Roasted Asparagus

I love Alice Waters.  (And Ira Glass... Unrelated, but I've been listening to him all day.)  This book (The Art of Simple Food) explains easy ways to prepare basically everything, and it doesn't assume you know too much (except maybe how to caramelize sugar).  But all in all, my experience has been that if you trust Alice, she will not lead you astray.  Tonight we had some ravioli, steak, and asparagus.  More on the ravioli later, but here are some notes on the asparagus.

Roasted Asparagus

from The Art of Simple Food

asparagus

olive oil

salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Snap the ends off the asparagus (remembering to let the asparagus snap where it may).  Lay the spears out on a baking sheet, side by side.  Drizzle olive oil on them and then sprinkle some salt.  Then roll the asparagus around so that they are coated in olive oil and salt.  Roast the vegetables in the oven until they are tender, which should be about 9 to 11 minutes.  Make sure to flip them over about halfway through their roasting time.  Serve from the oven or cooled to room temperature.

they are so green!

I didn't hate asparagus growing up - I definitely didn't love it - but I find that in New York I gaze forlornly at the bundles of deflated-looking asparagus that is $5/lb.  In other related news, it was almost summer-like today!  If you look dead-center on the horizon, you can just make out San Francisco:

San Francisco Bay Area, folks

While I love Alice and Ira, I also love Sam.  Here is Dooley Wilson singing Herman Hupfeld's "As Time Goes By":

Waters, Alice, Patricia Curtan, Kelsie Kerr, and Fritz Steiff. "Cooking Asparagus." The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2007. 289. Print.