Awakening with Asparagus

Spring came early to the Lowcountry.  The azalea bushes are casting their vibrant color and flowering plants have begun to emit their fragrant aroma. And the salt marsh grasses are flush with green vegetation.  With those elements as inspiration I'm reaching into the cookbook collection for a dish that brings spring to my dinner table just as poetically as mother nature has brought it to my back door.  Out comes Oprah's favorite recipes (at least the ones from 1994, I'm sure she like many of us continues to expand her favorite list as time slips by or at the very least I imagine her palate growing and evolving like mine with age). Like many of the cookbooks I feature from the early nineties~when my exploration into food, flavors and fun was just beginning~I seem to have cycled back to a time when it was all new and fresh information.  Revisiting a era that for the better part of 18 years I describe as an awakening of my senses.  Thus I select a recipe from In the Kitchen with Rosie that evokes that period of food enlightenment and the now ever present Spring sitting on my door step.  This Asparagus Salad is a first course, a side dish and perfect for the picnic blanket. I've committed to delivering so many colorful food memories in many renditions across the last 18 years, but this dish makes me smile simply by plating it up for others to enjoy (and the flavor at first bite just makes that smile broader). Awakening!