Seasonal eating?

Here's a delicious, springy (or summery - there are tomatoes) pasta dish: Pasta with Chickpeas, Tomatoes, and Arugula. Needless to say, that kind of a lead-in makes you - well, me - think about eating seasonally. There's a couple different ways of looking at it.

One is about eating foods that are in season, more or less exclusively. For instance, you leave off the tomatoes after summer's over, and you start mowing down on the root vegetables in the winter. That sort of thing. And it makes sense; you get the best and freshest of something when it's in season, rather than having to be shipped in from across the globe where it's in season somewhere else. Plus it's cheaper, since it doesn't have to be hothouse-grown. It ties right in with the whole eating locally thing, since it's the same story eating food from around here rather than from somewhere else, along with the added benefit of getting to support local farmers. I am 100% down with that - but I also love things I've learned about from other places, so it's a balancing act.

The other is about winter being stew season, and meals like this being for summer or spring. That... I don't so much subscribe to. You can eat light, bright meals like this in the winter! Why not? Presumably it's not just food that keeps you warm - we've invented clothes and heating - so just because it's not a hearty, heavy soup doesn't mean you're going to freeze to death eating it.

Want some? Here you go!