Sour Cream Rhubarb Pie

Late April. The second book is with the agent. Sarah is reading it. The reading takes time. The time is the waiting. The waiting is the thing I have learned to do, the thing the dashi taught me: wait. The kombu soaks. The agent reads. The results arrive when they arrive. The waiting is not emptiness. The waiting is the underground fermentation, the invisible work, the miso becoming miso in the dark.

I made spring soba — cold buckwheat noodles with a dashi dipping sauce and the first ramps of the season. The ramps are the spring's ambassador: the first wild green at the farmers market, arriving before the asparagus, before the peas, before anything else, the ramps saying: I am here. Spring is here. The waiting is over. I eat them raw, on soba, with the dipping sauce and grated wasabi, and the taste is spring itself: green, sharp, alive, the taste of things returning.

I have been thinking about the parking lot — the argument with Brian that the milestones record, the argument about scheduling that both of us consider the lowest point of our co-parenting. The argument has not happened yet. The tensions are building. The scheduling conflicts are accumulating. The frustrations are underground, the way they always are, the way the geological layer sits beneath the surface, and the surface is polite and the geology is angry and the anger has not found its way to the surface yet but it will, it always does, the way earthquakes always do, the way the ground that seems solid is not as solid as it looks.

I made miso soup at three AM, unable to sleep, the anxiety humming, the refrigerator humming, the two hums harmonizing into a chord of wakefulness that the miso soup is meant to quiet. The soup quieted the chord. The soup always quiets the chord. The soup is the medication that requires no prescription, the therapy that requires no appointment, the practice that requires only water and kombu and bonito and miso and the willingness to stand in the dark kitchen at three AM and make the thing that saves you. The making is the saving. The saving is the making. The two are the same.

The ramps on the soba were spring’s first word, but rhubarb is spring’s full sentence — tart and impossible and worth every week of waiting. After the three AM miso soup, after the dashi and the silence and the underground work of just getting through, I needed something I could make with my hands that would come out of the oven transformed: raw stalks into something custard-soft, sharp into yielding, the way fermentation works, the way time works. This pie is that. The making is the saving. The saving is the making.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
3 cups fresh rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup full-fat sour cream
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
Streusel topping:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 400°F. Fit pie crust into a 9-inch pie plate, crimp the edges, and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.
Make the filling. In a large bowl, whisk together the sour cream, sugar, flour, egg, vanilla, and salt until smooth and combined. Fold in the rhubarb pieces until evenly coated.
Fill the crust. Pour the rhubarb filling into the chilled pie crust and spread into an even layer.
Make the streusel. In a small bowl, combine the flour and sugar. Add the cold butter pieces and work them in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse, clumpy crumbs. Scatter evenly over the top of the pie.
Bake. Bake at 400°F for 25 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F and continue baking for 20–25 minutes more, until the filling is set at the center and the streusel is golden. If the edges brown too quickly, shield them with foil.
Cool. Let the pie cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour before slicing — the custard filling needs time to fully set.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sour Cream Rhubarb Pie — The First Tart Thing of Spring