I know, rhubarb is a spring thing. And it's finally summer here. But I can't give up on rhubarb just yet: My two friends have been giving me parts of their rhubarb harvest for the last month or so, and I've been having a rhubarb fest. When I was a kid, we had a giant rhubarb plant that sprawled all over our garden. We'd eat what we could and preserve all the rest until the plant was exhausted. So I had a good bit of rhubarb when I was young. My father and I used to sit in the garden and chew the stringy stalks, seeing who could wait the longest to make a sour face. I always won. Come to think of it, I guess he let me win.
My friend brought me another batch of the good stuff the other day and I decided to make the rhubarb cake from the local Beyond Salmon blog (http://beyondsalmon.blogspot.com/) because the accompanying photo looked so appetizing. I kind of hated to chop it up, since it looked so nice, sitting there all preppy-pink-green on my counter. But The Girl and I chopped it up and made the cake (a very easy recipe). It was delicious; even my husband, an avowed rhubarb pooh-pooher, liked it a lot. My picture isn't as nice as the other blog's, but the cake rocked.
My rhubarb connection even told me that since her plant is getting too big for her garden, she's going to split it and give me half so I can grow my own stash. Being a black thumb, I resisted, but she prevailed and next year at this time I'll be havesting my own stalks. Who knows--now that I'm a master of jam (ha!) perhaps I'll try strawberry-rhubarb preserves. How about blue-barb? Yum.
This is going to sound crazy, but I've never had rhubarb. Weird, huh? This looks really good...I'll have to keep it in mind for next spring!
ReplyDeleteI like your optimism that summer is finally here. :)