The rainclouds have cleared and sunlight spills through the hardwood canopy, illuminating acres of verdant ramps. Biting into a raw ramp leaf, I am hit with a potent wild flavor that commands my attention and summons seasonal memories.

The weather – day after day of sparkling, blue skies and spring flowers – was undeniably spectacular. For a string of sun-soaked days, each evening found children splashing playfully in the river and brown trout rising explosively to flies. Everywhere I looked I saw people smiling, their relief palpable on the heels of another long and trying winter.

Our family of four is back in a familiar hardwood forest, adrift in a sea of ramps. While we expected early season conditions, we have found the patch in peak form, with dense clumps of enormous, glossy leaves. Eliana, who has recently acquired a taste for this exquisitely wild Allium, carefully picks a selection of leaves for her basket. Little Noemi – now a hiker in her own right – holds a pungent ramp specimen to her nose, a curious look on her face.

I am wandering through the spring woods, the soggy ground squishing beneath my feet.  Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the unmistakable honeycombed cap of a morel.  Bending down to take a closer look, I realize this morel is not alone. A second morel pops into my vision, followed by a third. My morel eyes are on now, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, begin to spring up as if to announce, “We are here!”

Maybe it is just because I have been in ramp heaven throughout the past three weeks, finding vast caches of wild leeks (Allium tricoccum) on our forays and loving ever minute of it. Or perhaps it is because I grew up in a household where every meal began with a head of garlic, and the unmistakably garlicky scent and flavor of the ramp satisfies my life-long love affair with this pungent allium. The bottom line is that I just can't get enough of ramps, and these days they seem to be showing up on the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner. From lightly sautéing ramps in a tad of olive oil, salt and pepper, to featuring them in omelets, soufflés, quiches, sandwiches, risottos, burritos, soups, and pasta dishes, it is beginning to seem that there isn’t anything that doesn’t go well with ramps.

As my anticipation of morels begins to grow unbearable, I have found a welcome diversion in ramps (Allium tricoccum). On March 29 I reported seeing ramps beginning to pop through the leaves and uncurl, their vivid green hue contrasting sharply with the brown forest floor. On Tuesday, three weeks later, I returned to the same spot to find a sweeping carpet of nearly mature, densely spaced ramps, as well as several smaller satellite colonies. That very night, they were the karpas, or spring greens, on the Passover Seder plate.

Let’s face it – this was one of the colder, snowier northeastern winters in recent memory. As much as I relish slapping on my cross-country skis and getting chased by my yelping dog through the winter woods, there comes a time when even the hardiest soul is ready for the dawn of spring. In one of my favorite childhood rituals, my father would take me into the woods each March as the ground began to thaw to search for signs of spring. From the sound of peepers peeping to the heady smell of maple sap boiling, today the sensory memories of early spring hit me with a heavy dose of nostalgia.