Oneforthetable.com

As spring slowly arrived in Maine and the snow stubbornly retreated, I pushed back the compost covering my rhubarb patch that has been growing for as long as I can remember. With the spring rain, it will grow at lightning speed and keep growing as I madly pull at it to make many spring and early summer treats.

In my house, this is the first pie of the year and the first food out of our garden, making us dream of what pies lie ahead: small sweet strawberries, fragrant raspberries and mounds of wild Maine blueberries. But today we "make do" with rhubarb.

The pie crust:

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 sticks unsalted butter

1/2 cup ice cold water

The pie filling:

1 fresh egg yolk

3 tablespoon flour

1 cup heavy cream

Pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon freshly grated orange rind

6 cups rhubarb, cut into 1-inch chunks, pick the reddest stalks available

1 1/2 cups sugar or to taste

For the pie crust: Combine flour and salt in a food processor; pulse three times. Add ice cold butter that you have cut into small chunks. Pulse until the butter is combined into the flour and the butter pieces are the size of your thumb nail. Add ice cold water and pulse until a ball of dough STARTS to form. Stop, remove from the machine and wrap in plastic wrap, refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight.

This will let the dough relax and make the texture flaky. Cut the dough into two pieces. Roll out half the dough while the other half waits in the refrigerator. Roll large enough to fit in a 9-inch glass pie plate with an inch or two overhanging the edge.

For the pie filling: Beat egg yolk and flour into the heavy cream, add pinch of salt, vanilla and orange rind. Combine rhubarb and sugar and set aside for 20ish minutes till the juices are drawn out of the rhubarb.

Combine rhubarb mixture with the cream/yolk mixture. Immediately put into the pie dish, roll out the top crust, make vent holes and place into a preheated oven on the middle rack. Start baking at 375 F for 10 minutes, then turn down heat to 350 F and bake until golden and luscious, about 45 more minutes.

(Brenda Athanus runs the Green Spot, a small gourmet food shop in Oakland, Maine, with her sister Tanya. One for the Table is Amy Ephron's online magazine that specializes in food, politics and love. http://www.oneforthetable.com/.)