YOU TOOK MY RHUBARB

The last of the macaroons have finally left the building, leaving the screen door wide open for rhubarb. I’ve been staring down the pie plant train tracks for weeks now, and much like the 4:57 enroute to Penn Station, New York, the rhubarb train is nowhere in sight.
 
Stalks were rumored to be hiding out in the produce aisle of Whole Foods last weekend, but I found that to be blatantly untrue. Despite confirmation from Mike-in-Produce, the rumors proved unfounded.
 
Someone, someone, got their greedy little hands on the slender stalks of pink and green, and it wasn’t me. I’m the type of pie girl who respects the next baker following in hot pursuit. Acknowledging my tendency to swoop in and purchase highly coveted produce in excess, I always leave behind just enough (roughly 6 cups worth) for the next pie baker, because that’s the polite thing to do.
 
Shame on you, whoever you are, who got there before me and filled your handheld basket with the last bunch of my rhubarb. I’m fairly certain that the guilty party was a formerly-from-Brooklyn-currently-living-in-Maplewood, husband and wife team spotted last Saturday in Whole Foods. Boasting perfect yoga postures, standing smack dab in what would have been the rhubarb aisle, they were in heated debate directly in front of a pyramid display of over-priced organic mandarin oranges. “I want to serve the raw cheesecake,” the woman whined. “The one you said you knew how to make.” They were going on and on about layering uncooked strawberries with the ‘other’ fruit (my rhubarb) which they were going to sweeten with some sort of agave/sorghum concoction. “And then we’ll put a layer of the non dairy coconut cream cheese on top of the fruit. Do you think that will work? It should work, shouldn’t it? You said you knew how to make this.”
 
I envisioned them dramatically hand mixing the faux dessert into a frenzy before pouring it into a springform pan lined with gluten free unsweetened cookie crumbs. Unless cookie crumbs were unacceptable because they had once been baked and were no longer considered raw. I know they took the very last of the rhubarb, rhubarb that was destined for me, rhubarb that almost  had a happy home in a baked dessert. For just a moment I considered reminding the raw couple that the leaves of the rhubarb plant are poisonous and must be removed before not baking. Surely they must know these things because they know about everything raw, especially leaves. Bitter? Not me.