Relishing Rhubarb

" Last rhubarb of the season ma'am."  I was at the farmers' market last week gazing longingly at the rhubarb, when these words broke through my reverie and galvanized me to action.  I must have rhubarb.  I picked up a bundle; the stalks were slender and very fresh.  I had not made anything with rhubarb yet this spring.  In fact the only rhubarb I had so far was in the form of a pie from the farmers' market.  The pie was okay, but a bit  disappointing.  It certainly did not satisfy my rhubarb craving.

I loved rhubarb as a kid.  I loved sour slightly bitter foods: rhubarb, lemon, beet greens. An apple that made my face pucker and my eyes water was a good apple.  When my nephew was a toddler he shared a love of rhubarb.  "Mm mm... boobarb pie and rumma cake." he would say, licking his lips.  Where he ate "rumma" cake I don't know, but it obviously was a memorable experience!

Rhubarb grew wild in a small patch of land near my house that was for a while practically my world growing up.  Forts, tepees, bows and arrows were made there.  I had my neighborhood lending library there, complete with a small bookcase holding some of my favorite books. Hours were spent lying in the grass amidst the grasshoppers, butterflies, toads and sometimes snakes.  I buried my pirates' treasures there: sparkly discarded costume jewelry nestled in matchboxes.

It is there on that small patch of land that I learned about the connection between the land and food.  I do not remember who first taught us that the leaves of the rhubarb plant were poisonous, but the pretty red stalks made great pie.  Come spring, my mother would remind us to keep an eye open for the rhubarb.  It was exciting to be able to pick the rosy stems and present them to my mum.  My mother made rhubarb pie; never with strawberries and never rhubarb anything else.  Locavore eating at it's best!


I did not see much food growing when I was a kid. We had a pear tree and apple tree, but the fruit was high off the ground and the squirrels ate most of it.  My dad grew tomatoes amidst the flowers, and when I was older we went into the woods to pick wild blueberries.  Even though we did not have a vegetable garden, we almost always ate fresh vegetables and fruit unlike many of my friends whose families ate mostly canned and frozen food.  I knew what fruit and vegetables were in season. We would stuff ourselves with fresh strawberries in May and June knowing that we would be another year older before we would see them again.  We have become people expecting to eat fresh strawberries in November.  I have met so many people who have no idea when specific fruits and vegetables are in season.  Feelings of anticipation and celebration have been lost.


Rhubarb season can be over in a blink of an eye here if you are not paying attention.  At least I was able to make a couple of tasty rhubarb dishes; one sweet and one savory.

Rhubarb Soup 

• 1 lb of rhubarb thinly sliced
• 1 cup of orange juice
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 star anise
• 1  whole clove
• 3/4 tsp of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp fresh minced ginger
• few leaves of purple basil
• 1/2 Tbl of lime juice
• 1 cup of strawberries cut into quarters

Add everything except the lime juice and strawberries and simmer for 15 to 30 minutes or until the rhubarb is tender. The stalks I had were very slender and tender, so they cooked very quickly and were not stringy at all.  Add the lime juice and strawberries and allow to cool.  Remove the whole clove and whole anise. If you used ground spices, you can skip that step. Process in a blender or using an immersion blender until smooth.  Refrigerate until needed.


Serve in a small bowl with a small scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

 

Rhubarb Relish

• 2 cups finely chopped rhubarb
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbl honey
• 1/4 cup  white vinegar
• 3 Tbl balsamic vinegar
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbl grated fresh ginger
• seeds of 3 pods of cardamon, crushed
• 1/4 tsp salt
• small jalapeno, minced
• small hot red pepper minced

Combine all ingredients in a pot and bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 20 - 30 minutes.
Serve on cracker or crostini, with or without cheese. Or serve as a side relish to meat. I paired the relish with a goat cheese I had made.  After a couple of less than stellar attempts at making fresh mozzarella, I made a very easy fresh goat cheese.  This relish has all the tastes I love - tangy, sweet and spicy!

