Reminiscing Re: Rhubarb

I went ahead and made the rhubarb-strawberry crisp the other night.

It was delish. Just ask Taylor. Or Katie. Or Todd. Um, no. Don’t ask Todd.  Poor guy didn’t get any. Guess I’ll just have to make another one.

All this talk of rhubarb reminded me of a funny story from long ago. Shortly after Todd and I were married my parents came to visit us in Arkansas. While I was at work one day my mother called and asked if I wanted her to make a pie out of the rhubarb in the fridge.

I was momentarily stunned/excited because I had never seen rhubarb in the store and frankly, I missed it. It’s not that I had it all the time in California, but my grandfather grew it and my grandmother made the tastiest of rhubarb pies at Thanksgiving.  After being so far from home for a while I had a powerful hankering for a little sweet and tart nostalgia.

“There isn’t any rhubarb in the fridge,” I told her. “You can’t even buy it in the store here.” She swore there was rhubarb in the vegetable crisper and my feeble little brain couldn’t quite compute this scenario.

All of a sudden it hit me. “Oh mom! Don’t make a pie out of that! It’s not rhubarb! It’s old celery!”

Yup. The celery had been in the crisper so long that it had molded a reddish hue and looked just like rhubarb! To this day I thank God that she called to ask instead of just doing. Though I’m pretty sure she would have figured it out when she cut into the first stalk.

I am proud to tell you I’ve never had celery turn red since.