A Stirring Spring Menu, Fit for a Celebration

For his birthday, David Tanis is making what he craves: a special salad, breaded pork chops, and comforting baba au rhum.

I was born on a cold day in April. There were tulips pushing up to bloom in banks of snow, they tell me. A terribly evocative image — or was my mother being melodramatic? It’s easy to forget that spring can take its sweet time. As I write this from upstate New York, most of the snow has melted, and there have been a few warm, sunny days. But there are still flurries, a little hail. The sky is all dark and stormy; the air is disappointingly damp and chilly, not at all like the mythical mild spring day one imagines. And, if springtime means spring vegetables, blossoming fruit trees and crocuses, it’s clearly not yet happening in my neighborhood. Looking closely, though, things are beginning to stir. Tiny green shoots are visible in bare patches of earth, and the first diminutive dandelions are beginning to emerge. Buds are visible on branches. At the farmers’ market, however, it’s still mostly potatoes, apples and cabbage, wintered over.