Ingredient Impulse Buy: Rhubarb

 You know that cooking is in your blood when you walk past a green grocer and it stops you in your tracks.  All you can think of is recipes, possibilities. The ingredients dance around in your brain and time stops-- so much that you forget your bike shop is just a few doors down, and that it's closing in 15 minutes with or without you recovering your newly repaired ride. You can't help but pick up that bundle of rhubarb and wonder if you have enough butter in your fridge for some tart dough.

Maybe I'd be a more efficient shopper without all of these constant culinary temptations, but I think there's some value in letting the mind wander a bit in these contexts.  Besides, rhubarb season in Denmark is a celebration of sorts. It's well-loved status is due not only to tarts (a favorite of mine), but to rhubarb's role as a symbol of the summertime and a reward for the many months of cold and darkness endured.  It's just one of the many new beginnings you can experience through the change of seasons.  Maybe it's when you make a big rhubarb pie for your loved ones, or maybe it's when local bakeries start their first offerings of rhubarb muffins and tarts.  One thing is for sure, this transition to the season of sunshine and a kitchen full of rhubarb is something to savor. So here I am with a bundle of rhubarb, in search of the perfect recipe. While this is a typical case of an ingredient impulse buy, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.