Until recently, I had not able to work up much ardor for summer squash.
It was just another vegetable in the market. It was not as well known as zucchini. And with its crooked neck, and bright yellow skin, it was not good-looking. What changed my attitude toward summer squash was proximity. Many summer squash moved into our home. They filled up bowls that were supposed to hold fruit. They stretched out on kitchen counters. They sunned themselves in the back yard.
This invasion of the summer squash was similar to the zucchini influx that had visited the household a few weeks earlier. Both were caused by a garden gone bonkers. I planted some summer squash in a community garden in Druid Hill Park. It grew. Man did it grow! It spread out faster than a strip mall, crowding out the cabbage, overpowering the beans. Even the thistles -- among the toughest of weeds -- seemed to give the summer squash wide berth.
Unlike their zucchini cousins, the summer squash were hard to get rid of. People may laugh at a zucchini, but eventually they will take it off your hands. Its big, green form is friendly. It looks like an overgrown cucumber.
Summer crookneck squash, however, looks twisted. Its skin is a color I would describe as toxic yellow. When you rub your hand on its skin, it feels bumpy. Looking at its bent neck, you can't help but wonder: "Is that what will happen to me if I eat this stuff?"
So when I brought several yellow crookneck squash home from the garden, they piled up in the house. Nobody ate them and I began to consider other uses for them. I thought of calling them gourds, and putting them around the house as decorative "accent pieces."
Eventually, what got the squash off the kitchen counters and into the oven was a potluck supper. Our neighborhood, like many in Baltimore, has a lot of potluck suppers in the summer. The idea behind these meals is that everybody cooks, but nobody cooks very much. You whip up one dish or so. The organizers of the potluck meal provide something substantial -- from roast beef to hot dogs -- as the main dish. The potluck dishes brought by the folks attending the meal serve as accompanying fare. One recent hot afternoon, my wife was trying to figure out what to take to a potluck supper that evening. I suggested the squash. I had mixed motives.
I wanted to share this source of carotene, the yellow pigment that our bodies converts to Vitamin A, with our friends. And I wanted to get rid of the squash. I figured people will eat most anything at potlucks. So let's dress the squash up, put it out there and see what happens.
