10 Recipes to Celebrate National Fresh Celery Month

"Celery is a vegetable people either love or hate, and we try to get people to love all their vegetables," says chef Amanda Cohen of New York City's Dirt Candy. She sets off celery's bitterness and crunch with meaty oyster mushrooms and grapes that have been grilled until almost bursting.

H. Joseph Ehrmann, owner of the excellent San Francisco bar Elixir, devised this variation on the Pimm's Cup. Use celery ribs that are close to the heart; they're less stringy and milder in flavor than outer ribs.

This pretty, refreshing salad is one of the healthy options on Prime Meats' indulgent menu, combining sliced celery, celery leaves and thin strips of celery root.

This herbal take on a traditional cooler called the Rickey (spirit, lime and seltzer) combines celery and cucumber with aquavit, a clear Scandinavian spirit flavored with caraway and other botanicals. Kathy Casey suggests mixing in locally sourced honey, which lends the cocktail an additional layer of flavor and helps support the "bee'vironment."

Edamame—that's the Japanese name for whole soybeans—may not be as commonplace as celery, but they are becoming more and more popular. Credit all the good news about soy's health benefits. The beans are available in the freezer section of many supermarkets and at Asian food markets.

Melissa Kelly's inspiration for this salad is a dish she ate in Santa Margherita, on the Ligurian Coast of Italy. It includes butter beans; they're a terrific source of potassium, iron, copper and manganese; and they're rich in soluble fiber, which helps lower cholesterol.

This lemony chickpea salad is one of the most popular first-course antipasti dishes at Ethan Stowell's Tavolàta restaurant in Seattle, WA. The golden raisins plumped in white wine are sweet and tender.

This bright green blend from Amanda Chantal Bacon of Los Angeles's Moon Juice gets its zippy, herby taste from an entire bunch of cilantro.

Baby potatoes get a chipotle glaze before being roasted, adding incredible flavor to this healthy potato salad, which substitutes Greek yogurt for mayonnaise.

These days Bloody Marys are garnished with anything from olives and pickles to lobster claws and bacon cheeseburgers. Mixologist Craig Schoettler keeps it classic with celery and lemon.