Editor's Note: Homegrown Month

This April, Tasting Table celebrates the best of the season's produce

Happy spring, everyone!

Though, really, I wouldn't blame you for any skepticism over the season actually having arrived. Weather-wise, at least here on the East Coast, it's been like Charlie Brown and the football: You run joyfully, pell-mell toward it, and, suddenly—splat!—you're flat on the ground, feeling like a fool.

But this April, I'm holding out hope. After such a cruddy winter, we're owed a season of tender, vibrant vegetables; burstingly fresh fruit; blink-and-you'll-miss-them mushrooms; and fragrant, flavorful herbs. For me, part of celebration comes in the form of poring over seed websites, plotting how I'm going to allot the meager stoop and roof space of my Brooklyn apartment to the heirloom produce I've been fantasizing about, and whimpering, "Grow, dammit!" at the seedlings I started indoors back in February until they finally give in to my pleas and peek above the soil.

The other part: I know that chefs will be geeking out just as feverishly as I am, showcasing the bounty of farmers', foragers', fishers' and artisans' work in dishes that honor their essential springiness. (Hey there, favas and fiddleheads; it's been a while. Lookin' mighty fine, morels. Now get on my fork!)

And it's our mission at Tasting Table to guide you to the best of this, hence we're christening April Homegrown month. We'll be sharing recipes, techniques, shopping and growing guides and chef advice geared toward getting as much local (as local as your own backyard or windowsill), seasonal food onto your plate as possible right now, and preserving plenty of it to enjoy later in the year. Expect advice from expert home gardeners like author Tara Austen Weaver; serving and preserving techniques from the Tasting Table Test Kitchen; a bright, brilliant giardiniera recipe from Bruce Kalman; one heck of a fresh dinner menu from April Bloomfield's new cookbook and a whole new crop of videos to help you master it all at home.

My hope for a delicious season springs eternal. I hope you'll join us at the table.

Kat Kinsman 

Editor in Chief