Today is rhubarb day.
Last night on a whim I looked up the name listed in the plat book of the owner of a semi-abandoned farm. Their patch of rhubarb was starting to bolt and it looked like a person could fill a truck with juicy stalks from that one patch if they had a mind to. I figured it didn't hurt to ask and I had nothing to lose.
He answered my call. And he told me to take all we wanted. He said he planted the patch 30 years ago and recently moved to town. He doesn't like rhubarb, so no, no need to bring him a pie. It was a rhubarb goldmine.
Since it was already getting late (well, late in our world - 6:30 PM) I got the kids ready for bed and we piled into the car at the time we should would normally be moving towards a book in bed. We headed out of town to the old farm.
We arrived after 7:00. In PJ's the kids cut and pulled and laughed and played in that old farm yard. We had a blast. We filled bag after bag with juicy stalks. I finally cut off their harvest, lest we overfill the freezer (or maybe my trunk) in one short evening. As I loaded the rhubarb into my trunk and saw the bags all heaped on top of one another it felt the tiniest bit like hoarding. But it felt a whole lot like putting food by for the year. In the end we half-filled the trunk of my Beetle. That's a lot of pies.
Today if you need us we'll be in the kitchen. We'll be making a gluten-free/GAPS rhubarb crisp, a big pot of rhubarb sauce, and plenty of slicing and freezing to last us the rest of the year. We also plan to juice a ton of rhubarb to make soda syrup and perhaps also serve as a local lemon juice substitute in recipes.
What is your favorite way to enjoy rhubarb? Believe me - we're looking for suggestions. 25 pounds Thirty-three pounds of rhubarb leaves plenty of room for experimenting. What do you suggest?
