If there is one universally loved vegetable it seems to be asparagus. Even the fussy eaters in my life, or the “no vegetables for me please” freaks, will eat asparagus. I know people who eat it several times a week. Even when it’s off season, expensive and not that great.

So now that the fat young spears are in season here in California, cheap, and really great I thought the time was right to honor it with this weeks Market Matters post from the Hollywood Farmers Market.

I love asparagus. But not all asparagus is the same. There are the very thin types. Often called baby asparagus. Which is mostly a misnomer because the thin spears are usually from older plants and are produced further out from the center of the plant.

Thin asparagus is usually a bit stringier.  It has an earthier, more pronounced asparagus flavor in my opinion too. This does not mean it is not as good as fat asparagus. In fact many people prefer this type. I would say fat or thin are pretty much equally good. If handled properly.  Fat spears almost always need to be peeled. Thick asparagus seems to concentrate its fibers in the skin. Peeling may be necessary because in some methods of cooking they can become a mushy mess by the time they have cooked enough to get the skin tender.

Carrots are a year 'round item at the Hollywood Farmers Market. But this time of year particularly beautiful carrots can be found in an array of colors, sizes and shapes. I love the little round French carrots; so sweet and carroty. They are the perfect size to pop in your mouth like a little carrot bon-bon, and that’s exactly what I do with them.

So this week I chose carrots for my Market Matters post. Not just any carrot however, I chose a variety of the most unusually colored carrots I could find. Because once you get out of the PigglyWiggly you will discover that there is way more to a carrot than orange. There are red carrots, purple ones, even yellow, white, and two-toned varieties.

You needn’t be frightened of these carrots. They are not some mutinized hybrid with a lot of genetic hanky-panky going on. Nope, most of these carrots are heirlooms.

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The Brown Derby is perhaps the most well known of all the iconic restaurants of old Hollywood. Partly due to Lucille Ball and the famous scene between her and the actor William Holden in the I Love Lucy television series of the 1950s.

So, naturally when I am in Panama presenting recipes from classic Hollywood restaurants to Boquete Gourmet I want to include a recipe from this restaurant. It should be fairly easy for me too, because I own the old cookbook from Marjorie Child Husted, The Brown Derby Cookbook. But in flipping through this book I can see one thing right off the bat. Our styles in eating have changed drastically since the era of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It’s hard to imagine Brad Pitt or Halle Berry sitting down to some of the dishes featured in this book. The food is both fussy and simplistic if that’s possible. I mean many of the dishes call for pastry cream and elaborately turned (but grossed overcooked) vegetables. But they are simple in the fact that they are not much more creative than some sort of meat and potatoes presentation with a cream sauce.

The book is interesting from a historical perspective but I don’t really want to cook anything from this book.