Rhubarb Water

Rhubarb is a lovely, if strange plant. It looks like a rosy celery, but eats like a fruit. My dear friend used to eat it raw as a child, dipping the stem into a bowl of sugar before each bite. Now my youngest son does the same. For years I hung around when it was time to cut my moma's rhubarb, batting puppy dog eyes to get any extra that she had. Now I have my own plants and I am so happy! I have even frozen it and had a strawberry-rhubarb pie in winter. It was summertime on a plate!

Now that I have my own, I feel more free to, er...squander it on strange purposes. Like rhubarb water. I first heard of it on one of Laura Calder's shows, French Food at Home. I first saw her after my husband got satellite tv and the world of a million channels was opened to us. Turn out all but about two of the million are pure trash, but I digress. I found the Cooking Channel. After a week of watching a little of everything from everyone, I discovered something shocking. It seemed every show I watched was someone wanting to tell me how they had perfected mom's meatloaf. Or the hamburger. Or they had "gourmet-ed" a hot dog. Oh. My. Heavens.

I was ready to throw in the televised cooking towel until I found Ms. Calder. She was a lovely lady living in France. She always wore dresses, rode a bicycle, lived in a beautiful old house, and served her food on old, mismatched transferware plates. We were soul mates. Twins separated at birth. At the very least I was her biggest fan. Because she cooked great food. French dishes, made applicable to the regular home cook. It didn't hurt that she was funny. I was smitten. 

And one day Laura showed the recipe for rhubarb water. She sipped genteelly at it and said how lovely it was on a hot day. I thought, I too shall make this mystic libation...if I ever have enough rhubarb. Fast forward several years and the heartbreak of my only cooking show fix being discontinued. I was teaching biology and one of the moms saw that I had rhubarb. She and her daughters began to reminisce about how she used to make rhubarb water for them in the summer and how they missed it. Yes, Dear Reader, the seeds were sown. They just took another full year to germinate. What I can say, I'm a slow bloomer.

This year I found Laura Calder's recipe online and I commenced. It was a little heart panging to see how much rhubarb it took, but I had just made a strawberry-rhubarb pie that week and was feeling reckless with the bounty I had left.

Here are the super simple ingredients-

2 pounds rhubarb, washed and chopped into chunks
3/4 cups sugar
juice of 1/2 a lemon

So, you put the chopped rhubarb in a big bowl and pour over 4 cups of boiling water. The recipe says to cover the bowl. I didn't want to use cling wrap and worry that the condensation from the hot mix would dilute the juice. So I draped over a dishcloth.

This is the rhubarb the second day. Look at the difference from the above picture. It is literally drained- of color and juice.

The next day you strain the liquid into a saucepan. (I also squeezed my rhubarb chunks viciously to get every precious drop. I'm weird that way.) Add the sugar and lemon juice and bring to a boil. I didn't have a lemon so I did a capful of lemon juice. I might should have added more, but live and learn.

You could see that my rhubarb is more green than red. Yet the juice was still turned a lovely blush color. No food coloring added.

Boil for 5 minutes, then cool and taste. Add more lemon juice if necessary. Strain into a bottle and cork or cap. Refrigerate and serve cold.

I saved a bottle that had a French Berry soda in it. It seemed the perfect container for a dreamy pink drink. The mason jar holds the excess.

 I served this alongside Elderflower Cordial that was to be mixed with sparkling water. I tried the Rhubarb Water alone, and with the bubbly water and both were lovely, in different ways. Now I've done it. 

Rhubarb Water? Check. Ah, life is good.

 "Well Art is Art isn't it? Still on the other hand water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know." ~Groucho Marx

Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know. Groucho Marx
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/grouchomar102019.html

Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know. Groucho Marx
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/grouchomar102019.html

Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know. Groucho Marx
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/grouchomar102019.html