Impulse buys and rhubarb crumble for one

Plenty of ink has been spilled about the working/socializing/dating/purchasing/interacting habits of the average millenial. Beyond accusations (probably accurate ones, frankly) that we exhibit unrealistic expectations in the workplace and have the social maturity of 9 year-olds, millenials are also alleged to be very impulsive shoppers.

While my spending habits of late may not align with the broad tendencies of my assigned generation, certain recent purchases have been downright impetuous. Case in point: rhubarb. I picked a few stalks up at the grocery store the other day for no reason other than the appeal of their shiny fuchsia ridges. It's hardly worth lumping rhubarb stalks in with Frye boots or expensive sunglasses or fixed-gear bikes and ironic t-shirts or whatever it is people buy on a whim, but for all that it was a sensible purchase, I had no idea what to do with this fruit.

A quick search for rhubarb recipes turned up a lot of interesting ideas, including some over on The Guardian. A rhubarb fool sounded quite British, but obviously also very not-so-vegan and rather dairy/sugar-heavy. So I turned to one of my favorite food writers (also of The Guardian), Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (basically I will take any excuse to type his name). It was actually in this article by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall that I learned how rhubarb is native to Siberia. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is so smart and full of fun facts! (my interest in Siberia will surely be the topic of another blog post someday ... for now, let's just say that I was feeling happy about my impulse buy. Happy and smug, like a true millenial.)

I felt inspired to try my hand at a variation on Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall's offerings and make a rhubarb crumble for myself. I used rhubarb and strawberries (not seasonal, sadly, but I'll do better next time; maybe apple?), sweetened the fruit with maple syrup instead of white sugar, and assembled an oatmeal-almond meal-flax-fake butter crumbly topping with tons of cinnamon.

Bowl of chopped fruit and map of England, just ... because, I suppose. A hat tip to Hugh, perhaps.

 

Chopped rhubarb atop lime green cutting board.

 

 

I baked it in a small Pyrex glass container at 350 degrees for about an hour. I felt satisfied, somehow, with the entire world as the smell filled up my tiny apartment. Happily, this rhubarb creation was every bit as good as I'd hoped. The maple syrup was a great contrast to the tart fruit and kept things from feeling gritty or sugary. It would work well with other fruits, too, I'm sure. And of course, certainly, the same cannot be said of Frye boots or expensive sunglasses.