Old-Fashioned Rhubarb Torte

I stood at the kitchen window this morning and watched the light come up over Mount Timpanogos and thought, again, that I have lived inside this view my whole life and never once gotten tired of it. The week was a spring week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.

Brandon golfed Saturday morning, attended his executive secretary meeting Sunday morning, and did the dishes Wednesday night, which is the rhythm of our life now. We have been married a long time. The arithmetic of it is the arithmetic of my whole life. There were years we missed each other in the same room, and there are years we find each other in the silences, and this is one of the latter, and I am old enough now to know that the latter is the achievement and the former was the cost.

The recipe of the week was tuna noodle casserole, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. Sunday prep is twenty-eight bags. I time myself. The accountant never leaves. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.

The children are doing what they do, which is the central report of every week of my adult life. Ethan is 20, in Manila on his mission, and his last email mentioned a chicken adobo so good he is going to make me make it when he comes home. Olivia is 19, at BYU studying elementary education — the path she chose at age seven and has not deviated from once. Mason is 16, finishing high school, with calluses on his hands and a plan that does not yet have words. Lily is 14, in high school, asking the kind of questions in Sunday School that make the teachers uncomfortable, which I find difficult and also, secretly, admirable. Noah is 12, the comedian, the performer — the kid who does an impression of my disappointed face in front of company, and gets away with it. That is the family report. I do not have a system for these reports. I just listen and remember and call back when I said I would call back, which is most of the time and not all of the time, and the difference between most and all is the territory of motherhood.

I will close the laptop in a moment. I will go to bed. I will get up tomorrow. The freezer will be there. The photograph will be there. The work will be there. So will I.

The tuna noodle casserole was the work of the week, but dessert was the reward — and this spring, with rhubarb coming in and the kitchen filling with that particular morning light, an old-fashioned rhubarb torte felt exactly right. There is something about a recipe this simple and this old that matches the arithmetic of a long marriage: the same reliable ingredients, the same unhurried assembly, the result always better than the effort required. Brandon sliced the rhubarb, I handled the crust, and the oven did the rest.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes | Servings: 9

Ingredients

Crust
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
Filling
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups fresh rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Instructions

Preheat. Heat your oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8x8-inch or 9x9-inch baking pan.
Make the crust. Using a fork or your fingers, combine the softened butter, 1 cup flour, powdered sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs and begins to come together. Press evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan.
Par-bake the crust. Bake the crust for 15 minutes, until just barely golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and set aside while you prepare the filling.
Mix the filling. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs lightly. Whisk in the granulated sugar, 1/4 cup flour, salt, and vanilla until smooth and well combined.
Fold in the rhubarb. Stir the chopped rhubarb into the egg mixture until evenly distributed.
Assemble and bake. Pour the rhubarb filling over the par-baked crust and spread evenly. Return the pan to the oven and bake for 38–42 minutes, until the filling is set in the center and lightly golden on top. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out with moist crumbs but no liquid.
Cool completely. Let the torte cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 1 hour before cutting. The filling will firm up as it cools. Cut into squares and serve as-is or with a dollop of whipped cream.

Nutrition (per serving)

Old-Fashioned Rhubarb Torte — The Recipe That Tastes Like Spring Through a Kitchen Window