IT'S SPRING AT last! Of course, in San Francisco, the signs of spring come early, in February, when the plum trees along Church Street burst into pale mauve bloom and the first brave bodies strip down along the grassy banks of Dolores Park. Hothouse strawberries show up by Valentine's Day, imported asparagus a few weeks later. But for local bounty, temptation wrestles with impatience until April has fully run into May. It takes that long for the deep greens of winter's kale and collards to give way to the translucent green of the season's first fresh lettuces and the truly new potatoes with their uncured skins still damp and flaky. Candy-pink radishes, snaky green fava beans, and succulent piles of Delta-grown asparagus finally nudge out the warty hard squashes and fennel bulbs.

Right now, from where I'm sitting alongside an open-air market in Aix-en-Provence, the stalls are stacked high with produce almost identical to what's growing around the Mediterranean-climed Bay Area. This is the home of mesclun, that bittersweet mélange of grown-together baby greens. From spiky clumps of frisée to tender red leaf lettuce, everyone's got a basket for sale. Bundles of purple-tipped artichokes dubbed "violettes" cluster next to lemons from the palm-lined Côte d'Azur and blood oranges from Italy and Morocco. Fat, dark red hothouse strawberries from Spain vie with shyer (and more expensive) coral-colored French berries. Organic olive oils, heaps of asparagus, Provençal honey, crusty wood oven-baked breads – except, perhaps, for the dried donkey sausages on sale, this sun-washed square could easily double for Ferry Plaza.

The similarity in local bounty is just one reason I've been toting my copy of Judy Rodgers's The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco's Beloved Restaurant during my travels in Italy and France this year. Dried wild mushrooms, chunks of Parmesan cheese, extra virgin olive oil – all of these Zuni pantry items are as easy to get at my local supermarket in Bologna as they are at Safeway. And Zuni owner-chef Rodgers, inspired by years of cooking and traveling in southern Europe, has learned to meld California products and attitudes with the rhythms and savors of European ways of eating. When I'm homesick, I read it to recapture the utterly San Francisco buzz of sitting at a table at her Market Street restaurant, chunk of Acme bread on the white tablecloth, an order of oysters and Caesar salad on the way. When I'm not, I read it to find out what to do with suddenly accessible ingredients like farro and zucchini flowers and bresaola. What makes this book at home in any kitchen is Rodgers's voice – smart, considered, uncompromising but not didactic, full of surprising, sharp observations like the exact noise a beaten egg should make sliding into a properly heated omelet pan. This is a chef's cookbook written by a chef who still cares about actually cooking. There are no recipes, only ingredients, her approach says, and what could be more alluring right now, with spring produce at its most beguiling?

I can imagine few spring dinners more appealing than a shallow bowl of new vegetables, cooked until just bright green and tender in a splash of white wine and a shower of fresh herbs, topped with puffy white clouds of ricotta gnocchi. Zuni serves them simply glossed with sage butter, but I love them even better like this. Whatever you've succumbed to – skinny green beans, sugar snap peas, baby carrots, handfuls of new spinach, a cluster of green garlic or spring onions – gets trimmed, sliced, and tossed with butter and a glass of wine (I actually love to use rosé, because it's pink, and its slight sweetness is lovely with these sweet little vegetables). Sweat the vegetables, loosely covered, until just tender. Add a handful of minced fresh chives, mint, a little parsley or tarragon, some sea salt and fresh pepper. Top with the freshly boiled gnocchi, and enjoy the still-shining evening sun.

Ricotta gnocchi

1 lb ricotta

1/4 cup grated Parmesan

2 eggs

1 Tbs butter, melted

2 tsp flour, plus 1 cup for shaping

1 tsp salt

Mash together ricotta, 2 teaspoons of flour, Parmesan, butter, eggs, and salt, mixing to a smooth paste. Chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour. Pour remaining flour into a large plate. Put on a large pot of water to boil. Using a spoon, scoop out a small ball of the ricotta mixture. Roll it in flour to form an oval. When all of mixture has been rolled and the water is boiling, drop the gnocchi into the boiling water and simmer five to six minutes, until puffy and cooked through. Serve hot with more butter and a sprinkle of fresh herbs.