I find myself taking pictures of food all the time lately. As a kid, I never understood why my parents felt compelled to take pictures at the table - in restaurants, no less! - but now that I’ve grown up and acquired a digital camera and an obsession with gastronomy, my iPhoto library is filling up with pictures of fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, bottles of wine, and tableaux of goodies from farmer’s markets.

Perhaps soon the time will come for me to start up an out-and-out food blog - but until that time, WordRidden is going to continue be the repository for my food photos. So anyone who eats solely to sustain their body and not their soul should just look away now…

For everyone else, I present to you my Seasonal Salad Nicoise. I like to eat seasonally, and I like to eat local (i.e. English) produce whenever possible. I’m not terribly consistent, I’m afraid - if I really want a zucchini in the middle of winter in England, then I’m going to buy a zucchini, even if it’s been shipped halfway around the world - but luckily, sticking to my food principles is easier when spring rolls around and suddenly there are fresh green vegetables popping up all over the place.

This abundance of English vegetables led to the version of salad Nicoise that you see in the picture below - a version which is not substantially different from a traditional Nicoise, with the exception that everything that went into it (okay, except for the tuna, anchovy, olives and capers) was local and in season when I made it towards the end of May.

Instead of the more traditional green beans, I used fresh asparagus, which I plunged into boiling water for a few minutes and then drained and dressed with a bit of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and chopped garlic. This is my favorite way of cooking and serving fresh vegetables, and I did the same thing to the potatoes, which were creamy, earthy, new Jersey Royals - a potato I look forward to seeing in the shops every May. The tomatoes were the first decent English hothouse tomatoes of the year, and the salad leaves were made up of a nice mixture of "gourmet" English lettuces that mysteriously started appearing in the supermarket several weeks ago. There are slices of cucumber and boiled egg hidden under the tuna in the picture, and the whole salad was dressed with "Jessica’s Salad Dressing" - my default vinaigrette made with crushed garlic, balsamic vinegar, a pinch of sugar, a good twist of pepper, and extra virgin olive oil.

I served it up with a cool, crisp white wine and lifted a toast to the bounty of spring.