Vegetables and How I Cook Them: Squash, Summer

Three things always come to mind when I think of zucchini.

One, the old saying that summer squash season is the only time of year when residents of small towns lock their car doors, for fear of the vegetable being left on their front seat by a gardening neighbor.

Two, after receiving our first big delivery of zucchini from the farmers’ market at Zingerman’s, my good friend (and then-boss) Rodger looking at it, saying, “Nature’s Styrofoam,” and walking away.

Three, how when we were growing up we used those monstrously large zucchini as bats in tomato baseball. Having your sister throw rotten tomatoes at you only to smash it with a giant zucchini is, to this day, far and away the most fun I’ve ever had with garden produce.