Another rhubarb season is here

“I was cooking for my family by age eleven,” my mother would say when folk praised her strawberry-rhubarb pie.

And that’s just one dish to claim her fame.

Although a master of savory meals, her Kentucky fried chicken, White Half Runner green beans, and yeast rolls, for instance, Mom’s strawberry-rhubarb pie still ranks number one in her food legacy.

The well-worn and splattered pie sections within her preserved cookbooks prove Sadie Lee McCoy O’Brien loved to roll dough and fill it with fruit.

Her cookbooks also reveal Mom ventured from fruit pies to pecan and custards, such as the Southern Chess Pie, my absolute favorite.

As springs multiply since Mom’s passing, and I attempt to consume less sweets, I control my craving for strawberry- rhubarb pie by necessity.

Yet, every rhubarb season I recall the day about age eight when I ventured into the woods at the end of our new subdivision in Warren.

A happy wanderer (as the song I learned in music class said), I recognized the wild rhubarb from my family’s visit to cousin Mabel’s house where she, her two little boys, and husband lived.

There, upon one visit, my mother filled a bushel basket full of rhubarb and put it in the trunk of Dad’s Chrysler.

Within the scent of the dark, damp, cool woods, I pulled arms full the same large, green leaves and ruby red stems from the earth.

Muddied and giddy with hope and the possibility of Mom’s pie, my mother laughed until she cried when she answered our front door.

I didn’t recall this day, however, when my late husband and I bought our first house. To our bliss, the Berkley backyard offered rich soil and enough sunlight for a small vegetable garden.

Our tomatoes and cucumbers offered enough harvest for my first canning experience.

Yet, rhubarb wasn’t a necessity like tomatoes and cukes. My mother’s Bread and Butter Pickles, for instance, became Mel’s favorite snack, right out of the jar.

Be sure, our opinion and tastes matured by the time we laid eyes on the vacant land we homesteaded with plenty of room for growing lavender and rhubarb.

So, we extended a row of lavender with fifteen rhubarb plants that thrived for fifteen years, several after we closed the lavender farm.

Meanwhile, I never could replicate the flavor I recall from a mouthful of Mom’s strawberry- rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream.

Therefore, I canned strawberry-rhubarb preserves, harvested bundles of rhubarb and tied them with twine for Fogler’s Farm Market for sale.

Truly, exhilarating days.

Dear Reader, last week my friend Erna, a farm and garden friend, helped me dig up most of the rhubarb until night fell. She took several bags to distribute to neighbors.

This week, another farm staff, MaryEllen, and I pulled up the weed cloth.

Now, to plant grass seed where the rhubarb grew and observe this new season of my life grow.

Perhaps I’ll have some time to take another shot at baking a strawberry-rhubarb pie.

Contact Iris at irisfarmletters@gmail.com