Rhubarb, my promise of spring

I had the most wonderful surprise this morning.  Last night my guy was watching how I transcribe the emails for my press release strategy.  I have to admit I was complaining a little bit about how boring it is, okay maybe I was complaining a lot.  The first thing he did was find an easier way to copy them over.  He will often say I am bit rammy, which is his way of saying I can be impatient and I have to admit once I saw how he was doing it, I readily could admit it was much simpler.  And then this morning I woke up to discover that he spent a couple of hours last night while I was sleeping copying more over for me.  As a consequence, I finished the United Kingdom this morning!  I have an email address for every editor at every newspaper in the United Kingdom, Scotland, Ireland and England, big or small, local or national that was available on the Internet!  You should see the list.  It is a great feeling having that little bit of work done; I have the best husband in the world.  And so now this morning I can start on the United States!  I hope I have more nocturnal helpers.

I just finished making an upside down rhubarb cake to take to dinner tonight at my brother and sister-in-laws.  It smells so good baking right now.  I just love rhubarb and as I was making it this morning with chopped frozen homegrown rhubarb that I took out of the freezer, I was thinking about how many associations I have with it.  This cake I am baking is one of my favourites, moist, flavourful, with crunchy, sweet topping, great with vanilla ice cream.  My mother used to make rhubarb sauce in the spring for us, boiled down rhubarb sweetened with sugar and served in a bowl or over ice cream.  I remember pulling it my the stock from the ground and biting into that sour, stringy stalk and running to the door to plead for a small bowl of sugar to dip it into and sitting on the front stoop dipping and chewing and thinking it was the best treat.  But more than all, it is that first rhubarb pie of the spring that makes my mouth water, the tender green and pinkish rhubarb, mixed with sugar, thickening in the pie, and boiling over, dripping and hissing in the oven, the pastry flaking and browning and ending up covered in that delicious sweet sticky, almost toffee textured glaze atop the pie.  I love that first bite out of the first pie of the season, the grass still greening, the leaves just unfolding and daffodils in the garden.  It is a taste of spring, the last bite of winter, the promise of things to come.  The first pie is always the best, no matter how tasty the others that follow are.  It is always a taste of a promise fulfilled, that the snow will leave and summer is just around the doorstep.  Today’s cake is baked in hope of that first pie and the end of this snow.  Tonight eating it with family no one else will know what hopes I baked into this cake but I will know and, looking around at loved ones, I will know what I have hoped for all of them.