Poached Eggs over Spring Asparagus

Spring asparagus is a fleeting thing. The season lasts six weeks, maybe eight if you are lucky. When you find spears that were cut that morning, still firm and sweet and alive with the taste of the earth, this is what you make.

The technique is simple because it has to be. You are not building flavor so much as protecting it. Blanch the asparagus until it gives just slightly to a knife. Poach the eggs until the whites set but the yolks remain liquid gold. Bring them together on a warm plate with olive oil, Parmesan, and salt. When the yolk breaks, it becomes the sauce.

I learned to cook eggs this way in France, where the quality of the egg was assumed. A runny yolk was not a choice but an expectation. The same is true of the asparagus. If your ingredients are right, your job is simply to get out of the way.

Every meal is a meaningful choice. Buying asparagus from a farmer who cut it that morning, eggs from hens that see the sun, cheese that was aged with care: these choices matter. They taste different, and they keep the people who grow your food in business.