Rhubarb sorbet ramblings.

As I sit down to write, it’s already 1pm. Thirteen hundred hours in military time and I’m still not sure what to wear. I picked the dog up off the floor in the hope that a lap dog would inspire me but that only works until there’s a knock on the door. Yes, I have to go answer it which I never ALWAYS do but the UPS courier man always has such a sheepish look on his face – I see it through the spyhole on the door – that I fell compelled to.

Then he looks at me wanting just one thing: My signature. I already have 1000 excuses made up as to why I’m still in stretch pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Nothing matches and I realise I forgot to check if I have honeydew seeds stuck on my face. Why would you have honeydew seeds stuck on your face, Edlyn? It’s a new thing I’m trying out. Ask me later if it worked?

As I sit down to write this, I turn around to look out the window. It looks deceptively warm but I won’t complain because any sun is good. Any sun after the rain is even better. The plants in the window are probably a lot happier. They have a lot of growing up to do and I have no idea how to help them with that. There’s so much to learn about new life and I tend to just step back a bit. Not out of fear. I’m just a little less bold than I sometimes feel. There’s nothing fun about being told “no”. The only fun part is I don’t mind at all.

As I sit down to write this, I should probably write it already. Nothing about a blank page overwhelms me. This is the one thing I know will never let me down. I can collect as many hobbies and people and cardigans but this ability right here, will always feel permanently comforting. It’s okay not to be read but I know I’d be committing the biggest disservice to this comfortable outfit I’m in and that light from the sky if I didn’t sit down to write.

So I did.

Rhubarb is like the made-up cousin of celery except you can eat the celery leaves and rhubarb leaves can poison you. Chop those of before you start and banish them far far away. The entire rhubarb plant is also very toxic for dogs. So for those of you who have pooches that sniff at your feet in the kitchen, you might want to hang a “No Dogs in the Kitchen” sign. And then teach your dog to read.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups water
• 2 2/3 cup rhubarb stalks (320 gms, I had 4 or 5 rhubarb stalks)
• 2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• Zest of half a lemon (optional)
• 1 tsp finely grated ginger
• 6 tbsp honey (or more if you like it sweeter)

Is everybody listening? I’m about to begin! You there at the back. Eyes on the prize!

Chop the rhubarb into small-medium sized pieces along the length of the stalk. Place the cut rhubarb in a saucepan with water, lemon juice, grated ginger root and honey. The saucepan then goes on to a stove on medium-high heat for a couple of minutes until the honey dissolves. Taste if it’s sweet enough for you. If not, add more honey. Turn down the heat to medium-low and cook this mixture of ingredients until the rhubarb is tender and the contents are fragrant. This should take around 10-15 minutes.

Take the saucepan off the heat and let it cool before pouring it all into a food processor. Turn the processor to low (“high” makes me nervous about kitchen explosions) and work it until the rhubarb turns into a smooth puree. There puree will have some stringy bits of the rhubarb stem but this doesn’t affect the texture of the final product.

Pour the mixture into a bowl and cool it in the refrigerator for no less than an hour. Once cooled, you can put it in your ice-cream maker* for 20 minutes and then freeze the sorbet in a freezer-safe bowl. If you don’t care about owning yet another modern convenience follow this link to make the sorbet without a machine. You’ll just have to pretend the ice-cream in the link is sorbet and follow the same instructions.

*My frozen dessert fiend BHF and I own a Cuisinart ice-cream maker and it’s the bomb.