I have been Mr. Springtime flavors here at Sippity Sup lately. Which means my fridge has quite a lot of half used bunches of gorgeous green stuff screaming to be used up while it's still, well– gorgeous and green!

So I am going to sauté the best of the best of my left overs into a really flavorful side dish. Now I warn you it's going to be very, very, (very) green. So if you stumbled over here hoping for something that would knock your socks off (maybe some sweet confection, or double chocolate snow cones with cherry LifeSaver sprinkles), you are going to be grandly disappointed. This isn't one of those BIG BANG "money" posts that people love to drool over. It's not a juicy burger, a rich and creamy pasta. It's not exotic, or particularly enviable. It's not even tied up with a curliqued ribbon.

I have a tale to tell. It's a tale with a simple lesson. The lesson is this, use great ingredients from quality vendors and you will bring something special to the table. This post may start with a lesson, but it ends with a Giveaway. A giveaway from Tyler Florence and Marx Foods. So I hope you'll read through to the end and take place in this contest. In the meantime I have Roasted Lamb Loin with Sheep's Milk Ricotta Gnocchi, Morel Mushrooms, Pea Tendrils, and Lamb Jus.

You see it all started a couple of weeks ago. I went to the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival (#PBFW). I had a fantastic time.

I knew I would love it. It is just my kind of event. Mostly 'cuz there was great food and lots of it. I certainly had my fair share of the offerings and that would have been enough to qualify the weekend as very special indeed. But it was also a great opportunity to learn. Because there were cooking demonstrations and wine tasting events too.

One of these events was a cooking demonstration by Tyler Florence.

So when proposals came due for this month's FoodBuzz 24-24-24 challenge I immediately knew what I wanted to do. I decided I would recreate the meal he presented that day here on Sippity Sup for all of you. I realize it may not be quite the same as being there, but hey it's better than a swift kick in the pants, right?

I want to discuss green garlic again.

In one of the greatest cookbooks ever published, Chez Panisse Cooking, Alice Waters and Paul Bertolli write: "Garlic is commonly used as a mature plant when the bulb containing many cloves has formed. Green garlic is the same plant pulled from the ground at a much earlier stage, before the bulb forms and when the plant resembles a leek, with a stalk about 1/2 inch in diameter.”

That quote was probably my first introduction to green garlic. Though it may have been years later that I actually got my hands on any. Because even in Los Angeles, where we have year round access to the greatest produce in the world green garlic is only just now becoming fairly common at the springtime Farmers Market. To make this point I’ll quote Alice Waters once again: “Until recently, green garlic never appeared in the market and was largely unrecognized by cooks. The quality of green garlic is unique and of great use in the kitchen”.

So you see green garlic is not exactly a new ingredient to me, but it’s not exactly a staple in my life either. It took me a while but reading her words has made me a little bit obsessed with green garlic at the moment. So I am bringing it back for another look. This time in a soup. I have much to learn and Alice Waters may be the perfect teacher.