Above you see a mixture of pureed and cooked rhubarb. Mush. It seems through either old age or cockiness or just pure idiocy, I forgot the face of my father and tried to put rhubarb in a blender. I think it’s because I still have PTSD from trying to juice it two years ago. The former seasonal cocktail, which escapes my mind at the moment (possibly with bourbon) worked, but not at some cost to my sanity and the delicate but industrious engine inside our Champion Juicer.

You see, not all lessons are learned right away. At least not in my realm. Some you have to relearn and re-experience in order to say to yourself “Oh yeah, now I remember this” or, if you’re Brittney Spears, “Oops, I did it again.”

For any of you kitchen people reading this you’re probably wondering what the big deal is. You guys can just make little blanched blocks of it to your heart’s content or chop it and put into a pie, but for the barkeep to perform any amount of cocktail wizardry with this item, it takes blood, sweat, and some tossing and turning in the wee hours of the morning while your spastic toddler is kicking you in the head and ribs.

There are other, easier options. Tim came by a few weeks ago and gave us some gin infused with rhubarb. Quite magical. We probably should have taken this as a sign. What I didn’t want to do was cook it because I’m starting to detest using heat for ingredients, also, when rhubarb is cooked it becomes less sour. I want the full experience.

A little history. During my happier years as a young boy, I watched this stuff grow in my mom’s garden. Rhubarb was always the first thing to come up in spring after the thaw, beating even the industrious asparagus coils. Glorious red stalks with giant leaves. My dad would use his pocket knife to hack off a couple of stems to munch on, one for him, one for me. I could chew it for a moment only. The stuff from the Northeast is ultra sour and juicy, it’s probably the only ingredient from there that’s leagues better than its weaker SoCal counterpart.

At any rate, still warm strawberry rhubarb pie with a scoop of Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream is still my favorite dessert ever. There’s a close second out there, however, it’s Rose Johnson’s (my good buddy, Clark’s, mom) rhubarb raisin pie with the crisco, not butter crust.

So this is what I was thinking last night but it became a busier service and the wind came out of our sails as both Angel and I realized I had made a huge mistake trying to puree this whole thing in the Vitamix. Ugh. After chopping all the rhubarb and adding raisins, it ended up in a pot, and then I stick blended, and we forced it through the chinois which took mega effort. Angel even busted the head off the mystical two ounce ladle with his incredible power as he hunkered down and tried to will the mush through the fine mesh wiring.

We ended up with something that’ll be used in a punch? God. At least I now know the next procedure I’ll take with this. I think I’ll chop it all up nice and fine, and yes, put it through the Champion as delicate as I can, then use the juice to make syrup. All of it sans pulp and fibers, and whatever else makes rhubarb such a stringy disaster.

Take heed, sometimes you don’t just live and learn, but you live and relearn and while in the throes of your own disturbing, utter asininity, you find a place where you can reflect and try again.