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To cook rhubarb, you will need a pan, a cover that fits the pan, a sharp knife, some water, and a lot of rhubarb stalks. Cut the leaves off the top of each rhubarb stalk. Throw the leaves away and keep them away from children and animals since the leaves are poisonous. Spin your sharp knife around each rhubarb every one to two inches to precut(Take a really, really sharp knife and cut all around the outside of the rhubarb in one quick circle. You will cut all the outside harder fibers at one time. If you cut straight into it or snap it, you create strings on the opposite side. This also works great for cutting celery.). One inch if you like your rhubarb to be like sauce and two inches if you like it to be chunky. I like a combination so some are one inch chunks and some are two inches. Then cut straight through each precut. Repeat for each length of rhubarb. Cut them into the pan. Put about one half cup of water to every two cups of rhubarb. Less if you want thicker sauce, more if you want it thinner. Put the cover on and put the heat on to simmer. Check every few minutes. When it has turned color and is soft, taste it. Serious pucker power!

Now you can sweeten it with sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, strawberry jam, etc, or not. We like the sourness of it and rarely add sugar. Remember: The heavier the sweetener, the less you taste the rhubarb. You can eat your sauce as is or your rhubarb sauce can be poured on top of ice cream, cake, or into a precooked graham cracker pie shell. My favorite it to use a graham cracker pie shell and put a layer of softened cream cheese on the bottom. Then pour the rhubarb on top and garnish with lots and lots of strawberries and pour honey over the top to glaze. It's absolutely beautiful! Served with springs of mint for contrast in color and flavor, fabulous!

But my favorite will always be my Mother's old fashioned strawberry rhubarb pie. She had a recipe that I can't find. It had half rhubarb and half strawberries. It used tapioca, sugar, and was made with lard flour crust. I know, we aren't supposed to say the "l" word any more, but those were the best crusts. They were flakier than any others now. She also had a wonderful strawberry rhubarb jam that I can't find the recipe for either. So I'll have to search out these wonderful delicacies on the Internet or experiment. You never know what I might come up with!

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