find year round like snap peas, fava beans, and green garlic. I had heard so much about green garlic, when I saw some at the farmer's market a few weeks ago, I grabbed it up. It is young garlic, before the cloves form. It is to a head of garlic what a green onion is to an onion. It has a mild, fresh, "green" taste and I've been using it ever since in soup, salads, pilafs, eggs, anything that would benefit from a light essence of garlic. I don't know how long it'll be available, but I do know that I'll be looking for green garlic again next spring.