Awful, stunted tomatoes, one pepper, one okra (!), and pitiful yellow squash.
Ah, but the zucchini. I am eating it for breakfast (really, as we speak), lunch, dinner, and dessert.
Attack of the Squash People (by the incredible Marge Piercy)
And thus the people every year
in the valley of humid July
did sacrifice themselves
to the long green phallic god
and eat and eat and eat.
They’re coming, they’re on us,
the long striped gourds, the silky
babies, the hairy adolescents,
the lumpy vast adults
like the trunks of green elephants.
Recite fifty zucchini recipes!
…….
Beg on the highway: please
take my zucchini, I have a crippled
mother at home with heartburn.
Sneak out before dawn to drop
them in other people’s gardens,
in baby buggies at churchdoors.
Shot, smuggling zucchini into
mailboxes, a federal offense.
……..
You give and give
too much, like summer days
limp with heat, thunderstorms
bursting their bags on our heads,
as we salt and freeze and pickle
for the too little to come.
(full text here)
My favorite way to eat them this year: chop and cook big chunks in garlic, olive oil, salt, onion, and fresh basil. Eat on whole wheat angel hair pasta with crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce. Oh, how I wish my own tomatoes were thriving this year.
