Felicia Friesema

Britain's largest cherry tree bloomed this past week, prompting a bit of early salivating at the Telegraph. Too bad they have to wait a couple more months for fruit, though frankly we can relate. Up until last week, California cherry harvests had been in a holding pattern. The mostly cool......

This seesaw weather we've been having (chilly and windy, then warm and sunny) might trick you into thinking we're stuck in a perpetual springtime, Memorial Day's approach notwithstanding. Local eaters with their noses stuck in the markets know otherwise, now that we have crates of stone fruits perfuming the air......

We must admit to some smoldering jealousy this time of year. Many parts of the country, at least the ones not still dealing with snow, are currently diving headfirst into morel mushroom hunting season, pulling up last year's secret morel maps of prize locations, filling up the GPS with coordinates,......

Los Angeles, and pretty much all of California, reaps the benefits that come from proximity to one of the most fertile agricultural regions in the country. The tendency, however, is to think that the agriculture stops where the ocean starts. We're becoming more accustomed to the seasonal harvests of various......

So do we call them scallions? Or spring onions? We call them a pleasure, especially raw, especially copiously, especially now. But let's clear up a little of the confusion. Are scallions and spring onions the same? We turn to Elizabeth Schneider, author of Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini, who says,......

When we saw the first big pile of zucchini at the market this past weekend, we thought of two things. One, it's an undeniable marker that summer is sneaking up on us, just when we'd started celebrating spring. And two, it reminded us of a story we read recently about......

Time to stop and eat the flowers? It's taken a while for edible flowers to come back into fashion (they were all the rage between the 5th and the 16th centuries). Sure, candied violets, nasturtiums, and marigolds have been gracing our salad plates and desserts for a while now, but......

The latest news reports say that California's strawberry season -- which technically begins now even though we see delicious berries year round -- is about to contribute to a nationwide glut of strawberries. Florida's 2010 strawberry season, which was so abundant that farmers ended up letting crops rot in the......

Do we need to keep pointing out what El Niño hath wrought in our farmers' markets? Probably not. But it bears mentioning that springtime harvests are as abundant as Lady Gaga videos on YouTube this year. Blame it on the rain. We will wander through an embarrassment of riches in......

As a distinctive springtime green, sorrel hasn't really benefited from its uniqueness. Its attractiveness seems to come and go depending on moody and immeasurable variables that would make the stock market cringe. But we think this sour and leafy cousin of rhubarb is an easy buy, especially now that it's......