Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Finally spring has sprung.!  I think it’s safe to say that the snow has ceased, but you never know, after all we do live in Ithaca.  When the weather does whatever it does my husband says : “ It’s Ithacating”. Well let’s hope it’s stopped Ithacating for a while!

When I think of spring, I think of asparagus, tendergreen peas, daffodils and rhubarb!

I realize rhubarb to some is not so tasty, but I am convinced that they have never really eaten it at it’s best!

When I was a little girl, we had a patch out behind our house.  They were huge and I would sit out there sucking and chewing the raw stalks until my salivary glands ached and my stomach turned upside down. Well, maybe that’s not the best way to eat it but I’ll get to that.  I have always loved 'sour'. I  used to eat dill pickles by the bucket full and then when the pickles were gone I would drink the juice.  My father always laughed at my face when I did that because it would contort itself involuntarily, make my chin have deep dimples and turn my features inhuman.

My Mother would make a very simple rhubarb sauce by peeling the tough part of the stalks until she hit the tender undersides, and then chop them up along with  the pretty pink and white  stalks and throw them in a pot.  She added some sugar and water and let it boil until it looked like pink applesauce.  The smell was deliriously dizzying -- in a good way.  She often served it alongside stuffed pork chops, but most frequently, she just ladled the warm sauce into a small, deep bowl and poured some heavy cream over the top.  Oh my gosh it was good -- tangy, smooth, sweet and creamy all at once. I still can’t figure out how she is such a tiny woman.  My Mother was a butter and cream advocate and still is.  Olive oil?  What’s that?

I still make that rhubarb sauce, but I discovered strawberry rhubarb desserts in Culinary school and after that, well, let’s just say I discovered spring Nirvana!

I think strawberries and rhubarb are the quintessential dynamic duo…serving up a whammy of sour and then immediately mellowing it out with fresh strawberries and a glop of whipped cream on top… nummies!

So here is my very favorite spring dessert of strawberry rhubarb crisp…topped in a crunchy, buttery slightly sticky-caramelized crumble on top, with the luscious strawberries and rhubarb swimming beneath it.  Serve it warm ( not hot) with a slather of real whipped cream, or a not-so-dainty scoop of  Fingerlakes Creamery vanilla ice cream or vanilla gelato from Wegman’s.  You will think you died and went to rhubarb heaven!

P.S don’t you dare use cool whip -- that’s a culinary misdemeanor!

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