This time of year brings a single question to my mind: Why aren't I in British Columbia enjoying spot prawn season?

One year I was. I was in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island for three days in May. At Granville Market, at restaurants... fresh, live spot prawns were everywhere. If I remember correctly I pretty much subsisted on spot prawns and oysters on that trip. Happily.

We have a spot prawn harvest here in California, but the catch goes almost entirely to restaurants, whereas in British Columbia you can find them at fishmongers and seafood counters to cook at home. Recently expired specimens are sometimes available for sale alongside their tank-swimming brethren for a bit of a savings that I'm not convinced is worth the trade-off in freshness, but that's an individual call.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out All About Spot Prawns.

Remember peas and carrots? They were always something slopped out at camp or the school cafeteria, either from a single can or two can mixed together. I, for one, never had any affection for them whatsoever. And then I cooked actual fresh, delicious sweet peas and tender, sweet carrots in a nice amount of butter and topped them off with some fresh herbs. Extraordinary! Why, it ends up that Peas and Carrots are simply delicious.

I've been meaning to follow up about Back to the Roots. I met these guys at the Fancy Food Show in January. Then, for Valentine's Day, they sent me one of their kits to try out:

It says "fun for kids" on the package. My nine-year-old son will attest that it is, indeed, fun for kids. After soaking the block of funky looking stuff inside (it's actually just used coffee grounds from Peet's, a local coffee roaster/packager/café, injected with oyster mushroom spores), you set it up in the cardboard box with some flaps cut out, set it out of the way of direct sunlight, mist it every day, and just when you think you got a dud, one day it suddenly sprouts mushrooms:

In my limited experience, you don't get all that many at once, but they are tasty to add to stir-frys and other dishes that benefit from a hit of mushroom. If you do want to just cook them up, see How to Sauté Mushrooms for tips.

The principle is fabulous, diverting what was a waste product (used coffee grounds) and giving it a second life.

I'm writing about this today of all days because one of the founders of Back to the Roots, Alejandro Velez, is going to be the The Bachelorette, which premieres tonight. I mentioned in January how very enthusiastic these guys are, how energetic and excited. Even when I spoke with them on the phone, I got a buzz. I think it should be worth tuning in to see how an urban mushroom farmer fairs in the competition. Just how sexy can he make used coffee grounds and fungal spores sound?

Everyone now and again the fine people at Jardinière restaurant host a little wine seminar for lucky writers. Lucky not just because we get to sit around the lounge at Jardinière before things get up and running for the evening, sipping fine wines and tasting offerings from the kitchen, but lucky because we get to listen to sommelier Eugenio Jardim talk wine, food, travel, people, and life.

This last session focused on spring and summer wines. Wines that are easy to drink, don't fight with the food, aren't too high in alcohol so they don't heat you up too much, have a higher acidity and are thus refreshing, and are easy enough on the pocket book that you can really just relax and enjoy them without having to pay lots of attention to, you know, appreciate them. Or, as Eugenio put it: "Who wants to write a thesis sitting at the pool or at the beach? Make is easy."

We started with a sparkling little number from Alsace. A Domaine Allimant-Laugner Crèmant d'Alsace, to be precise, which is 80% pinot noir and 20% reisling. It had tiny little bubbles and a very light and floral flavor that even had a note of honey, but without any sweetness whatsoever. I could well imagine it with any kind of crudo or sushi or cold seafood salad-y type dish, like crab Louie. Or a salad with a citrus-based dressing, which isn't always the easiest wine pairing. I must say that it was also perfection with the charcuterie the kitchen brought out.

We moved on to a 2010 Chehalem 3 Vineyard Pinot Gris out of Oregon. While still very light and floral, the bit of residual sugar in it was really noticeable after the bone-dry Crémant. A reminder that wine isn't just affected by what you eat with it, but what you drink before it. That wee bit of sugar in this one made me think it would work well with lightly spicy food. No five-alarm chili or anything like that, but a slightly spicy guacamole, for example, or a ceviche with a bit of chile in it--both of which are things I, for one, very much like to eat come summer.

This Luis Pato is made with three traditional Portuguese grapes: Cerceral, Sercialinho, and Bical. It had a lot of melon flavor in it, with a slightly waxy smell to it, which sounds gross but was actually quite nice. Like the two wines before it, it was lovely with the pâté as well as particularly well suited to the pickled items on the table. On this point Eugenio and I are of one mind, if his mind experiences it with a bit more passion. "There are some food and wine combinations that are tragic," he said. "Red wine with charcuterie or cheese is just horrible." Salt, you see, brings out tannins, and can make some wines seem hotter and more bitter than they are. White wine, despite what so often happens at parties across the land, goes much better with most charcuterie as well as most cheese.

Next up was a 2009 Shaya Verdejo from Rueda in Spain. It was wonderfully grassy. I also caught a bit of lemon. Eugenio characterized it as "almost like a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, saying 'hey, look at me, I'm flashy!'" I kept searching for that whiff of flavor that was different, that stood out, that made me want to drink more of this wine. Green onion, said Eugenio. And he was right. He also said there was passionfruit in it and I am absolutely, positively sure he is right, even though I was too focused on the delightful grassy-green onion-lemon trio to notice.

We ended with a 2011 Domäne Wachau Grüner Veltliner from Austria. It was a bit peppery. A bit spicy. Some minerality (I wasn't the only one who said "granite" when we sipped). A little hint of earthiness. That slightly funky mushroomy, truffley, bit of the forest floor that I don't mind in a wine at all. In short, it is a balanced, extremely food-friendly wine. "It solves the puzzles," Eugenio said. "Puzzles of artichokes, asparagus, pickles. It stands up to them all."

Eugenio said at the beginning of the tasting that he wanted to take us beyond the well-trafficked varietals of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, a move that I appreciated very much. Look, I well knew that I like a well-chilled Sauvignon Blanc at the end of a hot day. I wanted to learn about something new. I did. Crémant d'Alsace was something I happily knew about. Dining mates will also report that I have a tendency to order a chilled Grüner Veltliner during artichoke and asparagus season. That Portguese three-pronged punch? That was news.