RESPECT YOUR BEANS. That’s the order of the day. Specifically, you should give the lowly lima bean its due. That’s right, everyone, April 20 is officially “Lima Bean Respect Day.” Lest you doubt my word, there’s even an e-card to prove the day exists (Hallmark’s got nothing on Ecardia, creator of the illustration shown above).

Of course, all this is very tongue-in-cheek. I’ll also date myself when I tell you that it makes me think of Rodney Dangerfield: a broad bean grousing “no respect.” Or maybe the beans should be singing a certain Aretha Franklin tune, you know the one. It’s all a bit absurd. And yet . . .

Maybe there’s something to this. Maybe not enough people appreciate lima beans. For much of my life, I admit, I’ve taken these beans for granted. They’d appear on my family’s table whenever my father got a craving for Southern comfort food. He’d cook them within an inch of their little bean lives (in the way you cook all vegetables in the South: until they’ve lost their structure and are a warm, soft mash), and then he’d slather the beans with butter. They’re good that way, and I’ve always just left it at that. Lima beans have never inspired me to get creative—you neither, I’m willing to bet.

This year, however, I decided to change that. I decided to find something new to do with them, resolved to give them a little love. The odd thing was that as I went to first one grocery and then another, I couldn’t find frozen baby lima beans anywhere. Why not? I began to worry that maybe lima beans are truly falling out of favor, and I tried to imagine what it would be like to never eat another lima bean, ever. A feeling surged that, if it didn’t sound too melodramatic, I’d call panic—grief, even. You know how much you want something when it seems you can’t have it? I have been intensely craving lima beans for a few weeks now. Luckily, they returned to stock, as mysteriously as they’d vanished. I snatched up half a dozen boxes (which equals sixty ounces, a lot of beans).

For some recipes, dried lima beans simply will not do. Fresh are even better than frozen, but those are much harder to find. You can go to the greenmarket, of course, but they don’t usually appear there until August, along with corn. This explains succotash, which I will not mention further.

Here, in honor of Lima Bean Respect Day, I’m presenting a recipe that takes a Mediterranean approach: Lima-Bean Salad with Two Greek Cheeses. In fact, the recipe is an adaptation of a fava bean salad from Hearth Restaurant, a favorite of mine here in NYC. The favas pack a stronger flavor punch, but I think the lima beans hold up quite well, too—that is, if you cook them like a northerner (on the firm side of done).

The cheeses I used, which you can see in the image below, are kefalograviera (the hard yellow cheese to the left) and manouri, which is a softer sheep and goat’s milk cheese. If the idea of Greek cheese puts you off because you don’t know where to find it, you can easily substitute the more easily found Italian cheeses, pecorino and ricotta salata.

To moisten and flavor my salad, I chose to make a classic Greek dressing called latholemono, which is basically two parts olive oil to one part lemon juice, frequently with oregano added for good measure. Latholemono is an indispensable blend in the Greek kitchen. It is used to dress all sorts of greens and fish as well.

So, here, without further fuss (what could be fussy about a lima bean?) is my Dixie-meets-Hellenic tribute. I hope you decide to make it, or if not, then prepare some limas in another way that suits you. While you’re at it, click here to send Ecardia’s Lima Bean Respect Day e-card to a special someone. They may or may not thank you, but they’re sure to smile—plus, you’ll make a lima bean very happy.

Lima-Bean Salad with Two Greek Cheeses

Adapted from Hearth Restaurant’s Fava-Bean Salad, as appeared in the New York Times (June 2005)

Ingredients:

For the salad:

2 cups baby lima beans (fresh and shelled, or use a 10-ounce package of frozen baby limas)

1 cup diced kefalograviera or kefalotyri (see notes for substitute)

1/2 cup diced manouri (see notes for substitute)

1 scallion, thinly sliced

For the latholemono dressing:

Juice of 1 lemon (approximately 2 Tablespoons)

4 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried dill weed

salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method:

Cook the lima beans. Place in a saucepan with just enough boiling water to cover the beans, bring to a second boil, cover and let the beans boil and steam until just tender, approximately (about 15 minutes for frozen beans). Drained the beans and run cold water over them to stop the cooking. Drain until dry.

Assemble and dress the salad. In a large bowl, combine lima beans, diced cheeses, and sliced scallion. To make the dressing, whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl, or shake together in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Pour enough over the salad to wet it (you should have some extra dressing left over; reserve it for another use). Let sit at room temperature until ready to serve. Refrigerate for longer storage.

A Note on Greek Cheese Substitutions:

Who are you kidding? There is no substitution for good, Greek cheese. But if you insist, you may use pecorino instead of the kefalograviera; for the manouri, substitute ricotta salata.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS? Sure, I make them. They kick in on January 7.

