I LOVE RHUBARB

     Today I picked my first crop of rhubarb for the year. Growth came on rapidly the last week as we had warm weather and some moisture. So I sat out in the sunshine and trimmed the leaves off , washed off the stalks and brought them into the house.


      What's so good about rhubarb ? Well, stewed rhubarb is great say nothing of rhubarb pie , cobbler and rhubarb jam. The limit of my culinary skills ends at stewed rhubarb. I freeze most of my rhubarb in 6 cup packages. This amount fits nicely with many recipes.


      Fresh rhubarb at this time of year always reminds me of what my brother and I did when we were about 3 or 4 years old. We were less than a year apart so we had many adventures. When rhubarb matured we would each find the biggest piece available. Then we would start wailing on each other with the big leafy end. We would be like the cartoon drawing showing two people fighting and there's just pairs of arms and legs sticking out of the dust. Sooner or later the leaf part would tear off and there would be a 1 inch thick stock left. Somebody would get bonked on the head or across the mouth with the solid stem and that hurt and ended the fight with some little fellow in tears.


      From there we went on to some other mischief or into the house for refreshments. Sooner or later we would pass the rhubarb patch again and have another bout. I was the larger and kind of pudgy. Merce was slim and quick . Our record of rhubarb fights was probably about even. Rhubarb season was short so we had to make the best of it .


      Today I only picked rhubarb and didn't have the pleasure of a fight !