How can I say this nicely? I guess I probably can’t. I do not like zucchini. I dislike it so much I have now renamed it “Yucckini.”
And it’s not like Sam I Am in Green Eggs and Ham… no matter how you serve it—in a house with a mouse, in a box with a fox, or here or there…. I will never like zucchini anywhere! I know there are some diehard “yucckini” fans that have spent many sleepless hours diabolically planning to convert me, but seriously, if LaVonne Anderson (aka my mom) couldn’t pull it off in 18 years you haven’t got a chance! She hid it in spaghetti sauce, Swiss steak, quick breads and muffins….I can spot this disgusting vegetable a mile away. And I will not eat it.
One of my favorite breakfasts is homemade bread, toasted, then topped with real butter and sweet marmalade….but now I have been informed that one of you, a beautiful woman but clearly without a conscience, has started making Zucchini Marmalade! Have you no shame?
Let’s draw a line here…do not mess with my marmalade. It can be orange, strawberry and even the exotic pineapple but never should it be made from a green, overgrown squash! Yuck!
If you like to play with your food zucchini can top the list. They make wonderful boats when floated down the river. My sweet neighbor dressed a zucchini up like a queen and left it on my deck. An old boyfriend from high school would steal giant zucchini from his mother’s garden and hide them in his clothes like an extra appendage. I would laugh until I had tears as he ran into doors and walls with his fake zucchini “arm”!
If you use your imagination I am sure you can come up with a zucchini game that I might endorse, please just don’t sneak it into my jam! Yucck-ini! The first zucchini I ever saw I killed it with a hoe.
John Gould
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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