You can almost feel it in the air, can’t you? A little more sunshine peeking through, a little more daylight lingering at the end of the day. Yes, spring is on its way. And you know what that means?

Time for planting, of course. Yes, even for those with not-so-green thumbs like myself, this is the time to start thinking about the wondrous possibilities that we can nurture in our very own little window pots or in raised beds in the backyard.

To entice you further, the kind folks at the Cook’s Garden, a gourmet retailer of vegetables, lettuces and herbs, is allowing me to do a great give-away: Three winners will receive the seeds necessary to grow most everything in that colorful salad shown above. (OK, except for the cheese and olive oil, you wise guys.) Not only that, each winner also will receive a beautiful artisan oval cutting board to cut all those home-grown veggies on.

Call it the ultimate do-it-yourself salad when you grow the Myway Arugula, Lettuce Baby Red Mix, Tomato Persimmon and Tomato Carmelita, all by yourself.

When harvest time rolls around, slice the tomatoes about 3/8-inch thick, and alternate them in a row on a serving dish. Layer Myway Arugula and Lettuce Baby Red Mix over the top. Next, add slices of your favorite cheese over the top. Finally, whisk together olive oil, crushed garlic, dill, chives, salt, pepper, wine vinegar and dry mustard to taste. Drizzle over salad, and enjoy.

Here’s how to score those seeds and cutting board: Name the fruit, vegetable or herb that’s most like your personality, and why. Enter the contest by the end of the day, March 13. The three most clever or memorable responses will win. Contest results will be announced on March 15. Participants must reside in the continental United States.

To get you started here’s my own response: Kabocha squash. It’s Asian like me, as well as a little sweet, very versatile, and distinctive. It’s resilient — you can buy it, stick it on the counter, and it’ll keep just fine for quite a spell all to its self. It’s a bit starchy, too — and I never met a carb I didn’t like.

And without further adieu, here are the five winners of the last contest, who will each receive a bag of the new Peet’s Uzuri African Blend coffee:

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Sardines suffer from a bad rep for the most part.

So many of us have stinky memories of those tiny, pungent fish lurking inside pull-tab tins that our parents or grand-parents forced upon us.

But I’m here to plead with you to give sardines a chance.

At a time when so many other seafood species are on the verge of extinction, sardines are one of the most sustainable fish around. They’re super cheap, and loaded with good-for-you omega-3s, too.

That’s why a local group, whimsically named the “Sardinistas,” is waging a campaign to get you and me to better appreciate this much-maligned fish. Find out more about this group by reading my story in the November issue of San Francisco magazine.

Bay Area chefs already have courted a love affair with sardines. Find fresh ones grilled on many a menu here, their flesh silky and smoky tasting.

Fresh sardines aren’t always easy to come by at local fish markets, though, because the majority caught in Monterey Bay are exported elsewhere.

But canned ones are easily found at any supermarket.

And even die-hard sardine haters are sure to love them in “Fish Cakes with Caper-Parsley Sauce.”

The recipe, adapted from one published in Gourmet magazine seven years ago, actually has three types of fish in it. And two of them are despised by a good number of folks. Yes, one is the sardine. The other? Anchovy.

But hear me out before you pass judgment.

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Remember those energy bars of yesteryear?

You know, the ones you ate because they were compact and handy on those sweaty, strenuous hikes — not because they tasted any good.

Newark, Calif.-based FullBloom Baking Company will erase those unappetizing memories once and for all.

Company founder Karen Trilevsky has created an individually wrapped Toasted Oatmeal Bar that’s made with 12 organic whole grains, plus tart cherries and raisins. It’s a palate-awakening alternative to other breakfast or energy bars on the market.

It’s almost cookie-like in texture, but more crumbly. The oat flavor and texture really come through in this crunchy, buttery bar. It tastes very much home-made rather than mass-produced.

Each 2.5-ounce bar has 350 calories, 18 grams of fat (8 grams of which are saturated fat), 44 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of protein, 210 milligrams of sodium, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, and 44 grams of total carbohydrates.

The Toasted Oatmeal Bar joins the 12-Grain Bar released earlier this year. FullBloom will add two more flavors before the end of the year: Cranberry Almond Bar, and Bacon Cornflake (Oh my!).

The bars retail for about $1.49 each. They are available at Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl, Cosentino’s, and Peet’s Coffee & Tea.

In addition to her baking endeavors, Trilevsky also started a “Smart Cookes Scholarship” to pay for the college education of promising Hispanic youth in the Bay Area. So far, she’s help pay for 57 kids to attend college.

Her baking facility also is in the process of securing LEED platinum certification for adhering to best environmental practices.

And now, without further adieu, I’m happy to announce the winners of the latest Food Gal contest, in which I invited all of you to tell me what your nuttiest cooking experience was.

