When I was a child my mother grew rhubarb in the garden. We would pluck it from the plant, place our little hands on either end of the stalk and bend it until the fibers burst. Then, where it broke apart, we would take a bite and the sourness would seize our muscles, our eyes clinched shut, while the delicious tartness filled our mouths. The rhubarb was my favorite part of the garden. I would ask my mother all summer when she was going to make the rhubarb crisp, when would we have rhubarb pie, and could we have rhubarb with our lunch.

I loved to help my family garden as a child. My father would swear as the tiller got stuck once again in the thick red clay of our Michigan yard. My mother would warn me not to plant things too close together. I liked it when my mother handed me a fresh green bean and said, “Here, Boo, try this one.” I loved to watch the little green tomatoes appear and check every day to see if they were turning red yet. I liked to peak beneath the big scratchy leaves of the squash to see what lay underneath. I liked it when the zucchini was ripe because my mother would dip it in egg batter and fry it for dinner.

But the best part, the best part was the smell of rhubarb crisp in the oven. The cinnamon, sour, sweet, crumbly taste that happened only at that certain time of the year. If we were lucky we got it with ice cream. I am not sure if it tasted better hot or cold. It held together better when it was cold and there was something about the savoring of leftovers to the last little crumble.

I had not eaten rhubarb in twenty years. Every once in a while I thought about it, but it was nowhere to be found in Los Angeles. No one had eaten it. No one grew it. No one sold it. No one understood the snap of the stalk and the spasm inducing sourness. I got used to thinking I would never have it again. I got used to not thinking about it and forgot for a while.

Then one sunny June Saturday I was standing amongst the crowd at the Farmer’s Market in Portland, Oregon. I looked up to discover a display full of delectable baked goods. “I’ll treat myself to a macaroon,” I thought. But these were no ordinary goods and as I scanned the menu I saw the word. These were rhubarb cookies. These were rhubarb macaroons, rhubarb muffins and rhubarb bars. Everything came in rhubarb.

“How did they know?” I thought. “How did they know I love rhubarb?” I wanted to eat every single one of them so I could hold my childhood on my tongue. Could I buy them all and just keep them in a bag with me? Could I take them back to California to keep me company? I texted my friends, “They have rhubarb here.”

And it began appearing everywhere. Every restaurant I visited in Portland had rhubarb on the menu – in the salad, on the side, as dessert. Every time I saw the word it made me smile, like catching a glimpse of a long lost friend, like hearing the voice of your favorite person right before they appear. Rhubarb.

Is it crazy that a vegetable can make me so happy? This vegetable that tastes like a fruit, that tastes so sour it hurts your face, that nobody else has heard of or tasted and yet when you think of eating it, it almost makes you cry?

It’s just a plant. It’s just a flavor. It’s just a thing.

No. It is everything that was right in my childhood. It is my childhood. And it makes me feel I am home.

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