Pet Peeves

I am thoroughly disgusted. For three days there's been virtually no action on this site. No one to argue with, no one to complain to, so I'd better start off a topic by myself.

Now my pet peeve is Rhubarb, I hate it. I could go on about how I was force-fed it as a kid, but I'll start this thing off when I was about 12 years old. We, my Dad, brother and I, were renovating our kitchen and in the process of moving the forced hot air duct work when I noticed my Dad with a puzzled look on his face, staring at a hot air register. In his left hand he held a screwdriver, and on the tip was a wad of brownish-red, fibrous, carmelized goo, with more of the same on the sides of the register. He looked at me, wordlessly, demanding an explanation.
"Oh, that. That's Mom's Rhubarb compote..."
His face turned cloudy, then cleared with a look of comprehension, and then finally an expression of sneaking admiration.

Now both my parents grew up in WWII Europe, and food just wasn't wasted. When we moved into our house there was a patch of Rhubarb stalks, and my Mom, not being familiar with the plant, asked neighbors for ideas on how to utilize the plant. She was told to cut it 50/50 with strawberries, make compotes, preserves, or pies. They forgot to tell her to peel it, and at the time we had no strawberry plants. Sufficient to say all of us kids had a healthy hate for the plant, and me being the smallest, could get away with crawling under the table and dumping the stuff down the hot air register.

A few years later, the Rhubarbs stalk took over the garden, crowding out Mom's precious pole beans and carrots. Then, joy of joys, my brother and I were given the task of cutting the stalks back. We did--with axes and shovels, poured Javex down the exposed stalks, and then flambeéd the stalks with BBQ lighter fluid.

But the plant grew back, albeit with weaker stalks. Never liking garden work, at age 8 I personally dug three feet down and got most of the roots. After that, I would patrol that particular area and yank out anything green that dared sprout out.

To this day I can't look at Rhubarb, will probably never eat it, and look at people who claim they like it as if they came from Mars...

By Chefspike (Chefspike) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 09:22 pm: Edit

hello earthling....
i'm from mars.

By George (George) on Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 08:44 am: Edit

I can totally understand your feeling, anything force fed will be resented and without the strawberries it is pretty yucky stufff especially un peeled.

However I love strawberry-rhubarb pie.

G