What’s the best thing about spring?

I know, everything.  But if you focus, bring it down to the details and ignore radishes, then it’s got to be rhubarb.  And one rhubarb plant (which over the years becomes two, then three, then…) will supply enough rhubarb for a family of three, plus the neighbors. My rhubarb plant is living proof of this.

I always make rhubarb cake to celebrate the first of the season. And this year, I’ve been making rhubarb poached in vanilla syrup, over and over again because it is SO DELICIOUS.  I like to serve it over fromage blanc, which is simply fresh cheese.  It works as a sauce for fish or chicken, and it works really well just all by itself right off the spoon.

It’s very easy to make, though you need some good music to get you through the dicing.  As is my predilection, I turn to Paul Simon, whose elegant tones are ideal for dicing.  (I saw him in concert last year and unfortunately wasn’t able to tell him this, but I hope to someday…!)

In any case, there is just one slight argument when it comes to rhubarb, and I just had it with my 97-year-old mother and eminence grise in the kitchen.  I was making her a rhubarb tart, and I began to peel the rhubarb which was  tough of skin.  “My mother would NEVER have peeled the rhubarb,” she said from her chair where she sat, watching.  “In fact she may be turning in her grave at this moment.”

Now, as anyone who is a mother or who has a mother knows, such proclamations are welcome on a scale from 0 to …0.  But given that my mother is the brightest bulb in any lamp in the room, and that her memory of the distant past sharpens by the day, and that she is still one of the finest cooks I know, I stopped to consider. My grandmother – my mother’s mother – was my first cooking teacher.  Her food rests in my memory as the most flavorful I’ve tasted, from her lamb shanks and turnip greens to her oxtail and hominy creations, not to mention her cornbread, her cookies, her winter soups rife with tender barley.  My mother’s cooking, too, was an inspiration.  A slave to variety, she rarely cooked the same dish twice so that when it came time to gather family recipes together, we had about three that we remembered eating more than once.

Back to rhubarb. I stood in my mother’s kitchen peeling rhubarb, with her eagle eyes watching me.  Fortunately, I could redeem my actions (once a daughter, always a daughter) by pointing out to her how tough the skin was.  She was simply curious, and said that she would probably peel her rhubarb the next time.  At 97, she is still learning.

So, this has ended up being a blog post about my amazing mother, and rhubarb.  Fitting.

Here is the recipe for Rhubarb Poached in Vanilla Syrup with Fromage Blanc.  If you can’t find fromage blanc, you can drain Greek Yogurt and use that, or large curd cottage cheese that you’ve whipped smooth.  Or vanilla ice cream, or simply by itself from the spoon.

Here is the recipe for Rhubarb Poached in Vanilla Syrup over Fromage Blanc! Bon Appétit!

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