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Mondays are going to be tough days for me to post, but I’m still trying to post daily. So tonight I’m posting what may be a rerun for some readers: the current Online Epicure (you can subscribe to it via the link in the Blogroll). Hope you find it useful. It’s by me and Neil Salkind, friend and neighbor.

Spring is upon us, and that means better, fresher produce from sources closer to home. That’s all to the good for people trying to eat more fruits and vegetables as health experts recommend.

Every year at this time, we think of strawberries (try http://www.calstrawberry.com/ and click on Recipes or Health at the top of the page to learn more about this luscious and nutritious berry), and we think of asparagus (see http://www.asparagus.org/). If you go to Local Harvest and click on the Farms tab, you can enter your ZIP code and find growers and markets near you.

But there’s more to the spring bounty, and it seems like all of it is amazingly good for us. Take broccoli, which some of us adore. The World’s Healthiest Foods site can fill you in. After you scroll through more information that you could possibly want to read about broccoli’s health benefits, you’ll find information about selecting, storing and preparing broccoli. If you don’t know what to do with broccoli, just check out your favorite recipe sites, such as www.allrecipes.com or www.recipezaar.com. We love Pasta with Garlic, and there’s a great recipe for it at http://teriskitchen.com/pasta/broccoli-a.html.

Then there’s cabbage, which is related to broccoli. You can get details about it at http://whfoods.org, too, but you might want to check out the Food Thesaurus at http://www.foodsubs.com/Cabbage.html. It does a nice job of explaining the differences among the various cabbage types as well as the multiplicity of names they’re given. You can find a plethora of cabbage recipes at author Cherie Stihler’s website, http://www.cheriestihler.com/CC/recipes.html. Her collection, evidently in honor of one of her books, divides the 200-some recipes into Cabbage Soups, Cabbage Rolls, Coleslaw, Sauerkraut, Kim-chee, Other Salads, Vegetarian Dishes, Main Dishes, Side Dishes, Appetizers and, of course, Corned Beef and Cabbage. If you can’t find a good recipe there, you aren’t trying.

Here’s more about these spring powerhouses:

• You can find a simple and colorful broccoli salad recipe at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/2035, or go to www.epicurious.com and search on “Marinated Vegetable Salad.”
• Consider another cabbage relative, kohlrabi. Lawrence, Kansas, author Nancy O’Connor’s how-to-use-it article is available at http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/food/256.
• Vegetarians in Paradise tells about the history of broccoli at http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch44.html.
• Jim Dixon rhapsodizes over cabbage (and includes useful information) at http://www.culinate.com/content/6124.
• Stihler also shares cabbage lore at http://www.cheriestihler.com/CC/trivia.html.