Tuesday, June 7, 2022 Ruinous Rhubarb

When our family of children doubled from two to four all at once, we decided it was time to look for a larger house. We were living in a two-bedroom house at the time and it was starting to feel squeezy. In an amazing providence, we ended up buying an old farmhouse on three acres out in the country, just a mile or so from my husband’s place of work. Perfect!

As soon as I could, I took a stroll around our large property to see what we had growing on the “farm,” as it were. To my delight I saw lots and lots of rhubarb sprinkled here and there. I hadn’t cooked with it myself, but remembered my Mom making various rhubarb items when I was growing up. I harvested a bunch of it and brought it in the house to prepare it for freezing. It was a little hairier than I had remembered, so I called a friend of mine to make sure it really was rhubarb. Also, the stems were sometimes hollow, which seemed odd. She and I talked it over and after describing the leaves, we agreed it must be the real thing. I cut up all of it and put it in freezer bags, looking forward to making many baked items with it.

The next day, I received a visit from someone who lived next to Kris’s research facility. It was just like you always hope – people in the country like to drop by with welcoming gifts. She brought me a large bag of rhubarb that she’d just picked. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d also just harvested and cut up a bunch of rhubarb, so I took it and thanked her and after a short chat, she went on her way.

I looked in the bag of rhubarb she’d given me and my first question was, “What on earth did I just cut up and put in our freezer?” I found out later that I had gone around our whole property harvesting burdock, a large-leafed weed. You can imagine how thankful I was that I hadn’t cooked anything with it right away. “Here honey, I made a rhubarb pie for us!” I may never have lived that down.

I’ll probably cut this post up and freeze it in the morning. But there will be no blog post pie.