I still remember the first time I ate rhubarb. I was living in New York City in a tiny apartment with my roommate, Rosalie. During the weekends, Rosalie and I used to put on Sex and the City DVDs, shake up a couple of martinis and order dinner from our extensive takeout menu collection. We both love food and often exchanged recipes and cooked for each other. When I casually mentioned that I had never tried rhubarb, Rosalie was appalled.

Rhubarb isn’t a part of Chinese cooking. When I saw rhubarb at the grocery store, I assumed that it was rainbow chard. My mother isn’t a big fan of store-bought desserts, so I never even tried rhubarb in a pie or a cobbler.

Determined to change that, Rosalie took me to the farmer’s market the moment spring came. Living in southern California, where winter temperatures often rise to the 70s, spring isn’t a big deal. But in New York, spring was a treat. It meant that I could leave the house with less than four layers of clothing for the first time in months. Roads were clear of sludge. Young leaves sprouted from tree branches. Farmer’s markets finally had more than potatoes and gourds. We found rhubarb and strawberries and when we got home, turned them into a cobbler from “The Joy of Cooking.”

Rhubarb is a vegetable that’s mostly prepared as a fruit. When it’s raw, rhubarb is unbearably tart. But when cooked, like baked in a pie or simmered in a compote, rhubarb turns into this soft, tender and flavorful ingredient.

I remember thinking that it tasted a lot like baked Granny Smith apple when I first took a bite of that cobbler Rosalie and I made. It didn’t take very many bites for me to fall in love with rhubarb. I wondered how I had gone so long without eating it.

This is a classic strawberry-rhubarb pie. It’s the perfect balance of the tartness from the rhubarb and the sweetness from the strawberries. The filling also has some cinnamon, which adds some spice and warmness.

Of course you can use store-bought pie crust, but homemade crust is just so much better with its flakey texture and buttery taste. And you get to control what you put in it. Homemade dough is really easy and comes together faster than you’d think. If the lattice top is too much trouble, you can cover the pie with the second sheet of dough and simply cut a slit in the center to let the steam out.

I’ve made my fair share of rhubarb desserts since New York, but I will never forget the excitement and anticipation of the first time I tasted that strawberry-rhubarb cobbler. It’s a reminder of my favorite city and of those late-night martinis and Japanese takeouts I looked forward to every weekend.