This week I was given an unexpected gift. My neighbor’s 17 year old son arrived at the door bearing a bag of 4 zucchini. “First fruits of the harvest,” he said as he held out the bag. I thanked him, introduced him to the rest of the Manry Clan and chatted with him a bit.
When he left, I groaned. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” I thought, and I could hear my mom’s voice in my head saying “there are lots of things you can make with zucchini.”
I never plant zucchini. There is no such thing as a little zucchini. If you plant 1 zucchini, you harvest 20 zucchini. If you plant 2 zucchini, you harvest enough zucchini to feed your entire neighborhood. If you plant 4 zucchini, you harvest enough zucchini to feed your church.
When I was growing up in northern Minnesota, our friend Casey used to say, “No one ever locks their doors on their cars or houses up here except during zucchini season. It could be 90 degrees outside, but all the car windows will be rolled up and all the car doors locked tight for fear of coming out of church and finding your car loaded down with your neighbor’s zucchini. Better to suffer heat exhaustion than to have well meaning people stuff zucchini through your windows.”
I’ve never liked zucchini, but I certainly did not want to waste the fruit of my neighbor’s hard work and generosity. The first zucchini was shredded into chocolate zucchini cake in the hopes that I could trick my children into eating it. The cake looked lovely when I pulled it out of the oven. I had baked it in what I thought was a bundt pan. However, when I tried to remove it from the pan, the cake collapsed in a wave. I cut off the condensed cake parts and sent the rest of the cake to work with Dale where people are desperate enough to eat chocolate zucchini cake slices that look a little odd. Days later, while telling my mom of this cake collapse disaster, she kindly informed me that I didn’t own a bundt pan and I had used an angel food cake pan instead.
Note to self: angel food cake pans and bundt pans are two different things.
Two days later, two more zucchini were shredded for zucchini bread. I sent one loaf to work with Dale where people are desperate enough to eat zucchini bread. I am eating the other loaf of zucchini bread, but it’s nothing to write home about. The bananas on the counter are scoffing at me, “You know we are a million times better in bread than zucchini.” I glare at them as I chew.
The last zucchini was sliced, breaded, and baked as zucchini chips to accompany dinner. I thought they were fairly tasty. Dale was forced to eat them, but I wasn’t home to watch. Whether they were eaten or surreptitiously placed in the garbage bin is unknown.
Now that I have successfully used all the zucchini given me by my neighbor, I’m locking my doors.