Asparagus Season

Groesbeek, Netherlands, May 25—

ASPERGES, as the Dutch call them, those fat white asparagus stalks that grow completely out of the sunlight, under banks of sandy loam cast up by the river Maas and sophisticated agricultural machinery. They're in season right now, and I ordered them tonight, first in a creamy asparagus soup again — I had it last night, too — and then in farmer style, with sliced boiled ham and garnished with egg.

But this was a revisionist version. Usually, the eggs are hard-cooked and chopped; these eggs were either hard-scrambled, or sieved in some strange way. And instead of the classic Hollandaise sauce there was a little pitcher of clarified butter to pour over.

Conceptually wrong: the butter has nothing to soak into, and the touch of lemon was sorely needed to offset the inherent sweetness of the dish. At least, the sprinkling of nutmeg was available.

We were eating at De Wolfsberg, a hotel-restaurant we've enjoyed in former years. Lindsey thinks the management must have changed to have permitted such a strange version of a classic dish; she's probably right; she usually is. Thoughts about Change and the Urge Toward Continuity are taking shape on this walk in the Dutch countryside.

Rosé, Calitera (Chile), 2007