We were wandering around the opening day of our local farmers' market last week when I noticed a booth with a few scraggly pieces of organic rhubarb poking out of a basket. So, naturally, we practically mowed the little old lady in front of us over to get to it, before she got wise and tried to get it herself. We bought nine sticks in all, but only after trying to convince Emilia that it wasn't quite the dubious proposition she was envisioning it to be. And this was no easy feat as I had never actually had rhubarb before -- and had always viewed it as having a rather suspicious (not to mention celeriac) nature. In fact, every time I think of it to this day, I envision walking home from school as a kid and trampling all over the wild rhubarb that grew over parts of the sidewalk. (Apparently it is quite a hardy plant...)
And so, that very night, wanting to make haste with our freshly harvested rhubarb, and not having even a little bit of energy or desire to make a pie, I settled on Rhubarb Fool. Also, never having had any sort of fool before, I thought it looked divine and easy to make. So there you go. After dinner that night, kids in bed, Michael and I plopped down on the cold couch in the living room and had ourselves some rhubarb fool. I very nearly hurled. It was awful, and atrocious, and really really really not good.