It's a Chowda kind of Day

The weather has gone from sunny and warm to rainy and cool.  The kind of weather that makes me feel nostalgic and a bit antsy.  When I was very young my mum would say " She really doesn't have the sense enough to get out of the rain!"!  It's true.  Too many days of sunny blue skies would make me long for more exciting weather.  Some of my favorite memories coincided with rain soaked days.  Uncle Jimmy (who was actually our great uncle) adored wild weather and would take my sisters and me on spontaneous day trips and drive along the coast to wherever the waves were particularly high.  We surf fished in what seemed to be near hurricane winds at times, our bodies anchored down by weighted belts.  Still we tumbled on to the sands.

Here is one of my favorite photographs of Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Betty, my sisters and me.

Uncle Jimmy usually spent time alone on Nantucket in early autumn, but one year he invited us to visit.  We roamed the moors as he called out "Heathcliff, Heathcliff". Wuthering Heights was one of his favorite books. One day, during a horrendous rain storm, he announced that we were going to visit his friend Madaket Millie.  Lacking raincoats, we went to the store and bought big, black plastic trash bags, which we fashioned into tunics, by cutting slits for head and arms.  Off we went in the open jeep, more plastic bags atop our heads.

I was thinking that it was time for tea and I envisioned Millie to be a sweet old lady who would tut tut tut over our soaked clothing and offer us tea and cinnamon toast.  Uncle Jimmy had his own agenda.  And what turned out to be a very bad plan.  He was irked, because even though he considered Millie to be a friend, he had never set foot inside her house.  His plan was that I would take a roundabout way around the cottage and peer into her windows and later report what I had seen.  In the meantime, he and my sisters would approach the house from the front and engage Millie in conversation thereby distracting her from my activities.

Bad plan.



Millie's house looked more like a shack to me; gray and dilapidated, with electrical wiring attached to the shingles on the outside.  Out at the back, Millie was already there to greet me and any thoughts of tea and cinnamon toast quickly flew out of my head.  She stood there barefoot in the pouring rain, inspecting me from head to toe.  Her hair caught up in a careless bun, she wore a plaid skirt and a brightly flowered blouse held together in the front with wooden clothespins instead of buttons.  Most notable though, were the many dogs surrounding her and the shotgun pointed towards me.  Millie said to me, "Is that what the girls in the mainland are wearing these days?"


Millie told us wonderful stories and graciously gave us a tour of her shucking shack, which had a mountain of shells beside it and unlike her house, was tidy and spotless within.  She later apologized for the shotgun.  She mistook me for a certain girl reporter, whom she was not feeling kindly towards.


My Uncle Jimmy was a criminal lawyer.  (I am sure that the Madaket Millie peeping tom plan was a momentary aberration in behavior.) In his life he had also been a soldier, a policeman, and FBI agent.  One of his first jobs though, was that of a bricklayer. In Nantucket, we strolled along the brick paved streets of the island examining the architecture.  He taught us the names of the brickwork, windowpane patterns and door styles.  We learned about widow's walks and cupolas.  Large pieces of glass were expensive, which gave way to windows with many panes, called 12 over 12, 6 over 6, 9 over 6 etc.

Rainy days can be delightful, as long as there is tea and cinnamon toast and steaming bowlfuls of chowder available.


Potato Chowder with Chives

• one medium onion chopped medium fine
• three medium potatoes chopped
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 2 cups of milk
• Tablespoon of butter
• fresh thyme, parsley sprigs,  bay leaf gathered into a coffee filter and tied with string
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• chopped chives, chive blossoms and freshly ground nutmeg

Cook the onion in bacon fat until transparent and tender and then add the potatoes, stock and bouquet garnis. When the potatoes are cooked, reserve some of the potatoes, remove the herb bundle and blend until smooth and then pour it back into your soup kettle.  Heat 2 cups of milk with the tablespoon of butter until steaming . Do not boil.  Add the milk mixture to the potato in the soup kettle. Add the reserved potatoes.  Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.


Ladle chowder into bowl and garnish with chopped chives, chive blossoms and freshly ground nutmeg.

Hint:  When I want to simmer a soup with fresh herbs and spices for the taste, but don't want any of the actual leaves or spice bits in the soup, I make a bouquet garnis by placing the herbs in a small coffee filter and gathering it together with string.  I might not always have cheesecloth available, but I always have coffee filters.  It is like making a big tea bag.