Every family has its own version of comfort food. For us -- an Italian American clan that immigrated 100 years ago from Naples and Sicily -- vegetable pasta dishes have supplied not only nourishment for each generation, but a sense of well being. The continuity of eating something your great-grandparents, grandparents and parents ate is both reassuring and calming. The premise for these dishes all starts with the same idea: take whatever vegetables are in season and fresh, sauté with olive oil, garlic or onions, and maybe throw in some tomatoes for good measure. Mix with pasta and you have a meal.

Pasta Piselli is one of those dishes. A dish made with peas, tomatoes, herbs and onions, it is simple and forthright. There is nothing showy about this dish. Yet the mix of fresh spring onions and just-shelled English peas makes it not only the perfect family meal, but also elegant enough to serve to guests.

Now I need to confess that my use of fresh peas is unique in my family. Somewhere along the way -- I'm guessing during the Depression -- canned peas were employed as the main ingredient. My grandmother made the dish with canned peas, as did my mother. Yet although I adored this dish as a child, I have always made it a little differently, using fresh or frozen peas instead. This is probably because I really don't like canned vegetables. Plus fresh peas are only available for a short while in the spring, which means I need to take advantage of their wonderful verdant sweet flavor while they last. Prepared with small spring onions, and, if you're lucky, some nice early tomatoes, and you have a dish that celebrates the end of winter.

I made this pasta dish earlier this week after finding some crispy English peas and spring onions at the market. I wasn't lucky enough to stumble upon heirloom tomatoes, so used my standard can of San Marzano plums that I rely on so much throughout the year. And, because the day was rainy and cold, I added in some pasta water to make the dish soupy. If it had been warm out, I most likely would have left it out. But that's the great thing about a dish like this; its innate simplicity allows you to easily transform it for whatever mood you're in. Like all good simple foods, it is malleable, which, I suspect, is why it's been around for so long.

Sugar Snap Pea Salad

Spring Fever has officially hit. Mulch is in the air, mini-skirts are on the streets, and farmers' markets are in full bloom.

I couldn't resist these brilliant green sugar snap peas the other day. Sweet, crunchy, and juicy, I've even been chomping on them raw. Grassy and tender, they taste like pure Spring.

Sugar Snap Peas

Snap peas are a cross between snow peas and garden peas. Like the snow pea, the pods are edible; like the garden pea, the pods are round rather than flat. When sugar snap peas are young and in-season like they are now, you don't even need to "de-string" them (removing that pesky fibrous strand that runs lengthwise from tip to tip), making them perfect for an easy, light salad.

Snap Pea Prep

I blanched the snap peas first for a few minutes before shocking them in an ice bath. This made them tender but still delightfully crunchy. For texture, I shelled half of them, popping out the little round peas, and then julienned the empty pods into matchsticks. The remaining half of the snap peas I left whole, although, you could certainly continue slicing up the whole bunch.

Select the plumper/rounder snap peas to shell, they have larger peas inside.

To the sugar snap peas, I added a handful of refreshing mint, toasted almonds, and sweet caramelized onions. The dish is finished off with a simple, brightly acidic vinaigrette of lemon, rice vinegar, and olive oil.

Onion to be caramelized

This vibrant, fresh green salad is an interesting alternative to your normal leafy salad. It would also make a great substitution for coleslaw given all the crunchy textures.

Look at me, I'm eating peas. I'm nearly 40 years old and I'm eating peas. Who says middle-aged men don't have growth spurts?

I never cared for peas as a child. Perhaps that's too mildly put. I had always hated peas. No, still not enough. I had a terror of peas as a child.

That's more like it.

I would not touch them, I hated looking at them, and I certainly would never eat them. If I saw them on television, I would either cover my eyes or run from the room, just as I did anytime I saw two people kissing. Peas, for no good reason, caused me acute emotional distress. When it was beef stew night in our household, I thought my mother was making it specifically to torture me.

I would spend the hours before dinner time hiding in my room, wondering what I had done to deserve something as hideous and traumatizing as beef stew made with a heavy dose of frozen Green Giant peas. When finally lured to the table with threats of punishment, I would sit quietly with my eyes puffy from crying and my hands sore from wringing, and think to myself, "What greater punishment is there than a plateful of stringy beef dotted with disintegrating potatoes, carrots, and grey-green peas?"

I couldn't think of anything.

I would drink several glasses of milk trying to get the stuff down without having it immediately brought back up. Nights would be sleepless knowing those little green monsters were inside of me.

As I grew a little older, I learned to work my way around the peas. My place at the dinner table was closest to the Tomorrowland-blue napkin holder. I would line my lap with three or four napkins and, when my mother wasn't looking, dump a forkful onto my semi-protected pants. The warmth of the stew caused an unexpectedly pleasant sensation, which I will not go into here.

