We’re on the brink of the most exciting time of the year for buying and cooking produce.

If you blink, you might miss it. It’s the moment at the farmers’ markets in New York City—but also Boston, Chicago, and DC—when the crates of cold-storage root vegetables and apples from the fall make way for a wave of green and pink.

Ramps are about to find their way into our compound butters and onto our lightly charred focaccias. There are green English peas, which you might mistake for sugar snap peas at first glance, but which hold tender little green orbs that are perfect for plumping up stuffed pastas or sprinkling across salads. There’s the bumper crop of asparagus, just waiting to be roasted and tossed with almonds and capers. Or you could take a tip from cookbook author Anna Jones and build a whole savory tart around green spring vegetables, orange-yolked eggs, and delicate chive blossoms. Even the herbs and salad greens are starting to get more exciting, offering a much-needed crunchy change from the plastic clamshells of floppy “spring mix” we’ve been buying all winter.

There’s rhubarb, ready to be finely chopped and swirled into the folds of a buttery babka, and before we know it, there will be strawberries, too. After you’ve made your fill of pies, and jams, and doughnuts filled with those jams, take some inspiration from Brooklyn chef TJ Steele and turn a few berries into a spicy, springy aguachile with whatever seafood is freshest at your local fish shop. And when it’s time for dessert, sandwich a few of them between some fluffy, soft slices of white bread with a generous heap of whipped cream. —Anna Hezel