If said I was going to give you something that weighed 93 pounds for free what would you guess it might be?
A) A week’s worth of washing.
B) An average size middle
school student.
C) A car load of zucchini and
a cookbook.
I happen to have A and B in my home as we speak but I would seriously pass on to you C if it were to fall at my doorstep because I do in fact have the cookbook What to Do with
93 Pounds of Zucchini
or, aptly named, Zucchini Cookery.
Fate laid this book in my hands last week at the St. Ignatius Church Rummage sale. I was digging through the books and there it was at the bottom of a box…I almost dropped it like a snake, then I thought “Sandy, don’t be silly, there might be something to this zucchini craze after all.” The cover reads that if I were to make each and every recipe in the book I would have ridden the world of 93 pounds of zucchini. (Yeah!)
I spent the next several hours reading this interesting booklet. The recipe that stood out the most is for one of my favorite foods, lasagna. This monster dish call for three full pounds of zucchini!
Along with all the beautiful cheese and expensive ground beef I am sure I would be that last person on earth to try to “thinly slice a huge zucchini” to replace delicious lasagna noodles. Or my second choice—Armenian Casserole that calls for only one pound of zucchini. Thistells me that they grow way too many zucchini in Armenia too.
And the worst of the worst, let’s use our personal time, energy and electricity to dry zucchini to use for “snacking chips.” Please, not when I can use my valuable time to dry grapes and make my own raisins!
Now there is a lady in Frenchtown, Montana who I feel has the right idea. When she was bitten in the leg by a 200-pound black bear she reached for the most threatening weapon she could find. I might have reached for a knife or a mallet but she smacked him right across the nose with a six-pound zucchini! You might argue I should grow one in my garden for just such a purpose, but I must remind you in addition to a six-pound weapon we all know I’d end up with 93 pounds of zucchini to contend with!
If life hands you lemons
make lemonade.
If life, hands you
tomatoes, make
Bloody Marys.
If life hands you
zucchini, smack
a bear with it!
Sandy Holthaus
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