Working on an asparagus and lemon risotto dish for mother's day


I've been purchasing alot of asparagus (about 30-50 pounds a week) mostly from a local guy over in Monroe County in Southern Illinois who bought this abandoned property that had an acre of asparagus planted. He's not really a farmer by choice, it is just that the field was already there. He's putting all the proceeds from the field into a special savings account to send his grandson in Colorado to college. A very nice little story, I think. The problem is the stalks aren't sized, they come in willy-nilly, so we have to group the sizes together ourselves-which adds more prep time to an already busy kitchen.

We are serving risotto with asparagus and lemon on Mother's Day, and have been experimenting with recipes. We have settled on one that uses a ham and chicken stock combination and Asiago cheese as well as some parmesan. There have been lots of left over risotto to deal with. William, my sous chef suggested risotto balls, and they have been very well recieved. We serve them with an Asiago cream sauce, and they are delicious.