Good Bread Good Meat Good God Let's Eat : The New York Times Recipes

Evan Sung for The New York Times

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 2016

SAM SIFTON

Good morning. David Tanis heralds the arrival of the spring season's first asparagus today. You can read and browse his fantastic new"How to Cook Asparagus" guide on Cooking, and you can read his column on the subject in the Food section of The Times as well, which has three terrific new recipes to accompany it.
Perhaps you could follow David's lead and make his butter-braised asparagus (above) tonight as a side dish to accompany a simple roast chicken. Or try his assertive wok-fried asparagus with walnuts as a main dish alongside a mound of white rice. Alternatively, you could set up the batter for his buckwheat crepes stuffed with asparagus, ham and Gruyère, and then finish the dish tomorrow night, perhaps accompanied by a few fried eggs for a more substantial repast.
But if the asparagus in your market still comes from too far away to satisfy your cook-local credo (or even if it doesn't!), read Melissa Clark's dispatch from the vibrant Persian community in Los Angeles, and see if you don't want to cook the recipes she brought back along with her article right away. Her recipes for a frittata-like fresh-herb kuku, for tamarind-glazed fish and for Persian herbed rice should bring you great joy.
Some come to Cooking on Wednesdays for recipes that don't fit the strict form of recipe writing, with their lists of ingredients and enumerated steps. We call these recipes "narrative" ones. Today's is dead simple, and we hope you'll give it a try.
It's for glazed scallops. Mix together a few tablespoons of white miso and mirin so that you like the taste. Brush that mixture on scallops you've either threaded onto a skewer and grilled, or run for a few minutes under the broiler, so that they're just beginning to brown. Top with sliced scallions and some sesame seeds, and serve with steamed greens and some rice. It's excellent.
You can find "real" recipes to cook tonight and in coming days onCooking. Go browse them a while and, when you've cooked one, tell us what you think of it by affixing a rating or a note to the recipe so that others may benefit from your experience. If you run into problems, we're standing by at cookingcare@nytimes.com.
But if you like what you see? Please don't forget to vote for Cooking in this year's "People's Voice" contest, part of the 20th annual Webby Awards. It'd be a nice win for the team.
Finally, a reading list for your lunch hour. Try this report on the nation's hunt for wild morel mushrooms. (Got some yourself? Try Mark Bittman's recipe for asparagus and morels.) Then take a look at Kelefa Sanneh's great portrait of Erykah Badu in The New Yorker, "The Godmother of Soul." And finish up with a very good series that's unfolding at The Tampa Bay Times right now, "Farm to Fable," about the lies restaurants, farmers' markets and others tell us about the provenance of our food. It's pretty distressing.