Market watch: Finding rhubarb

A recent posting on a friend's Facebook page summed up what a lot of Minnesotans have been surely feeling during this late-arriving spring. "[I] won't last much longer if I don't bake something with rhubarb soon," he wrote.

That sentiment was lingering in my brain as I bundled up on Saturday morning and headed to the Mill City Farmers Market, with one thought in mind: If anyone would have rhubarb on her market stand, it would be Pam Benike.

The owner of Prairie Hollow Farm in Elgin, Minn., prides herself on presenting a diverse selection of Minnesota-raised vegetables, and even during this chilly, rainy mid-May, Benike was offering morel mushrooms, asparagus, fiddleheads, ramps, radishes, dandelion greens and thick, towel rod-length rhubarb stalks.

Benike's rhubarb patches are true heirloom varieties, and date back to when her grandparents planted them in 1935. To stretch the growing season, patches are spread out across the farm, with sunny spots turning out the first stalks and shaded plants yielding a crop until roughly July 4th.

Anyone who has purchased her excellent breads -- made from grains grown on the farm -- knows that Benike is a baker. For her market customers, she prepares a rhubarb-cinnamon bread, but when it comes to feeding her family, the time-pressed farmer and cheesemaker relies upon a quick-and-easy rhubarb cake.

Another favorite: Rhubarb sauce, a 15-minute time commitment. "You cut the stalks into quarter-inch pieces, you cook them down over medium heat, you add enough honey to make it sweet, and that's all you do," she said.

Mother Nature hasn't been making 2011 an easy year for rhubarb lovers. Last year at this time, Benike hauled 120 pounds of rhubarb to the market and sold all of it; last week, "We were glad to get 40 pounds out," she said, noting that it sold almost as quickly as her small cache of highly prized morels. This weekend she's hoping for a larger rhubarb inventory, in the 50- to 60-pound range.

"It all depends upon how warm the nights are," said Benike. "If people want rhubarb, they've got to get to the market early. If they show up late, it's gone."

RICK NELSON

Rhubarb ($4/lb.) at Prairie Hollow Farm (www.prairiehollow.com) at the Mill City Farmers Market, 2nd Street and Chicago Avenue S., Mpls., www.millcityfarmersmarket.org. Open 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. For Pam Benike's rhubarb cake recipe and a rhubarb tart recipe, go to Startribune.com/tabletalk. For a map of Twin Cities metro-area farmers markets, go to Startribune.com/taste.