The May Craving For Rhubarb

Saw a recipe for rhubarb coffee cake and now, for some reason, I'm craving rhubarb.
Except that I know the reason.
Rhubarb.
Such an odd word and such an odd fruit. Really, not surprising, then, that I love it. 

This is one of those mysteries of growing, how the food you hated as a kid you now love as an adult.
When I was a kid, my Aunt Mildred would serve stewed rhubarb. She was diabetic so it was stewed rhubarb without any sugar in it. I remember one weekend at the cottage with all the cousins and we had a contest to see who could eat the most bowls of Aunt Mildred's sugarfree stewed rhubarb.
I won.
And I wasn't sick to my stomach.
Which likely explains why I grew up to like rhubarb. No negative connection to it, just the memory of darling Aunt Mildred and hen parties at the cottage near Coboconk.

In searching for a photo of rhurbab coffee cake, I saw a picture that reminded me of another moment of binge-eating rhurbarb.
My friend Shelagh in Cobourg had invited me over for supper when I was home visiting and it turned out my father was dying. So this was May 2009.
She served rhubarb cake for dessert, lovely thin squares of moist cake, and I ate half the pan.
Yes, I'm that friend -- "I can't believe she ate half the rhubarb cake!" -- but in my defense, my father was dying.
And it was a damn fine cake.

This is the photo from Canadian Living's Facebook page that started the craving.