 |  | 
 
 Photo shows 6 sizes of tart pans. Click on a photo to enlarge. These photos should give you a better idea of the size and shape of the tart and pot pie pans.
3" tart pan
4-1/4" tart pan
4-1/2" tart pan
5" pot pie/tart pan
5-3/4" deep pot pie pan
5-3/4" pot pie pan
We have more aluminum foil products - including more pie and tart pans -
click the "Up" button (bottom button on the left navigation bar.)
SHORT STORY By JOYCE DAVIS
The rhubarb: A sweet tale a little on the sour side
I brought in the spring harvest last week.
A little patch of rhubarb in the back yard --- southwest corner --- looked like a bonanza thanks to the large fan-like leaves that protected the ruby stalks sprouting from the earth. But, like a magician's sleight-of-hand, what the eye saw as a bounty was in reality only enough for the makings of a lone pie.
But that's how rhubarb is with its elephant-ear leaves that stand with such majesty over those stringy stalks.
Armed with a sharp knife, I set forth for the harvest with much anticipation, imagining the plethora of ruby pieces of rhubarb that would be married to ripe and rosy strawberries making a juicy filling blanketed by a golden crust.
Rhubarb pie. A culinary delight I believe to be the most primordial of pies. Surely, our forebearers somewhere in ancient times came upon those same wild leaves and lifted them up to reveal the secret stalks beneath. I think they would have been attracted to the brilliant crimson stalks, thinking them gifts from the gods. After all, red is one of nature's most appealing food colors. We hunger for the ripest, reddest strawberry, the deep ruby of the apple, the brilliance of a cherry.
I ponder the thought of that first taste of the ruby stalk, the surprise at the initial tooth-to-flesh tearing, the horridly sour juice quick-tripping over the unsuspecting tongue and trickling down the victim throat with the abandon of a creek, spewing bitterness along its wild journey.
I imagine the first spitting, the howling of dissatisfaction, the betrayal of what the eye beheld and what the tongue perceived.
But more than that, I wonder: Who finally brought the sugar?
For, as anyone who has entered into conjugation with rhubarb soon discovers, sugar is this fruit's only hope.
And so it is that after beheading the stalks to remove their protector fans, then moving the blade down to the earth and neatly slicing each away from their birthing soil, I am left with but a few stalks. Once laid in a cool bath, they are cleansed of dirt and sand and ready for more slicing. I remove the tough strings and in doing so strip the stalks of most of their voluptuous red beauty. They are green, nude. It is akin to watching in horror as the beautiful girl you brought home from the bar strips off her makeup to reveal a face of which nightmares are made: your Aunt Clara, the family spinster with the warty nose.
I cry as the red strings are set aside and I begin chopping the now-naked stalks into bite-size pieces. When I am through, there is enough for one pie and that is only because there is a nice family of strawberries waiting in a nearby tub to fill the void. They will cozy up to the rhubarb pieces and lend some of their own magenta blush to the mixture. It will be enough to mound into a pastry shell to make a respectable pie.
But it is the sugar -- lots of it -- that will make the rhubarb palatable. Plus a hint of vanilla. And a breath of allspice.
If there's a wee tartness that remains, all the better. For that's what strawberry-rhubarb pie is all about.
As a child I watched my grandmother mix the two together, then add liberal amounts of sugar and spices.
Along with the rolling, the tucking and the crimping of the crust, came a little Irish philosophy. "You must accept a little sour with the sweetness, just like life," she would say. "Without a wee bit of heartache, you'll never know what joy is."
I learned from this nuptial between the sour rhubarb and the sweet strawberries that a lovely relationship needs a little of both. For in life, just as in pies, there are those sour-side people who, if they're lucky, will meet up with a sugar dispenser person, creating that perfect ratio of tart and sweet.
My harvest yielded one pie. One sweet-sour-deep-dish offering.
It wasn't a puny pie, however. For along with the rhubarb, the strawberries and sugar and spices, lovely memories and life lessons were stirred into that mixture. I had replicated something performed by my grandmother and her grandmother before her in great detail. And in that there was great comfort, a taste of heartache and ample joy.
When it was cool enough, I sliced a small piece, savoring every morsel and thanking my grandma for the life lesson. I then brought the warm pie to neighbors who would in turn savor it for their own reasons and memories.
But my task was not yet done. I returned to the rhubarb patch and chopped up the elephant-ear leaves, turning them back into the soil until next spring's harvest and another lone rhubarb pie.
|
*TIP: When you click a photo it expands to a larger view. Then use the back button to return.
We accept all major credit cards, checks, and PayPal -
This is a Yahoo! Store - 128 bit encryption is used for secure transactions.
|
|
