It's rhubarb time.

 On Thursday a friend and I went shopping at an Amish bakery (needless to say I bought some goodies there) and then at an Amish market.  I bought more goodies at the market including some really excellent apple butter.  On the plus side I zipped right through the candy aisle without picking anything up.  But as I examined the fresh produce, I found rhubarb, lovely long fresh stalks of it.  I quickly gathered up five stalks to take home.  Now I knew, deep in my heart, that I would probably not get around to making that rhubarb into pie, but sweet memories won out over common sense.  Just looking at that rhubarb reminded me of going out into the garden with my brother and a salt shaker, snapping off stalks of rhubarb, sprinkling it with salt and eating it raw.  It was delicious. A true taste of spring.  I also remember a visit with my west coast brother and sister-in-law, when she cut one very tall stalk of rhubarb from an old growth bunch and made a truly delicious pie.  And of course there was my step-mom's strawberry rhubarb pie - outstanding.  But as I said, I knew deep down that i really wouldn't be making a pie so today I searched Google for rhubarb recipes and found a super easy recipe for rhubarb sauce.  Basically, bring chopped up rhubarb and pure maple syrup to a boil for two minutes, turn off the heat, let cool, refrigerate or freeze.  I knew immediately that this was my kind of recipe.  The directions said that this sauce is good with granola and yoghurt.  I'm sure it will be, but since I didn't have those items on hand, and in the interest of fair reporting I am eating it now on vanilla ice cream.  It is really good and I'm feeling rather virtuous because I found a use for that rhubarb.  And oh, by the way, I did hold back a piece of one stalk to eat raw with salt. Just as good as I remembered.