How to Do Spring Entertaining Right, According to Cookbook Author Colu Henry

It’s that time of year when the idea of stew starts to lose its luster. After months of slow cooking, baking, and eating delightfully pureed foods, but mostly brown, beige, dusty, or light orange foods, they started to take a toll on my palate and my spirit. It was also around this time that I began to long for crunchy green foods, longer, brighter days, and warmer weather where sitting outside might actually is a choice.

I dance in the kitchen every season, but spring is when I find my rhythm. I want to make food that’s less complicated. The ingredients pretty much do the job themselves. I’m craving a fancy lunch again. Instead of huddled in front of a fire with a bowl in hand, I started thinking about long tables, breezy weather, and refreshing glasses of wine.

My latest recipe, Better at homeIn many ways, this is a love letter to eating with my friends. Don’t get me wrong, I love going out to eat. There’s nothing better than slipping into a bar, ordering a chilled martini, crab cocktail, and a side of fries, and letting someone else do it all for you. But my life now looks very different than when I was in New York in my 20s and 30s, staying out until the wee hours of the morning. These days we eat at home or at friends’ houses in the Hudson Valley, and then in the summer I cook in a very rural area of Nova Scotia and I couldn’t be happier.

In the spring this happens on Sunday afternoons. The shrimp butter was served on an old fashioned plate and served with crispy radishes, peas, thinly sliced fennel and very tasty bread. A plate of asparagus slices lightly tossed with nutty Comté cheese, topped with crispy prosciutto and toasted almonds, next to slow-roasted salmon sprinkled with harissa and brown sugar. For a sweet treat, opt for seeded cookies with fresh cream and strawberries. Everything is served family style to keep the fun going.

To pour, I would choose one or two of the many beautiful Chardonnays 00 wine Coming from the Willamette Valley, it tastes like a white Burgundy. For those of you who don’t drink, I’d like a bottle of the recently released mother root From the UK, mix with sparkling water and citrus wedges. Lately, I can’t get enough of either drink.

The table itself does not require florists on the fixtures. Look for vessels, not vases. I’ll fill whatever I have, whether it’s a ceramic pitcher, a wide-mouthed glass jar, or a vintage etched glass, with a single variety of bloom, such as ranunculus, anemones, or a bouquet of sweet peas. There’s no real arrangement, just some flowers in the water, elegantly idle. This spring I’m using undyed natural linens with napkins in rose, gold, and warm terracotta colors that look like they’ve been washed a hundred times and have only improved, as I hope the weather will soon too. We’re almost there.