As an influential mommy blogger (ha!), I was invited to tour the Lake Zurich, IL warehouse of the online grocery delivery service Peapod. (The tour takes place next week; I will report back.) The invitation stated that, among other things, I would learn how Peapod can help save my family money by eliminating impulse buying. That line hit close to home. I am all about impulse purchases at the grocery store. Impulse buying is the reason I cannot delegate grocery shopping to my husband, or anyone else for that matter. I go to the grocery store with a list of what we need, but I also buy what I want. My local Whole Foods will always have apples and oranges but it doesn’t always have rhubarb or fresh fava beans or ramps. And when I see something unusual, and particularly something seasonal, I can’t resist buying it, even if I have no idea what to do with it.
My impulse purchase of rhubarb lead me to make a strawberry rhubarb jam that was so yummy, I went back and bought more rhubarb (at a ruinous price) for an orange rhubarb jam. (That one turned out even better, in my opinion.) My impulse purchase of fresh fava beans was not quite so fortuitous. When I told my mother that I had bought some fava beans, she said, “Big mistake.” Aren’t fava beans always yummy in restaurants? Yes, they are. And, in fact, you need a paid staff to prepare them: First you shell them. Then you boil them. Then you shell them again. You are left with a small pile of large beans and a repetitive stress injury. I ended up pureeing mine with melted butter and cream – just to eliminate any healthful content they may have had — and ate the puree on stale gift basket crostini for three days. It was tasty, but not exactly a good use of my time.
Ramps are this month’s foodie darling. They are currently the subject of Food 52’s weekly contest – interestingly, rhubarb is another contest going right now – and Time magazine called them “the new arugula.” I remember first reading about ramps in a Washington Post Food section story on a West Virginia town’s ramps festival when I still read the Washington Post, so approximately 10 years ago. Back then, ramps were totally obscure. By 2008, they were one of the year’s Top Ten food trends. Now you can find them at Whole Foods, two (teeny) bunches for $5.
For the uninitiated, ramps are a variety of wild leek with a mild garlic flavor. They have a small bulb at the bottom and a leafy green top. They are apparently hard to cultivate, which means some people forage for them — while others buy them at farmers’ markets — and they tend to be available only for a few weeks in the spring. Someone must have figured out how to grow them, however, if Whole Foods is selling them. While I’ve been reading about ramps for years, I have never been able to buy them because most Illinois farmers’ markets do not start until late May, and ramps were traditionally an East Coast phenomenon anyway. So when I saw them for sale at Whole Foods after all these years, there was no question I was going to buy some. Hello! Foodie lemming here! I came home with three bunches. (That’s $7.50 for those of you keeping track at home.)
I had a lot of fun with my ramps last week. Food 52 ended up being a great source of ideas. I pickled the bulbs in a sweet and spicy brine and made a delicious pesto with the leaves, which I served over cavatappi tossed with a pint of halved grape tomatoes. 
When I thought about how even Whole Foods wouldn’t have ramps forever, I went back and bought three more bunches. I once again picked the bulbs, but this time, I sautéed the greens and folded some of them into scrambled eggs and used the rest to top a pizza. I have to wait a few more days to see how the pickles turned out, but I loved everything else I made with my ramps. They will be gone in a week or two, if they are not already, but it was fun to play with them while they lasted. I’m sure that when the ramps are gone, Whole Foods will have some new expensive item for me to buy on impulse. And in just a few more weeks, the Oak Park Farmers’ Market will open and I can start impulsively buying really obscure ingredients: I still regret not buying those ground cherries last year.
The recipes for pickled ramps and ramps pesto can be found on the Food 52 site. For the pickled ramps, I did not have all the spices called for in the recipe, so I improvised. (It’s okay to improvise with spices when pickling, but not with the ratio of water, sugar and vinegar, okay kids?) I used regular distilled vinegar in lieu of white wine vinegar because I am cheap and I just used the spices I had around: some mustard seeds, some cardamon pods, some fennel seeds and some dill seed. For the ramps pesto, I did not use walnuts, but rather pine nuts, as in a traditional pesto. Just a personal preference. To saute ramps for pizzas, eggs and anything else, just julienne the leaves like you would with basil and saute lightly in butter until wilted. Enjoy! But try not to breathe on anyone you don’t know well.
Okay, now we’re shopping exclusively at Peapod! (Kidding. I love your impulse buys, often enough.)