It was worth it. It was worth getting up on a morning where I just wanted to stay in bed, going to work, fighting the crowds, doing my nonsensical box-factory dance, going outside in a rainstorm that did nothing to relieve the humidity. If I hadn’t got out of bed, I never would have gone to the farmer’s market to pick up my eggs; nor would I have wondered if there was any rhubarb left; nor would I have discovered that the ladies who sell me my asparagus had the first strawberries of the season. Had I not had an appointment with my mental health professional tonight, and had I not weighed myself down with two dozen eggs, I would have gone to town at the market. We would have a fridge full of arugula and upland cress and mustard greens and chard (red and green) and kale and mixed lettuces and zucchini blossoms and Thai holy basil.
As it is, I have three pounds of rhubarb and two quarts of strawberries—although now I have just under two quarts, thanks to some necessary prodigious quality control on my part ("well, that one’s getting soft and bruisy; if I leave it there, it will rot, and then the rest of the basket will rot, and we can’t have that!"). Now I have questions, the kind of questions that help me drift into sweet sleep: what am I going to do with this fruit? Do I get an early start on my annual Festival of Jams, Jellies and Preserves and make jam? Do I make my favorite dessert from childhood, the recipe of my sainted Swedish great-grandmother for a dish that probably should be called compote, but which she always called, simply, Rhubarb and Strawberries? Do I save the strawberries for strawberry shortcake, particularly the tarragon-flecked variety created by Claudia Fleming? Do I macerate them in sugar, crush them in their syrup and add them to whipped cream for strawberry fool? Do we have any meringues to crumble into that strawberry fool? What about the rhubarb? Should I make plain rhubarb jam, or another grunt? Should I poach them in a syrup, maybe throw a little tardio into the syrup, bake the rhubarb into a custardy vanilla cake batter, reduce the syrup into a jelly?
Dear friends, around the third week of April I ask myself, self, is it *really* so important to wait until the local strawberries come in? Sitting on my desk this afternoon, those strawberries answered my question. Such a bright, deep, heady fragrance. Such a bright, deep, heady taste. Such promise, such hope, in such a small, beautiful package.
It is indeed the Union Square Greenmarket of which I speak. I do most of my grocery shopping there, and except for those 2-degree, minus-17-wind-chill winter days, I am there every Saturday. Now I’m curious to know which bread place it is, because one of my old bakery pals works at one of those stands. I wonder if it’s the same fella…
Ahhh, I knew there were teeming masses of closet rhubarb groupies out there. Let us crack our knuckles and get down to business.
Alicia, no worries.
As you may have ascertained from everyone’s comments, rhubarb and strawberry is a dream combination. There is just something about the tartness of rhubarb that makes it a natural with berry flavors. In general I don’t like to cook strawberries; they are at their best raw, but something about cooking them with rhubarb brings a whole ‘nother level of beauty to them. I keep meaning to make rhubarb and strawberry pie, or tart, but more often than not, I either turn them into jam or I just make Rhubarb and Strawberries from my Mormor’s recipe. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you’re adventurous), the best way to find the best-tasting rhubarb something is to just take the plunge. If you can find rhubarb-strawberry jam, start with that. If you can find a jam made without high-fructose corn syrup, so much the better!
Jamie, send that turnover recipe over with all speed, please! (Or whenever you have a moment.) I live in a neighborhood where you can’t swing a cat without hitting a Greek bakery, so finding phyllo is not a problem.
Molly, you have divined the secret of my quality control. This was me at my desk yesterday: “Gee, those smell good. Better make sure the bag’s not leaking. Oh, look, this one looks all soft. Starting to bruise up a bit. Don’t want to let it spoil. [munch] Oh, look, there’s another one...[munch]...” By the time the “bad” berries were culled, separated and devoured, I looked like Lady Macbeth.
Snowball, if you fly in on Saturday, not only will that give me a chance to pick up more strawberries, but if you time your flight right, you can get in after Lloyd has installed the new air conditioner we’re buying on Saturday morning.