Backyard rhubarb crisp

Until I moved to Boston when I was 23, it just never occurred to me that backyards don’t automatically come fully equipped with rhubarb.  All my life I’d just had rhubarb there for me each summer (in cold places it doesn’t appear until summer!).  Even my apartment in college had rhubarb in the yard!  So, when I moved to Boston and the time of year rolled around when I start pining for rabarbra suppe (rhubarb soup) or rhubarb cake or pie or compote, I was a little shocked to find that our tiny snippet of a back yard didn’t deliver.

None of my apartments since then have come with rhubarb either!  It’s terrible really.  I’d like to register a complaint!!  Also, did you know that if you plant a rhubarb, you have to wait two years to harvest any or you might kill it.  How terribly inconvenient for your transient early twenties!  But, this may finally be the year to pop one into the vegetable garden.  We’ll see.  (Speaking of veggie gardens, did you know that rhubarb is really a vegetable?  And – most people already know this, but it’s always good to be reminded – the leaves are poisonous, so cut them off and don’t eat them!!  And wash your hands and the stalks.)

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