The innocent looking little vegetable is one that’s very easy to miss. You’ll only find it for a few short weeks in early spring, and more likely at a farmer’s markets than your average grocer. It’s the ramp, a pungent-yet-balanced mix of onion and garlic, revered among foodies nationwide.

“Ramps are a kind of exciting ingredient,” said Chris Royster, chef de cuisine at Boulder’s Flagstaff House. “Every spring I usually have them in six or seven dishes. I love them, and I love having them on the menu.” For him, part of their charm is the childhood memories they evoke who picked them with brothers while fishing. “We’d pick them, grill them and eat them together as a family.”

Royster isn’t alone in his excitement. Time writer Josh Ozersky once called the enthusiasm over the wild vegetable “The Church of the Ramp.” The delicacy, often called a wild leek, is said to taste better than cultivated leeks, chives or scallions. The garlicky flavor, combined with the texture of a scallion – even with the little white bulb at the end – is something chefs crave and diners eat up by the pound for three short weeks every year.

“Charred ramps are delicious. Grilled ramps are beautiful too,” Royster said. He loves to feature the garlic-flavored treat on his spring menu. But it’s not just ramps that signify the flavors of the season – garlic is extra flavorful and delicious this time of year as well. “Not too long ago we did this dish – based on kind of a mushroom tart — but we took a ton of garlic and roasted it for quite a while on a low temperature and then we made this incredibly heavy garlic broth. We aerated it, turned it into a foam and served it on a dish. That way it was a big aroma of garlic as well as you could bite into it and get some of that garlic flavor without being overwhelmed.”

If all that garlic is too much for you, consider spring onions, Royster compares to the texture of a scallion but It has big leafy green leaves on top. He prepares them like ramps. He already has ideas for bringing these seasonal treats to Flagstaff House dishes. “We have a plan to grill them off and incorporate them into minimal butter sauce of some sort soon,” Royster said. “It’s not on the menu but it’s kind of our plan to take the bulbs of the spring onion and pickle them and present them on a spring salad. We have ferns in from the west coast lots of different wild string beans and those pickled onions are a nice little added taste.”

That’s right; these little wildlings are brought in, though some crafty farmers may be growing small batches nearby. That said, Royster will use those ingredients to play with some mushrooms and onions, which do well in Colorado. “There are lots of different mushrooms, and a lot of the farms around here plant different kinds of onions and garlic early so that way there’s a good use of spring onions in the area. The farms make up for what we can’t find in the wild.

Check your local farmer’s market, or the menus of several restaurants in the Boulder area, to get in on ramps season before they’re gone. They shouldn’t be too hard to find. “Most chefs in the area are crazy about ramps,” Royster said. “That’s definitely a really fun thing for everybody. It’s such a short season and it’s such a beautiful ingredient that everybody uses them as much as possible.”…

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“Eat less, move more.”

If you’ve never heard this little adage, you’ve obviously never needed to lose weight.

The phrase is a simple, accessible way to explain the entire concept of weight loss without explaining caloric intake, metabolism, muscle mass and insulin levels. It’s supposed to be a helpful message for those stuck in the emotional tug-of-war of fad diets filled with grapefruits, chalky shakes and anti-carbohydrate propaganda.

But if you’ve ever tried and failed at losing weight, you’ll know “eat less, move more” is a fallacy. Psychologically and physiologically, eating less and moving more usually develops into a little affliction I like to call “nearly passing out in the middle of the gym” and later, “going home and eating whatever is in the fridge in hopes of feeling human again.”

Simply put, it doesn’t work. From my personal experience (which you can read about in “The Renovation” on page 55), getting healthy and fit comes down to what you eat…and how you move…and how much sleep you get…how much water you drink…sugar intake…emotional strength…food habits…and so on. I think that’s where becoming a more healthful person is a challenge: It’s not always simple and it’s never easy. And it’s a truly autonomous effort.

It’s like the whole world wants us to be fat. Most restaurants have little care for nutrition and portion size; though, of course there are exceptions. Unhealthy, processed food is often cheaper and more accessible.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s the American way.

Last month, Congress and the Obama administration debated “pizza as a vegetable”—a win for 10-year-olds
everywhere.

The debacle surrounds the final version of a spending bill that erodes school lunch standards the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed earlier this year. The USDA set out to strengthen nutritional standards for students’ subsidized meals—the first update in 15 years. The bill included reducing salt and starchy vegetables, such as potatoes and corn, as well as developing a maximum calorie allowance for meals.

But special interest groups intervened to save the mighty potato from prohibition. Schools worried standards would become an unfunded mandate—increasing their food budgets without extra funds. Some small government types complained about infringement on personal liberties.

Congress eventually blocked specific parts of the bill: nixing the standards that would limit starchy vegetables and salt as well as the requirement that half of grains and breads come from whole grains.

Legislators also found fault in the USDA’s proposed limit to how much tomato paste counts as a vegetable serving. Because schools are required to serve a minimum number of vegetables, the USDA hoped to make a half-cup of tomato paste equate to a serving of vegetables for soups, pasta sauces, chili and so on. The rule would disqualify pizza as a vegetable, and that just wouldn’t work, would it?

Pizza is a true comfort food, ingratiated into our psyches and souls as children. Remember the thick hunks of dough and cheese on bright colored lunch trays, heavy and hot? Giggles of girlish enthusiasm confirmed it was, in fact, Pizza Day. Delicious, atrocious Pizza Day.

We can wax neurotic all day about special interests’ influences on policy, and the influence it and the government have on our lives. But I think it really comes down to the fact that no one is looking out for our individual health or the health of our families. No one but us.

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