I’ve made this enough times now to consider it a specialty. I originally got the recipe from the epicurean website, but I re-arranged and reformatted to make it more in keeping with my preparation (the first time I made it last year, I overlooked the syrup step which added time; the second time I forgot to put half the ‘crunch’ in the bottom of the pan).

Rhubarb Crunch

Ingredients:

Part 1
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon vanilla

Part 2
1 cup flour
3/4 to 1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup butter

Part 3
4 cups sliced rhubarb

Directions:
Combine ingredients from part 1 and cook on medium heat until clear. Meanwhile, combine ingredients from part 2 and mix until creamy.
Spread half on bottom of a 9×9 or 8×12 pan.

Place rhubarb (part 3) on top of batter.
Pour syrup (part 1) over rhubarb and sprinkle remaining batter on top.
Cook in preheated oven at 375F for 1 hour.
Serve hot, with a small scoop of ice cream.

I heard Billy Collins (former poet laureate of the US) on Prairie Home Companion this afternoon, and was reminded of a wonderful poem I heard him read a few weeks ago, from an older show. It’s called The Lanyard. The poem itself is available all around the web, but I think it really helps to hear Collins read it himself. I heard it on this show, which if I remember correctly, was a broadcast combining many previous poetry readings. Anyway, listen to segment 1. Billy Collins starts about 19 minutes into the segment, and the poem starts at about 25:50 into the segment. I don’t have any lanyards, but I do have a lanyard-holder or two! [you'll have to listen to Collins to understand this reference]

The Lanyard

Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

This evening I overheard neighbors explaining vegetarianism to their eldest daughter. Sometime later, around dinnertime, I heard the mother exclaim in exasperation, “{child}, you can’t be a vegetarian if you won’t eat vegetables!”

If it were all up to T-boy, we’d just eat chocolate and strawberries all the time! Actually, T-boy and Z-boy might do okay as vegetarians, especially if fried potatoes of the skinny “french” form factor were included. C-boy, on the other hand, would probably just be a sourdough-breadarian (although to his credit, he’s the only one willing to eat tomato-based pasta sauces).

March and April are hard months for those in northern climes who try to eat local and seasonal. There are only so many root crops and cold-storage apples you can eat. (Even the local apples start disappearing from the stores by that point!) The grocery stores are filling up with strawberries from California, mangoes from tropical regions, and so on, tempting one to fall off the local bandwagon in favor of variety and tasty goodness. (And yes, I fell off the wagon for both strawberries and mangoes.)

May is the turning point. Our Wednesday Farmer’s Market opens up in May (the Saturday one is more year-long), so I consider May to be the real start of spring. The early weeks are a profusion of color: bedding plants, vegetable and herb seedlings, hanging plants. You can also find lots of greens, and the dregs of cold storage apples (red delicious mostly, yawn). But the real star is asparagus. Asparagus, asparagus, and more asparagus - finished up with rhubarb for dessert if you find the right vendors!

I’ve decided my favorite treatment of asparagus is a variation on one in Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian (page 136) that I posted last year. I haven’t dug around in my freezer to see if I have any frozen green chiles from last season, so I’ve been using roasted sweet peppers from a jar [so much for local!], and increasing the pine nut ratio [ditto!], and really lovin’ it.

Asparagus with Pine Nuts

1 lb (fresh! local!) asparagus, trimmed, peeled (if you wish), cut into thirds
1 to 1.5 Tab olive oil
3 Tab pine nuts
some finely chopped roasted sweet red peppers
1/2 tsp salt (I’ve used green chile salt) in 3 Tab water
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp soy sauce
1 Tab oriental sesame oil

(Jaffrey has you soak the asparagus in water for 15 to 30 minutes before cooking to keep it crisp, but I haven’t found this to be a problem. Be sure to drain well if you soak.)

Combine sugar, lemon juice, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Put the olive oil in a large sauté or frying pan and set over medium heat. When very hot, put in the pine nuts. Stir once or twice until the pine nuts are golden and then remove them with a slotted spoon and spread on paper towels. (I suppose it would be easier to just toast them to golden brown in a 350F toaster oven, but you might be missing some flavor elements from the oil.)

Quickly put the peppers into the oil. Stir once and put in the asparagus and salted water. Stir gently to mix and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook on medium heat for 3 minutes, or until the asparagus is just done. Uncover and add the sugar, lemon juice, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Stir to mix, boiling away most of the liquid as you do this. Add the pine nuts, toss, and serve immediately.

I’ve served this over rice as a very filling one bowl dinner, and as a side dish for 3 or more adults . Now if I could just convince our two somewhat-veggie-adventurous boys that eating “spears” make you better prepared for sword and light saber battles… (Hopefully the non-adventurous one will see the light as an adult!)