When my lap was full of warm stew, I would quietly fold up my bundle with one hand while trying to keep the dogs' noses out of my crotch with the other, and politely ask if I might be excused to go to the pantry cupboard, which was where we kept our trash bin, cereal, dog food, and was, coincidentally, very near my mother's seat at the table. I would walk around the table, past my brother who was more than likely too busy separating all the ingredients on his plate and then eating each one in alphabetical order to notice what I was doing in my lap, past my sister and her glass of Mountain Dew that she could not seem to drink without tinting it some even-more-unnatural color with Schilling food coloring, and over to the cupboard, where I would pause and give a thoughtful look at the childhood growth markers that covered the inside of the door. When I thought my mother wasn't looking, I would drop my bundle into the garbage.

This ritual would be repeated at least two more times during the meal.

I don't know who I thought I was kidding. Certainly not my mother. Apparently, she just go tired of fighting with me over the peas and the stew, so she let me carry on my charade-- it freed her from an annoying confrontation, it freed me from having to eat peas, and it freed everyone from having to listen to me cry and gag.

Win-win-win.

And now, I am an almost-40 year-old man eating peas. Why? I have no real idea. Perhaps I just grew out of hating them.

Then again, I may have this salad to thank...

Green Pea and Feta Salad

Serves 4

There are a few seasonal dishes we obsess about at work. This is one of them. Towards the end of every March, someone will ask our chef, Erik Cosselmon, this question: "Are peas in season yet?" The question will be repeated about every two days until peas do finally make their appearance. I never thought I would join the ranks of pea-loving waiters, but I have.

It's an embarrassingly easy salad to make (apart from shelling the peas). The saltiness of the feta that has been creamed together with good olive oil mixes with the sweet burst of the peas as they pop inside your mouth (which is one of the things I hated about them as a child) makes for a remarkable combination.

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh English or Snap peas (typically, one pound of peas in their pod yields 1 cup of shelled peas)

About 1/3 cup feta, crumbles (Greek. Use Greek feta. Really.)

2 to 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (I will give you a pass if you don't use the Greek stuff here)

The juice of 1/2 lemon

a small handful of both chopped mint (or cilantro) and scallion for garnish.

Preparation:

1. Blanch peas is simmering water for 1 to 2 minutes (they should appear bright green). Remove the peas and place them in an ice bath to prevent further cooking. Cool and drain.

2. In a medium-sized bowl, cream together the feta cheese and olive oil, but not obsessively. lumps are both texturally necessary and attractive. Add peas and mix enough to coat them thoroughly with the feta and oil.

3. To serve, place pea mixture in a serving-appropriate dish, squeeze the lemon over it, and garnish with mint and scallion. If you are making this dish in advance, I would advise you to add the lemon only just prior to serving. If left in contact with the peas for a long time, the lemon will turn them an unappetizing color. Just think about what lemon juice does to very dark-haired people when they rub it in their hair and then go out in the sun. Sort of like Sun In, but organic.

It's an exciting time around the farmers market these days. I hadn't been to the market for about two weeks, and was amazed at how much the market changed in a short amount of time. There is a promise of summer fruit in the air, and the spring vegetables are in abundance. Here are some of the things I am looking forward to this month:

CHERRIES

Cherries are making their way to the market, and should be available for approximately a month. We usually see the Brooks variety cherry first which is a crisp, tart cherry. That will be followed by Bing cherries, Rainier and sour cherries among other varieties. I am partial to Bing cherries from Lagier Ranch -- Mr. Lagier brings them to the market when they're perfectly ripe and delicious. This year, I will be keeping an eye out for sour cherries, as they make for a delicious brandied fruit which can then be used throughout the year for cocktails and desserts.

POTATOES

A while back, I told you about new potatoes -- the beginning of the season potatoes that are spectacular in flavor and freshness. I'm happy to report that they are back and I spotted them at the Berkeley Farmers Market last week at the Full Belly Farm booth. They are expected at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in the next month or so.

PEAS

Denise told you about making a pea soup this week, and I am looking forward to trying out that recipe. The fact of the matter is that my peas rarely make it past the shelling stage as I usually eat them raw or slightly steamed. But if you have the willpower, now is an excellent time to shell and freeze peas. My favorite place to purchase them is the Swanton Berry Farm booth that is in many local farmers markets.

STRAWBERRIES

Northern California is very lucky: our strawberries have an extremely long fruit season, and we will have them around for a while. Still, this is the perfect time to buy strawberries and freeze them if you can. If you have room, I suggest hulling the berries and freezing on a large cookie tray before storing in a freezer bag. I buy mine from Lucero Farm and from Yerena Farm.

ALMOND BUTTER

This is not really a seasonal product, but I just wanted to give a shout-out for Greg Massa's excellent Almond Butter. You may know Massa Organics farm for selling really delicious brown rice at many Bay Area markets. If you check his booth carefully, you will notice an almond butter that he has been producing for a few months. I am addicted to this almond butter, and highly recommend trying it. It's pricey, but if you eat almond butter as slowly as I do, you'll only be making the investment every few months.

What are you looking forward to at the market this month?