Attack Of The Squash People

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! Zucchini tempura; creamed soup; sauté with olive oil and cumin, tomatoes, onion; frittata; casserole of lamb; baked topped with cheese; marinated; stuffed; stewed; driven through the heart like a stake. Get rid of old friends: they too have gardens and full trunks. Look for newcomers: befriend them in the post office, unload on them and run. Stop tourists in the street. Take truckloads to Boston. Give to your Red Cross. 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. With a suave reptilian glitter you bask among your raspy fronds sudden and huge as alligators. 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.