225/365

"You're not from here," said the checkout guy, as he looked skeptically at the two thick red-green stalks. "Only people from up north buy this."

Yeah. No kidding. One time, oh, seven and more years ago, my friends would beg me to take a bagful home from church, the garden bounty they were delighted to share. On Saturday (my Nebraska and Iowa friends, please sit down because you will gasp and need a deep breath...) I paid an obscene $4.98 a pound for that south Texas produce rarity. Is it a fruit? Is it a vegetable? It is rhubarb.

Honestly, it wasn't a choice. Because what says summer better than Strawberry-Rhubarb pie?

I don't remember eating rhubarb as a kid growing up in New Mexico. My Grandma Cole was a pie maker extraordinaire, so surely she would have made that variety... But I remember the first time I had Strawberry-Rhubarb pie. I think it was the summer before 5th grade. It was brought over as dessert for a meal from friends when my Grammy died. I sat at the table downstairs and watched the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and ate pie. Apparently this kid didn't lose her appetite easily. A pie never tasted so very good.

I can't remember how old I was when I started climbing on the kitchen step stool chair to be right next to my grandma while she made pies. And then I married into a family with Grandma Lorraine, the pie-making matriarch who delighted to share her crust recipe with an interested granddaughter-in-law. But it took moving to the Midwest before Strawberry-Rhubarb got back in the rotation. (cue "happy baking music") Really, tell me what's not to like about rhubarb? Rhubarb pie, rhubarb cake, rhubarb pastries, rhubarb punch... rhubarb all summer long.

Then we moved to the US/Mexico border. (cue "screeching halt")
Which brings us to the moment of The Happy Dance in the HEB produce section when on a Saturday rhubarb makes its surprise annual appearance.
Even if it is $4.98 a pound.
Sigh.

It was worth it.

(Here's the recipe that guided me this year- Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Improved. But (confession), I changed my usual crust recipe for all-butter and regretted it. You're right, Grandma Lorraine- it's got to be Crisco.)


SaveSave