I had strawberry rhubarb pie for the second time in my life a few weeks ago (it was DELICIOUS), and I bought more to celebrate today’s most circular of days and it is finally time for me to tell the story of the first time I ever tried strawberry rhubarb pie, which was only 10 months ago.
The story starts with crab legs. (The best stories about pie start with crab legs.) Last May, when John and I went to Seattle to see U2, one of the few things I REALLY wanted before we left town again was crab legs. I had the second best crab legs of my life the first time I went to Seattle (early 2003), and I wanted those again. (The first best crab legs of my life were in Alaska, also early 2003.)
The Sunday morning we were there, the morning of the concert, also, coincidentally, Mother’s Day, we were driving around and exploring, and I was googling seafood restaurants to track down crab legs. We found a place to have lunch with a lake view, lots of seafood, and Alaskan King crab legs on the menu online. Done. So we got there, we got seated, it was lovely, and I noticed there weren’t any crab legs on the menu.
Well, crap. The waiter came by, and I so-very-nicely explained my predicament. I really didn’t want to be a bother, but if they HAVE crab legs, would it be possible for me to order them? The waiter was really nice and said he’d find out. I was totally prepared to order something else if they didn’t have crab legs, and I’m pretty sure I said that to him. I promise was being nice. I would never be the evil diner.
Anyway, he came back after a while and said they DO have crab legs, but they’re frozen – is that okay? Sure! That’ll be fine! So off he goes. And then we waited. We were fine – we had an appetizer – but the waiter seemed nervous. No, really, we’re fine! Then we waited some more. The waiter came back, all apologetic, because the kitchen had prepared the Dungeness crab for me (whole crab) instead. But they could still do the crab legs if I didn’t mind waiting a little longer! Yes, please, I’m happy to wait.
So we waited. And then the manager came by, clearly worried that we were getting annoyed. We SO weren’t, but she wanted to give us a free desert anyway, and who were we to turn that down? And THAT’s when we decided to try the strawberry rhubarb crumble or cobbler or pie or whatever it was. AND HOLY CRAP IT WAS AMAZING.
(My crab legs were also delicious and HUGE and exactly what I wanted and yay for that restaurant in Seattle and of COURSE we expressed our appreciation because we are good customers.)
So then a couple of weeks ago…oh, right – it was my birthday weekend. I wanted pie, and we couldn’t decide what kind of pie, so we bought a strawberry rhubarb pie and an apple pie. Both were SO GOOD – our local grocery store bakery makes DAMN GOOD PIE.
Of course, two pies at once for two people was a little excessive, so for Pi(e) Day, we limited ourselves to ONE pie, the strawberry rhubarb pie, and we are looking forward to eating it with delicious vanilla ice cream melting all over it.
There will be pie tonight!