Stop me before I spargel again!

The intention was wine, but last weekend turned out to be more about asparagus--"spargel" as it is known auf Deutsch. Though I came to it relatively late, I have developed a deep and abiding love for asparagus. We buy a bunch whenever the price isn't totally outrageous.

So we arrived at a rather swish restaurant in Deidesheim (where it turns out Helmut Kohl used to bring heads of state) and read on the menu that The Palatinate asparagus is cooked out! I think they meant to say "is in". Anyway, we figured it out. Spargel, twelve different ways. However, this was not your friendly neighborhood Archibald Asparagus. The European variety is white (which, I discovered yesterday, thank you google, is achieved by burying the shoots in manure and tenting them with black plastic so that they grow without being exposed to sunlight. ick.). I have always found white asparagus to be a little creepy (and even more so now that I know how they create its albino state) but since I love the green, there was no green to be had, and it was clearly the thing to do, we ordered asparagus. First a soup, then a pasta. Phenomenal. Ordered it again the next day for lunch. First a soup, then a pound of it with hollandaise and a bit of veal on the side (this is apparently the preferred method of spargel consumption: get a pile. drown it in butter or other fat). Phenomenal again. Suffice it to say that I have now become a fan.

When we got home I started doing a little research. Turns out that we have stumbled into Spargelzeit. (like the Twilight Zone, but with asparagus). It's everywhere. The marktplatz is full of pasty white piles. The vegetable vendors even have some special little spargelchanties going on at the moment: