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Butter and white wine ... already you know this is good!

These are the key ingredients for beurre blanc (literally "white butter"), a traditional French sauce with simple ingredients. Quite elegant and versatile for many dishes, it's full of garden flavors.

Brown an onion in some olive oil. Add salt and pepper for flavor and then add garlic once the onion begins to caramelize. This is the background and foundation of your sauce; the caramelized bits of onion and garlic are the keepers of amazing flavor. The wine will deglaze the pan, releasing the browned goodness of the aromatics. Allow the wine to come to a simmer and reduce by a third. This step, reducing the wine, intensifies the flavor of the wine, concentrating the bouquet and natural essence of the wine. Tossing in a couple bay leaves awakens the sauce and steeps their flavor in the wine reduction.

Now for the namesake: butter. Add the cubed butter in shifts, whisking the butter into the sauce and allowing it to thoroughly melt. Once the butter has thoroughly melted into the wine, the smooth sauce can now be livened up even more with fresh lemon juice and zest. White pepper makes a great complement to this easy sauce as well.

With the basics of this sauce under your belt, this sauce can be created year-round and then flavored with the best of each season's garden produce. That's the essence of garden living: taking a standard dish or sauce and altering it to suit each special time of year.

Whether you make your beurre blanc in the summer and infuse the sauce with summer herbs, make it with toasted pecans in the fall, with rosemary in the winter, or parsley and chervil in springtime, prepare this sauce as a toast to the season!

The Farmer's Beurre Blanc

Extra-virgin olive oil

1 large Vidalia onion (or any other white onion will do)

2 tablespoons of minced garlic

1 bottle of a good white wine

2-3 bay leaves

1 stick of good butter

Salt, cracked black and white peppers

Juice and zest of a lemon (or two, to your taste)

Seasonal herbs, chopped (optional)

Chop the onion and brown the pieces in some good olive oil. Once it has caramelized, add the garlic and cook until tender. Deglaze the pan with the bottle of white wine and bring to a simmer. Reduce by a third...add bay leaves as well.

Once the wine sauce has reduced, add the butter in cubes, whisking each batch of cubes into the wine so it is thoroughly melted and incorporated into the sauce. Season with salt and pepper -- a teaspoon of each or to taste. Add the juice of the lemon and its zest, continuing to allow the sauce to simmer and reduce a bit more.

After this mixture has reduced by about a fourth, add any herbs you're using and remove from heat. Can be made to sauce, fish, chicken, pork or vegetables.

(James T. Farmer III blogs at All Things Farmer and is author of "A Time to Plant" and "Sip and Savor." One for the Table is Amy Ephron's online magazine that specializes in food, politics and love. http://www.oneforthetable.com/.)