VIP Pie (aka rhubarb pie)

I suppose that, if asked, we each have our own version of a VIP fantasy. For some that could mean landing floor seats at a sports game, or moving to the front of the line at an exclusive club, or getting into a fancy restaurant without a reservation, or maybe even having a personal shopper call you when an item arrives, but before it reaches the sales racks.

We gardeners are a different breed altogether.

For me, VIP means getting a personal invitation (or maybe I invited myself – the details are foggy) to harvest rhubarb from a Master Gardener here in Los Angeles for a pie I’d be bringing to his gardening class the following day. David King heads The Learning Garden here in Venice, CA, along with a number of other fantastic garden-related programs and I had the pleasure of visiting the overflowing garden this past weekend.

I’ve never seen rhubarb growing, never cooked with it, or even eaten it, until yesterday. The long stalks resemble celery, but with huge beautiful leaves at the tips (which I learned are poisonous, by the way-do NOT eat the leaves!). It was great fun to pull the long stems out of the ground, knowing just a few hours later they would be bubbling in my oven in the form of a pie.

Yes, I felt very proud of myself this weekend, having had a personal “VIP harvest” with the L.A. garden guru himself. What can I say, I’m a nature nerd through and through…and…his pie recipe (flavored with cardamom, cloves and orange zest!) was delicious. As we gardeners know, the pleasure of harvesting, preparing and then eating homegrown food makes all the ‘hard work’ worth it – and is such a labor of love that it is certainly not work at all.

David King’s Most Beautifully Delicious Rhubarb Pie!

1 pie crust
1 ¼ pounds fresh rhubarb cut into ½ pieces
½ cup sugar
¼ cup all purpose flour
½ T ground cardamom
½ tsp ground nutmeg
Juice and zest of ½ bright-skinned orange

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Combine all ingredients and place in pie crust and bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until the filling has bubbled and thickened. Let cool on rack before serving.

(David’s note: this is a bachelor male’s adaption to a Martha Stewart recipe which takes about 3 hours longer to make)

Do What Ya Like

At the beginning of this year I found myself in a very unfortunate situation that inspired a very positive outcome. I made a spontaneous new year’s resolution that I’ve kept the entire year – and it has been one of the most fun and lively years of my life. This was my resolution:

I am no longer doing things I don’t want to do.

One more time:

I am no longer doing things I don’t want to do.

Here’s how it works:
If there is something I want to do, I do it.
If there is something I don’t want to do, I don’t do it.

Now before you picture me lying in bed with a glass of wine while my six year old runs around the house with no dinner or clean underwear, you can relax.

I’m obviously talking about my Free Time.

We all have Free Time, some of us more than others – those blissful hours or minutes each day or week we get to spend however we like. Unfortunately for me, I found that for years I was spending much of my ‘free time’ not feeling so free – doing things that I felt obligated to say yes to, because I thought I was supposed to, or because I worried about hurting someone’s feelings.

A small miracle occurs when you turn the ship and decide that everything in your life (more or less) is going to be there because you want it to. Yes there are chores, work, etc. that can’t go away, but if you fill your Free Time with what you love, it makes everything, on the whole, seem much more balanced and manageable.

This might sound really basic or idealistic or impossible to some, but I’ve tried it the other way, and I can say without a doubt that doing what you like is much more fun.

Since I am no longer spending my weekends doing things I don’t want to do, there are big openings for me to do the things I LOVE. This past Saturday that meant a visit with my son to the magical garden at Venice High School here in LA (my husband spent his Free Time doing what he wanted to do – take a nap).

It was the Learning Garden’s Pesto Madness fundraiser. For $10 you got an all you could eat buffet of freshly made pasta, salads and homemade desserts; a pesto cooking demonstration with fresh basil from the garden; and a wonderful tour of the one-acre site by Master Gardener David King, who runs the entire operation and teaches a variety of classes there. All for a good cause.

It was a beautiful way to spend a couple of hours and a wonderful reminder that doing what you like is one of the nicest gifts you can give yourself, and in turn, those around you.

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