I say, “winners,” because there were so many good ones once again that I decided to award second- and third-place prizes, too. Those winners will receive a cookbook from my vast collection. The grand prize winner will get four bags (2-ounce each) of Sahale Snacks nut blends, three (4-ounce) glazed nuts packages, and a Sahale Snacks apron.

Here are the winners:

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Don’t blink. That isn’t a typo. It’s the name of a new food company in San Francisco that wants to make it easier for you to eat healthful.

Beautifull! opened its flagship store/cafe in San Francisco’s Laurel Village Shopping Center this spring. More locations are planned, including one in Palo Alto early next year.

The stores make prepared foods that are free of hormones, steroids, additives, preservatives, refined sugars, refined grains, butter and cream. A team of chefs and nutritionists have come up with dishes that can be enjoyed in the store, wrapped up to-go, or delivered to your home or office in whatever amounts that suit your needs.

I know you’re thinking, “That sounds way too healthy to taste any good.” Admit it.

Heck, I thought that, too.

But I ate those words, along with some tasty samples that were delivered to my house recently.

Wonderful whole grains, along with fresh, delicious fruits and veggies are staple ingredients in the offerings.

The “Tea-Smoked Salmon with Red Quinoa & Edamame Salad” (market price) is a signature dish. The salmon, house-smoked over Asian tea leaves, is moist, tender, and yes, wonderfully smoky tasting. It tops Peruvian red quinoa, buttery edamame, carrots, red peppers, and crunchy hijiki seaweed, tossed in a gingery vinaigrette. It’s a dish redolent of Japanese flavors.

The “Chinese Chicken Salad” ($9.99 as an entree salad) also is a taste of Asia, with nutty sesame oil and tangy rice wine vinegar in the Asian honey mustard dressing. The roasted chicken breast was just a tad dry, but that can happen when it’s pre-sliced ahead of time and refrigerated.

The “Whole Grain & Bean Enchiladas with Salsa Verde” ($7.99 as a prepacked meal) are corn tortillas filled with scrambled free-range eggs, golden quinoa, pinto beans, and yellow pepper, then topped with feta, cilantro, and spicy salsa verde. There was so much flavor going on that I didn’t miss the meat at all in this dish.

Kids will love “Kamut Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs” ($6.99 a pound). Parents will love how good it is for the wee ones. Lean turkey meat combines with rolled oats, spinach, Dijon mustard and herbs for big, bountiful meatballs atop spaghetti made of Kamut, a grain high in protein and minerals. It all gets tossed with a simple tomato-basil sauce.

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Soup sure does a body good.

Stanford Hospital knows that. And if you’re a foodie ever in need of medical care, you might just want to make sure you end up there, because the renowned hospital has just launched a new all-organic, local, sustainable “Farm Fresh” menu option for inpatients. It’s centered around gourmet soups created in collaboration with Peninsula restaurateur and long-time champion of organics, Jesse Cool.

Right now, the organic option, which started a few weeks ago, is offered only at dinner time to patients on unrestricted diets. But plans are to eventually expand it to patients’ lunches, and to the cafeteria offerings.

If you opt for the organic menu, you get your choice of made-from-scratch chicken noodle soup or that day’s local vegetable soup. The latter might be cauliflower soup with rosemary, roasted sweet pepper with goat cheese, roasted tomato with herbs, potato leek, carrot ginger with curry, cream of spinach, or corn with basil and smoked cheddar.

Your tray also arrives with a small organic salad, organic whole grain bread, a dessert of either stuffed baked apple or seasonal fruit with honey yogurt sauce, and a beverage such as organic lemonade, green tea, organic ginger ale, or Starbucks organic free-trade coffee.

Your soup bowl contains your choice of protein — grass-fed meatballs, poached organic chicken, or smoked tofu. Your soup comes separately in a thermos carafe to keep it nice and warm. It gets poured table-side — or in this case, bed-side.

Hospital food never looked so appealing.

So in this dreary economy, in which cash-strapped consumers are buying less organic food, why is Stanford Hospital taking on the potentially added cost of providing an organic menu for patients?

With 450 patients in its hospital at any one time, administrators believe they will be able to negotiate purchasing agreements with local farmers, many within a 200-mile radius of Stanford, so that the organics menu will be cost-effective.

“We believe that part of the healing process for patients involves eating food as fresh as possible, in which nutrients are preserved,” says Shelley Hebert, executive director of public affairs for the hospital. “We also want to educate patients about healthful eating and cooking when they leave the hospital.”

To that end, the soup recipes are being made available on the hospital’s Web site.

Cool, who owns Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park, worked on the soup recipes with the hospital’s Executive Chef Beni Velazquez, a certified instructor with the Culinary Institute of America and a former Ritz-Carlton Hotel chef.

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