Asparagus

Grace Rowe Walton, 90, a feisty Moorestown truck farmer who spearheaded the restoration of the historical Mount Laurel Friends Meetinghouse, died July 2 at Medford Leas, a Quaker retirement home in Medford, N.J. Mrs. Walton, who grew up on a dairy farm near Yardley, Pa., graduated from the George School in 1932. After earning a bachelor's degree in physical education in 1936 from Temple University, she taught at Emporium (Pa.) High School, where she coached a championship women's basketball team.

The annual cycle of plantings and harvests is under way, bringing a new season of locally grown crops to area farmers markets. Those baskets heaped high with fresh fruits and vegetables dewy in the morning sun look enticing. But how do experienced shoppers choose amid all the bounty and plan a menu around their selections? We recently visited the burgeoning farmers market at Clark Park in West Philadelphia with Aliza Green, longtime local chef, food consultant, and author of the Field Guide to Produce (Quirk Books, $14.95, softcover)

Here are some tasty serving ideas for fresh asparagus: Dipping sauces, such as aioli, horseradish cream and Romesco, offer a nice excuse to eat grilled asparagus spears with your fingers. Prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spears make an easy after-work snack. If you have time, soften a little cream cheese and spread a dab along the length of each spear before wrapping with prosciutto. Asparagus and smoked salmon on a small bed of baby greens, drizzled with lemon cream dressing, would be good for party menus in April and May. Scatter grated hard-cooked egg and minced fresh parsley over roasted asparagus spears that have been rolled in mustard vinaigrette.

Wherever asparagus is appreciated, its annual spring debut is cause for celebration. What better way to mark the arrival of this seasonal treat - March to June for the domestic crop - than to indulge freely, enjoying it as an appetizer and salad as well as a vegetable side dish. Asparagus can never be too fresh. Pencil-slim or up to half an inch in diameter, the stalks should be firm (never limp) and snap cleanly when broken between the fingers. Green or white, the spears should look fresh and bright and have tightly closed tips.

Forget simmering worries that the Phillies may have to wait till next year. There are more serious predictions threatening a joyous and bounteous summer. No locally grown sweet corn by the Fourth of July. Fewer local tomatoes for picnics on the Fourth. Fewer local strawberries for early June church festivals. Three fine traditions in danger of being washed out. Throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey, the damp, chilly May cast a pall over farmland that normally heaps roadside stands with the makings of wonderful summer meals.

For 85 years, shoppers at the Italian Market have been lining up outside Sarcone's to buy the bakery's fresh bread. But until about five years ago, Sarcone's customers had to take their bread home to make their own sandwiches. Now Sarcone grandson Anthony Bucci makes hot and cold hoagies just a few doors away. Deli owner Bucci has dedicated many of his subs to his heroes: his grandfather Sarcone, his Uncle Louie, his dad Sonny, his son Sonny Jr. - even Sinatra. But he named his favorite after himself: "The Booch.

California easily outgrows New Jersey in asparagus, with harvests from 30,000 acres and about 70 percent of the national crop, compared with the 1,000 acres planted in the Garden State. Still, New Jersey remains at the heart and soul - and future - of asparagus growth. The Jersey Giant hybrid is the most widely used variety in the country. And another seed developed at Rutgers - the Jersey Supreme - is likely to hold that distinction several years hence. "We will be releasing the new seed to growers this year," said Steve Garrison, a specialist in vegetable crops with Rutgers Cooperative Extension.

When April comes to Chateau du Fey, its grumpy gardener emerges from the hibernation of his musty cottage. Like the buds of his blossoming fruit trees, he begins to shed the month's early frost. All is well with spring and Monsieur Roger Milbert: The asparagus is on the rise. "When the asparagus finally shot up out of the ground, you would have thought company was coming," writes Amanda Hesser in her lyrical cookbook-memoir, The Cook and the Gardener (Norton). "Monsieur Milbert's expression brightened, he stood up straighter, he weeded, he raked, he even got his hair trimmed and noticeably bathed.

At age 31, artist Michael Doyle is committed to painting a single subject - and it's not the Western desert or the rocky coast of Maine. Doyle's subject doesn't seem that picturesque: It is a South Jersey farm operated by four spry sisters in their 80s. The sisters - Emma, Elizabeth and Christine Kugler and Sophie Kugler DeZwart - have lived on the farm in East Greenwich Township, Gloucester County, all their lives. To visitors, they recite the crops they used to grow: cantaloupes, peppers, tomatoes, corn, sweet potatoes and hay. Now, they like to say, they have a resident artist.

At age 31, artist Michael Doyle is committed to painting a single subject - and it's not the Western desert or the rocky coast of Maine. Doyle's subject doesn't seem that picturesque: It is a South Jersey farm operated by four spry sisters in their 80s. The sisters - Emma, Elizabeth and Christine Kugler and Sophie Kugler DeZwart - have lived on the farm in East Greenwich Township, all their lives. To visitors, they recite the crops they used to grow: cantaloupes, peppers, tomatoes, corn, sweet potatoes and hay. Now, they like to say, they have a resident artist.