It was a sauce that couldn't have been made without friendship. The first friendship piece was obvious: Wendy and I decided a couple of weeks ago we'd get together to make rhubarb sauce. To ease the process, she brought a delicious bottle of Three Blind Moose chardonnay. It's a true friend indeed who provides the wine.
The primary ingredient in rhubarb sauce is, of course, rhubarb. It is here that friends played the most important role. Wendy brought what rhubarb she could from her plant, about 1/3 of the amount we ended up using. I provided the other 2/3, despite not having any plants of my own. For that, I owe thanks to my friends Mandy, Monty, and Vince. They took pity on me and generously shared their abundance.
Consulting a recipe we found on-line, Wendy and I measured 12 cups of rhubarb per batch, and then added water, lemon juice, and nutmeg with loose hands. (I still haven't figured out why you need lemon juice given that rhubarb is so tart and acidic to begin with.) After taste testing, the nutmeg only went into the first batch; I prefer my rhubarb to simply taste like rhubarb.
Three batches later, we had a dozen jars of summer goodness put up for the dreary winter months. I am looking forward to cold winter mornings tempered by bowls of chewy oatmeal topped with warm rhubarb sauce, a taste acquired recently at the Wrangell Mountains Center. The tartness of the rhubarb sauce will be sweetened on those mornings by memories of all the good friends who played a part in its making. Thank you.
