Asparagus Season Is Fleeting. This Easy Recipe Is Forever.

I was thinking about asparagus and how it evokes emotion: the anticipation of its coming, followed by the thrill of its short season’s finally arriving. But there’s another emotion I was trying to put into words: that melancholy — sadness, even — of being in a moment and knowing it will soon be over. It makes the present feel gloomy, as if it has already passed. We get it elsewhere: a moment with your child or aging parent when time stands still. I get it at work, too, when photographing a cookbook and a group of us come together to make a set, to put on a production. It’s so real and vivid, and then, just like that, it’s over.