It’s the season for nettles. Right now, while they are young and tender. In a few weeks they’ll be tough and only half as tasty. Eat them while you can!

Nettles are famous for their sting (which comes from their hollow hair-like needles, through which the plant injects a histamine directly into the skin) but Edouardo Jordan, chef de cuisine at Pioneer Square’s new Bar Sajor, claims that if you pick them young enough, you can “eat nettles as a fresh green, in a salad” without risk of stinging. He should know. Edouardo cooked at Per Se, The French Laundry, The Herbfarm, and Sitka and Spruce before opening Bar Sajor for Matt Dillon. I’d never heard of raw nettle salad, but Edouardo reassured me: “Sure, if the nettles are really young. The only problem is that it can be hard to find them that young unless you are foraging yourself.”

This time of year, nettles are popping up in farmers markets as well as roadsides, though in my opinion, foraging for them is half the fun. If you decide to forage, even for the tenderest nettles I still recommend you wear tall boots and gloves. Wild foods are no fun if you itch. Pick a clean traffic spot and look below your knees for bright-green, oval leaves with pointy tips and stems covered in glistening fuzz—the rather innocuous-looking stinging hairs.

From Shakespeare to James Joyce, nettles and their needles have been symbols of irritation and deprivation. Nettles are known to be full of vitamins, and, maybe not coincidentally, their consumption is said to bring virtue. Apparently for centuries now, from Ireland to Italy, monks have gone on soul- and gut-cleansing fasts of nettle soup.

I, on the other hand, felt perfectly indulgent eating nettles at Bar Sajor. Right now they are featured on the menu twice: dried and mixed into Bar Sajor’s lovely tea, and cooked, like a salsa verde, under halibut. Here they’re rich, like spinach, but with more depth: earthy, grassy, and almost sweet.

“We quickly blanch them,” Edouardo said, “to take away the sting, and then use their simplicity as a strength. I wrap fish in them, make a pesto. Right now we are serving them [under the halibut] with macerated shallots, chili, and coriander.” E

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