Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler

Week 430. Summer 2024. I am 41 years old and standing in my kitchen — the Bench house kitchen, the one that held cancer and divorce and cinnamon rolls — and the stove is on and something is cooking and the house smells like grilled food and garden herbs and this is my life. This is the life I built.

Brett came Wednesday. We sat on the porch and talked about nothing, and the nothing was perfect, the way nothing between siblings is always perfect — full of history, empty of agenda, the purest form of company.

Mason is 13 and navigating middle school with the quiet competence that has always been his way — focused, kind, certain of who he is in a way that took me thirty years to achieve.

Lily is 11 and riding horses with the fearlessness of someone who has never considered the possibility of falling.

I made watermelon feta salad this week. The food continues. The food always continues. It is the thread that connects every week to every other week, every year to every other year, every version of me to every other version — the woman on the kitchen floor, the woman at the chemo recliner, the woman at the grill, the woman at the outdoor table under the string lights. All of them, connected by the food they made with their hands. All of them, me.

The watermelon feta salad was dinner, but the evening needed something warm — something that bubbled and browned and made the kitchen smell like a decision worth making. Strawberry-rhubarb cobbler is the kind of dessert that asks nothing of you except a little patience, and on a night when Brett was on the porch and the kids were finally still, patience felt like exactly the right ingredient. It has been a long road to an evening this ordinary, and ordinary evenings deserve a proper dessert.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 8

Ingredients

3 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
2 cups rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/3 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon coarse sugar, for topping

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly butter a 9x13-inch baking dish or a 10-inch cast iron skillet.
Make the fruit filling. In a large bowl, toss the strawberries and rhubarb with 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar, the cornstarch, and vanilla extract until evenly coated. Pour into the prepared baking dish and spread into an even layer.
Make the cobbler topping. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the cold butter cubes and use your fingertips to work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining.
Add the milk. Pour in the milk and stir gently with a fork just until a shaggy dough comes together. Do not overmix.
Top and bake. Drop spoonfuls of the dough over the fruit filling, leaving some gaps for the fruit to bubble through. Sprinkle the top with coarse sugar. Bake for 40–45 minutes, until the topping is golden and the fruit filling is bubbling around the edges.
Rest and serve. Let the cobbler rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream if you like.

Nutrition (per serving)

Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler — The Food Always Continues