Last week, I decided to proffer a farewell to winter and welcome in spring with a classic beef stew. Although my original choice for a recipe, one from Sally Schmitt’s Six California Kitchens, appealed to me for its simplicity, on second look, its lack of a thickener for a gravy and its relatively quick time for cooking the vegetables (15 minutes on high) after simmering the meat on the stove for two hours gave me some pause. Eventually, a search through my bookshelves led me to a similar recipe from the Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook that addressed my concerns with the first and required only a little more effort. That it called for oven rather than stove-top cooking made it even more attractive.