Dear Shirley,
Remember when you bought some rhubarb in Tucson and as you checked it out another shopper asked, "Where did you find that red celery?"
Well, everybody in Grand Forks knows the difference! Especially this week. That's because the annual Rhubarb Festival is coming up Saturday at University Lutheran Church.
You would be amazed, Shirley, at all the ways they find to use rhubarb in recipes. All we used to do with it was make rhubarb sauce. Pauline Bondy, a long time member of the rhubarb committee, has created recipes for rhubarb filled cookies and rhubarb scones. The men of the church sell rhubarb milkshakes. And this year, the Lutherans have come up with a rhubarb cream cheese spread to be sampled on small crackers.
They tell me that rhubarb should be pulled. Never cut. And rhubarb can be frozen for as long as a year. They say red rhubarb is better for some pastries. It takes less sugar and has a nicer color.
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I wish you could fly up for a visit and pull the red rhubarb that has grown so high in my back yard.
Yes, it is getting hot here now, and it's pretty nice. We have so much daylight! Some of the people who winter in your state of Arizona are glad to be back home when they read the temperatures down there. Of course, this is no bed of roses. We do have some humidity. And we have moths fluttering around at night. They give me the willies.
For a couple weeks now I have been pondering over the shoes that hang from a high wire across 17th Avenue South between 16th and 17th Street. I wondered how on earth they got up there. Then a reader, who is more worldly, tells me that when he was living out west there were gangs that used to mark their territory that way.
Well, it's still a puzzle to me. But then, life is full of puzzles!
Mariah and Anna, the twin granddaughters, are with me now, and I am getting a glimpse of how it is out there in the real world. These kids of today sit around texting one another. They have iPods and gadgets that defy understanding.
All the while I am harking back to the days when we had a black telephone hanging on the kitchen wall. We thought it was amazing that Dick Tracy had a two-way wrist watch.
Love from your sister Marilyn enjoying the precious days of June on the west bank of the Red River of the North.
P.S. I have my new bicycle. I bought it to replace the fuchsia colored bike that was stolen from my driveway. This is a bike with no speeds, no gears, no anything. Just a bike. And it cost a small fortune. I got it at the Ski and Bike Shop because they always gave me free air for the tires of my other bike.
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It was hard for me to explain that I just wanted a bike. I don't need gears for hills. I ride on the streets of Grand Forks. All I want is a bike with a basket to pick up groceries. Well, it turns out there are other people making the same request. It took a while to get the bike to town.
You know, Shirley, they had a police auction of lost, strayed and stolen bikes Saturday. And they got rid of 150 to 180 bikes out at the impound at 1800 N. 36th St. That's where the police meet people to help find stolen bikes. You have to make arrangements with the police to see them. And you should have the serial number.
Reach Marilyn Hagerty at mhagerty@gra.midco.net or by telephone at 701-772-1055.
