RHUBARB

MY MOM’S favorite pie in the world is strawberry rhubarb, and for pastry chefs after a long winter, rhubarb marks the reentry to the garden. With rhubarb, the answer to the oft-asked question “Can you eat that?” is emphatically “yes” when it comes to the celery-like stalks, and even more emphatically “NO!” if you’re referring to their enormous leaves, which are toxic. The redness of the stems is not a sign of ripeness; each variety has its own signature color ranging from green to pink to crimson. Rhubarb, for me, represents a plant from an earlier time, when we were less certain to find abundance in our markets and it was necessary to find ingenious ways to use this strange, extremely hardy plant. Rhubarb’s flavor reminds us of our past even as it opens our taste buds to new possibilities.