Bearing Gifts Part 2

  My grandmother grew rhubarb,  and each year in late spring there would be a jar of homemade rhubarb compote in her refrigerator door.  Sometimes after lunch she would carefully potion out a dollop of this precious sauce over plain yogurt and eat it slowly.  I turned up my nose at the strange pink mixture, preferring maple syrup on my yogurt.  But I know she loved her rhubarb-- I can still see  her smiling gently as she ate it, the smile showing in the crinkles by her her eyes rather than her serious mouth.

  I discovered I like rhubarb about forty years later, when my neighbor Rick gave me some stalks last spring.  Rick's family and mine have an unspoken, twenty year mutual non-involvement pact that has served both families well, but recently we've modified our relationship to include limited transfers of garden produce. I gave him some arugula last spring, and he gave me some rhubarb.

  I took the rhubarb inside and put it on the kitchen counter. It looked like a pile of pink celery. How exactly was I supposed to cook it? I went to my shelf of cookbooks and started reading.

  My favorite rhubarb recipe is simple. Chop  a big handful of clean rhubarb stalks into half inch pieces, pile in an ovenproof dish with a quarter cup of good strawberry jam an a couple of spoonfuls of sugar or honey, and bake in a three hundred and fifty degree oven until soft-- maybe half an hour. Serve warm or cold over yogurt, ice cream, or cake. 

  I became addicted to the stuff, just like my grandmother.  I couldn't keep asking Rick for stalks-- I needed my own supply!  Luckily he said his patch was overgrown, and offered mt some divisions in the spring.

  I thought about those rhubarb divisions quite a lot this winter, and where I would put them.  I didn't remind Rick  of his offer during the  long cold snap in March, but last week I saw him getting his newspaper when I was walking the dog, and asked him if the offer was still good.  Yes, and they'd be dug that weekend.

  I came home from work on Saturday to find a big cardboard box from the liquor store by my gate, so full of rhubarb and dirt I could barely lift it. I had just the place for them, a new bed next to Sol's doghouse that I had stayed out until dark Friday night weeding.  I added a liberal amount of horse manure and planted the rhubarb.  Three big divisions (giant compared to the small pieces I had seen for sale at the box stores) spaced about two feet apart. If the middle one gets too big I'll move it, leaving plenty of space for the other two.  My mouth is watering at the thought of many years of rhubarb and yogurt ahead. Thanks Rick, thanks grandmother Alice.