Unbeknownst to me until this morning, I discovered that this past weekend was a popular date for Ramp Festivals. Ramps are something I knew little about, other than from Jim Crace novels, in which he describes them as fetid, acrid-smelling swamp vegetation. But then last year some time I read some gourmand's rhapsody to ramps and was curious.

I picked up a bunch of them at the Greenmarket this weekend. They were charmingly tied with a bit of hemp rope, which almost made up for the fact that they were three dollars a bunch. In Cosby, TN, you probably can't even CARRY three dollars' worth of ramps. Anyhow.

I washed them seventeen times (Hello.) and set to removing the "woody stems" from the bulbs and the green leaves. I tasted one of the leaves. Stinky heaven.

I roasted them with some fingerling potatoes. Then I set to making a sauce to accompany the centerpiece of the meal--Cider-brined pork chops.* Last time I made these I tried the "Cheat's Bordelaise" that accompanies the chop recipe. Forty-five minutes of intensive whisking and reducing later, I realized that Bordelaise is that sauce I don't like very much. So instead I made a dried cranberry-orange-thyme-Calvados-butter thingy. Not bad.

I served the meal with a really nice bottle of Amarone that was a wedding gift from my dad.

So we had our own little hoity-toity ramp festival. They have a pretty interesting flavor--garlicky, pleasantly ammoniac.

Which, unsurprisingly, is exactly how they make you smell. I think they call them "ramps" because that's the sound your ass makes all night after you eat them. RAAAAAAAAMP.

*I like going to the meat store in Greenpoint on Manhattan and Kent, with its wending, endless lines and claustrophobic layout. When I go there, the men behind the counter address me with a magisterial Prosze, Pani. I can "pass" until I open my mouth.