For the past few weeks, I’ve slowly been developing a fierce hunger for fresh greens. There was a time in the middle of July that I felt I’d be content to never taste a leaf of lettuce or stalk of spinach again. But I’ve gone just about as long as I can go, and I watched the “Salad Nicoise” episode of The French Chef with Julia Child last night. Now I’m desperate.

The “Salad Nicoise” episode is from 1970, so it was shot in color, which makes it a lot more tempting than some of the earlier black-and-white shows. “The Potato Show,” for instance, features several dishes, all involving cream, butter and heavier cream, none of which look very appetizing in shades of grey. But the “Nicoise” episode also employed the killer tactic of cutting to a Julia-guided tour of Nice’s open-air vegetable market. Shot after shot closed upon vendors hands dipping into barrels of olives, bins of capers, mounds of potatoes and piles of tomatoes. By the time we left France and were back in Julia’s kitchen, I was ready to eat the DVD. And then she began to wash and rinse some gorgeous, fluttering, emerald Boston lettuce. I thought I would faint.

Mercifully, Julia broke my swoon with some charmingly goofy banter while demonstrating the operation of several salad spinners, one of which she lauded as being made “by little old Swiss ladies in tennis shoes.” I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the show and learn how to separate tiny anchovy filets from their backbones with a few deft fork twists.

But I woke up this morning dreaming about greens. Which is just fine, really, because it’s time to buy seed and put those garden dreams on paper. And for those who support Community Supported Agriculture farms like ours by being subscription members, it’s time to contact your farmers and get signed up! A truly wonderful thing about the CSA model is that by paying ahead of the harvest season, members provide farmers with income at just the time they need it to purchase supplies to grow the year’s crops. Pretty as the snow still is here at Circle M, spring is quickly approaching.

So do find a farmer and figure out where your food will be coming from this summer. To whet your appetite, I suggest stocking your Netflix queue with Julia Child videos. That’s what I’m doing as sort of a warm-up to the growing season. Getting my recipes in a row. I might also stick “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman” in there, with it’s Latino re-make, “Tortilla Soup.” If I’m feeling brave, I’ll watch “Babette’s Feast” or “Mostly Martha.” Yum! Now I’m off to order in some Boston Bibb seeds…