The Asparagus Bandwagon Just Rolled into Ontario

Plus – on beyond Sauvignon Blanc. Ideas for pairing many wines to the much maligned vegetable.

Welcome to Quaintrelle, a weekly newsletter written by me, journalist-turned-sommelier and party host, Erin Henderson.

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Here, I share my my insights from decades of working in hospitality to bring back stylish, laid-back and stress free hosting.

Won’t you join us?

In this issue …

• Fresh tagliatelle with asparagus in lemon-shallot butter sauce

• Creamy asparagus bruschetta

• Wine pairings that work: There’s more for asparagus than only Sauvignon Blanc

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." – Albert Einstein

I am not someone with many talents.

I don’t say this as a plea for compliments. I say this because it’s true. I’m a grown up. I can take it.

I just hosted a wine and cheese for a team of obstetricians who specialize in at-risk pregnancies. I do not have their skills and talent. Even more so because I barf at the sight of any fluid that should be on the inside spurting to the outside.

My sister is an admirable politician. She’s not an actual politician, but she has some swanky, upper-level management job and her ability to glad hand her way around all kinds of personalities is astounding. I have zero – and I do mean zero – political skill. I just take my ball and go home when things aren’t working the way I want.

At my Wine, Women & Wealth event (returning September 10!) I gathered a formidable group of financial pros from various fields and their knowledge blew my mind. If I had their talent and skill, I’d be re-enacting White Lotus, sipping mai-tais on my own private island right now (minus the murder and Season 3’s utter boredom.)

I could go on, but I think you get my point. My bucket of talent remains disappointingly shallow.

However, one of the things I’ve become pretty proficient at, is cooking without a recipe. Thanks to a dozen or so cooking courses at the hospitality college where I teach, and a few fun workshops in Italy and France, it’s pretty easy for me to see what looks good at the market and figure out what to do with it.

Which is exactly what happened last weekend when the first Ontario asparagus showed up at the green grocer without notice.

Sure, I knew it was coming at some point in the next few weeks, and very much looking forward to it, but it was still a surprise to see them just sitting there, all perky and straight, lined up in a tray of water. I grabbed a bunch (it’s still early in the season so prices are a bit wild. As excited as I was to splurge, my name isn’t Bezos, so I had to keep things on this mortal coil.)

That night I made fresh tagliatelle – though, looking at it, the thinner noodle makes it more of a fettuccini. Still, as I learned in journalism school, never let the facts get in the way of a good story, so I’m sticking with tagliatelle.

Tagliatelle with asparagus in a shallot-lemon-butter sauce was the Sunday supper. The recipe is below.

And when a friend stopped by for apéro on Monday, I included a simple asparagus bruschetta as part of our snack smorgasbord. You will also find the recipe down yonder.

But before we get into it, let’s discuss wine pairings for the much maligned vegetable, shall we? It’s not as scary as you think.