Many vegetables mark the arrival of a season, but asparagus does so more emphatically than most. Its brief appearance each spring, prized and fleeting, has long given it an air of occasion, a vegetable worth waiting for rather than one to be taken for granted. Slender, elegant and unmistakably green, asparagus carries with it a sense of anticipation that few other vegetables can match. Asparagus has been cultivated for well over two thousand years, prized by the ancient Greek

Few vegetables carry quite the same air of quiet drama as the aubergine. Glossy, deep purple and elegantly curved, it looks almost too handsome to eat before it has even reached the pan. Yet beneath that striking exterior lies a vegetable of remarkable versatility, one capable of transforming from firm and slightly bitter to silky, smoky and deeply savoury with the right treatment. The aubergine's origins lie in South Asia, where it was first domesticated many thousands of ye