So I’ve been pretty sure (for the last two years or so, but why rush?) that I have a rhubarb plant growing in my back yard. I confirmed it with a woman at bookclub on Tuesday by asking insightful questions like, “Are you sure there’s no such thing as a poisonous-to-humans rhubarb plant?”
Despite the odd looks she was shooting me, she assured me that the man-high-plant-that-looks-like-celery-with-big-leaves is indeed rhubarb that you can eat…and that there’s a great strawberry rhubarb pie recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook. And that I should give it a whirl!
Whirling…whirling…
So Wednesday? Wednesday I bought twenty bucks worth of strawberries because I was gonna make me some pie!
Yee-haw!!
Fifty minutes after starting the rhubarb harvest and prep shtick, I only had about one cup of the crunchy crap and it all had the consistency of corn husks DESPITE my attempts to peel it with the carrot peeler.
And? My hands smelled like pipe tobacc-y.
Crap! Maybe this ISN’T actually rhubarb. Book Club Lady doesn’t know everything. I’m sorry I took on the whirl challenge.
I was supposed to have two cups of rhubarb and two cups of strawberries, but I figured that if this wasn’t really rhubarb that I was peeling and husking, then one cup of it and THREE cups of strawberries might make it less deadly to humans; All while increasing my nummy pie mojo. Also, I already said about the twenty BUCKS worth of strawberries, right? So what better way to use those up than to use them up.
But hey! Here’s a fun fact!! Whatever is in this pie makes it bubble up and OVER the sides of the pie plate so that now the entire bottom of my oven is burnt to a blackened, may-have-been-rhubarb-may-NOT-have-been-rhubarb crisp. And by the time I discovered the double, bubble toil and trouble b.s. there were big black plumes of smoke roiling along the kitchen ceiling. Yep, sure wish they’d put THAT fun fact in the Betty Frickin’ Crocker cookbook! Screw you, Betty! Strike one.
So the burnt-mess-in-the-oven combined with the fibrous stalk-shards-gumming-up-my-garbage-disposal and the I-only-used-two-dollars-worth-of-strawberries-and-now-have-to-find-a-use-for-eighteen-dollars-more nonsense have turned this pie making venture into a huge PAIN IN THE A$$!
Strike two.
Finally, when it was cooked and cooled, I dished up a slice for the neighbor boy. And the kids. But they were only interested in a slice after neighbor boy had completely consumed his. I don’t think he even noticed that the kids were watching him like hawks for any signs of…distress…before they had their piece.
After which I myself was planning to take a teeeeeny-tiiiiiiny bite so that in case it WASN’T actually rhubard, I wouldn’t die. But it was only when I had fork in hand that I realized this was the same sort of gypsy-cursed pie that the protagonist in “Thinner” (by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) used on-purpose to kill his wife while also accidentally killing his daughter. The book pie was made with blood. Mine was made with fear. Still…
Strike three.
I’m out.
Pas de pie for me. (That’s French for “No pie for me.” And I know!! Why haven’t I been hired yet??? Multi-lingual on the pie topic. Come on!)
P.S. We’re still watching the neighbor boy closely. He said the pie was good and ended up having two pieces. But you never know. Deadly-may-not-be-rhubarb and/or gypsy curses might take time.
P.P.S. If you have any comments on my mothering and/or neighboring skills…then you can just shut yer everlovin’ piehole!! Heh, heh, heh. You were waiting for that, weren’t you?
Thanks for my daily dose of laughter!!
Dude/wise woman!!!! Mom made rhubarb pie ALL THE TIME when we growing up, I never had a bite!!! Yuck!