The Veggie
My love for these spring pastas — namely this lemony orzo with asparagus and bread crumbs — sure indicates as much.
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What is personal growth? Is it setting boundaries? Is it picking up and sticking to (and splurging on) a hobby? Is it literally just getting swole?
Or is it simply admitting when you’re wrong? A more dogmatic person would say no. But I’ve grown! So let me say, with my whole chest: I’ve been wrong before; I’ll be wrong again; and I was wrong about pasta.
For years, I rarely craved it, finding it heavy for my tastes and often not memorable. Eventually, I convinced myself that I never liked it much at all. But lately, like the birds reconvening on my fire escape, I’ve been singing a different tune.
As my colleague Krysten Chambrot pointed out this week, pasta may very well be the food best suited to spring, a season that lacks a defining dish. “If summer has its ice cream and grill smoke, fall its casseroles and roasts, winter its soups and stews, what are spring’s hallmarks?” Krysten writes. “The warming weather calls for something fresh and bright, but the lingering chill still demands something with heft. Is this … pasta’s time to shine?” Is it ever.
Ali Slagle’s lemony orzo with asparagus and garlic bread crumbs is spring incarnate — bright, grassy, herbaceous, a breeze. Is the crunchy confetti topping what pushes this recipe into five-star, 10,000-plus-ratings territory? You be the judge.
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