Now, you might wonder: why do I wallow in an extra week of decadence and bad habits, when most people have been subjecting themselves to the honorable ritual of self-improvement for a full six days already? Is it some strain of rebellious DNA? Or perhaps I’ve been forced to play a disorganized round of catch-up because the first of the year took me by surprise (tell me, who can keep track of what day it is during the holidays?). But really it’s neither of these things. Instead, you can blame it on Epiphany and the galette des rois. Since taking up that buttery, flaky, frangipane bit of tradition, my Christmas season has been extended through all its official twelve days, and I can tell you that during that time, there’s not a partridge or a pear tree in my sight—not much of anything that grows on a tree, actually, unless it’s a cacao tree.

I exaggerate, slightly. It’s not that I abandon all healthy foods during the holidays, it’s just that the ratio of healthy to hedonistic gets very lopsided in my December kitchen, and then those extra days of indulgence in January kind of do me in. Which is good in a way, because now I’m ready—really ready—to clean up my act.

Part of that effort for me this year means trying to create (and eat) more interesting salads. In winter, this can seem daunting, although I am starting to warm to the possibilities. But year-round, I suspect that I don’t eat enough salads mainly because I forget that they can be interesting, attractive to both the eye and the palate. Growing up, the salads I ate were good but routine, which is to say boring. Fine in the summer when you had no appetite, but otherwise, just something that satisfied nutritional needs in the most pedestrian way. This might have had something to do with the lettuce that was most often in our refrigerator (iceberg), and also with the limited repertoire of ingredients we thought “should” go on a salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots; occasionally some sliced bell pepper or button mushrooms. I do know this: the day I saw sliced, fresh pear on a bed of greens was a revelation. By all the laws of my youth, fruit was supposed to be in fruit salad, not mixed in with the veggies. (Tell me we were all so green once; they are called salad days after all.)

Thankfully, I’ve left those days behind. Pear and blue cheese on a salad? That’s the tired cliché for me now. I do wonder whether pomegranates and Cara Cara oranges are any more inspired, but they are certainly more colorful, and they’re definitely delicious. Perfect for a New Year’s Resolution meal—no matter how many weeks into the year you enter that game (if you do at all).

Here, I’ve started my salad spree by building a plate full of SuperFoods. Spinach, oranges, walnuts, and pomegranates have been linked to cancer prevention, cardiovascular health, and lower risk for diabetes, to name just a few life-saving benefits. Yet while this salad looks ahead to a healthier year, it also takes a final glance back at holiday cheer: pomegranates, which are Persephone’s food—jewel-like winter kernels, bursting with antioxidants—play an important role in Greek New Year’s customs; gently tossed at the threshold of a home, their spilling seeds indicate prosperity for those who live within.

Popping with color, playing with texture, this salad anticipates the joyful, springtime reunion of Persephone and Demeter. Add some excellent feta and a dressing of olive oil and pomegranate molasses to this plate of super-nutrients, and you’ve got a meal that any mother would approve of.

Here’s to more salads, or whatever your own culinary resolutions happen to be.

Demeter & Persephone’s Antioxidant Salad

Yield: serves 4 as a starter

Ingredients:

For the dressing

1 Tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1 Tablespoon white balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

1/8 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

5 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

For the salad

8 cups loosely packed fresh baby spinach leaves

6 ounces feta cheese (I use Greek sheep-milk feta)

1 orange (try the Cara Cara orange for its brilliant, reddish hue)

1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 cup pomegranate seeds

Method:

Prepare the dressing. Combine the pomegranate molasses, balsamic vinegar, honey, orange zest, salt and pepper in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Cover and shake well to blend. Add the olive oil; cover and shake again. Adjust seasoning to taste. (Alternatively, whisk together all ingredients except the olive oil in a small bowl until well blended. Then, drizzle in the oil while whisking continuously until thoroughly combined.) Set the dressing aside while you prepare the salad.

Prepare the salad ingredients. Rinse the spinach leaves thoroughly in cool water and give them a whirl in a salad spinner to dry; or, you can blot each leaf gently between kitchen (or paper) towels to dry. Cut feta cheese into eight slices, approximately 1/2-inch thick. Slice four thick rounds of orange, removing the peel and as much of the white pith as possible from around the outside and inner core of each slice. Measure out enough fresh pomegranate seeds and shelled walnuts for the salad.

Assemble the salad. On four plates, arrange the spinach leaves to form an attractive bed of greens. Next, on each plate place two slices of feta and one orange slice. Scatter the pomegranate seeds and walnuts over all, distributing evenly. Drizzle the vinaigrette over each salad—just enough to moisten (up to 1 tablespoon, but I find that just a teaspoon or two works best). If the dressing has separated, be sure to shake or whisk it again before pouring over the salad.