Hi Geting - it’s fun n’est ce pas?
Using the (A* - B*)* structure, I’m taking:
A= PLACED MARIA SELLS RHUBARB TOO (26 letters)
B= O (ld) MA HUBBARDS PIES R ( are) (16 letters)
LEFT as the eliminator, with AWKWARDLY and TO DECAY as the anagram indicators. So far, so good.
After anagramming the remaining 10 letters - bingo!
We arrive at COLLATERAL
EXCELLENT - think you should submit the clue.
Bonus point for beating us with your inclusion of RHUBARB
THOUGH stumped us for a while; we’d have used a “;” but it’s a good linking punctuation substitute.
👏👏👏👏👏