on mothers and rhubarb

The rhubarb is in season and I am missing my mother. This first Spring without her and her strawberry rhubarb pie. When someone you love dies, there are so many regrets. My regrets are all the recipes of Mom's that I didn't write down, like her pies, her banana bread, and her pound cake. And that is just the sweet stuff. I must have been paying attention since I became a chef and restaurant owner, and I am infused with the love of cooking and baking that my mother gave me.

It has been a cool and damp Spring here in the Northwest. Last Saturday I nearly froze myself at our wonderful farmers market. What made the trip worthwhile was the big pile of rhubarb for sale at Pete & Mary's booth. They own Wildwood Farms and I have been buying great produce from them for years. If fact, there are so many great farmers I want to write about, but that will come later, and especially as the summer hits and I am buying two times a week from the farmers for the restaurant and home.

Anyway, back to the rhubarb! The Husband, bless his heart, carried my two very full bags all through the market. One bag had various greens, handmade cheeses, and free range eggs. The other was stuffed with about 20 pounds of rhubarb. I brought the goodies back to the restaurant. A couple of days later on my day off, I loaded up my milk crate with rhubarb & strawberries from the walk-in. I have been dreaming about Mom's strawberry-rhubarb pie all week. Last night I lovingly cut up the rhubarb and the berries, taking photos so that I could record the step by step process of making a pie. But this is a deeply emotional ritual for me right now. 

So the pie will happen tomorrow. For now I am remembering and stewing on a lifetime of experiences involving rhubarb. Like the foggy image of being a little girl in my grandparents garden, playing & hiding in the rhubarb. This was the Midwest, so the leaves get quite enormous, probably big enough to bundle a big baby in. My grandmother taught me to eat the rhubarb raw, dipping it in sugar. What a great early taste-bud memory; the puckering tartness of rhubarb mixed with the gritty sweetness of sugar! And then there were the pies, every early summer, Mom's unbeatable crust, surrounded by the sweetness of fresh strawberries, intermingled with the sublime contrast of the rhubarb. And sometimes just the rhubarb from the garden turned into a warm compote and spooned over vanilla ice cream! Mmmmm.

Last May 5th, The Husband's mother Anne turned 90 years, and loved rhubarb as much as me and my Mom. For Anne's birthday dinner, my Mom made the last rhubarb strawberry pie she would ever make. We lost both of our Mother's a month apart this past summer. They say the first year is always the hardest when you lose someone. So this is my first Spring without my Mother, and her pies.


So when I make that pie this week, it is a tribute to her, Regina, my Mom. The bitterness and the sweet, the loss and the love for her, the strawberries and the rhubarb.