Word on the street is that September is Put a Zucchini in Someone’s Car Month.
My parents had a massive garden on the farm with beautiful, rich, black soil and a shelterbelt of maple trees that wrapped around it. Their garden produced vast amounts of fruits and vegetables every year including zucchini.
Now if you come from a generation where wasting food was seriously frowned upon like I did, getting a zucchini the size of a small child left in your car presents a moral dilemma. You want to throw it out the window on the way home but instead, you keep it out of obligation and try to make something with it.
We had finally convinced Mom to only plant three zucchini seeds the last few years she put a garden in on the farm. She always assured us that was all she had planted, but I was skeptical. The plants all grew together so it was hard to discern how many there actually were, but there seemed to be a lot of zucchini. I didn’t want to accuse anyone of misdoings; she claimed she only planted three seeds and she was sticking to her story.
There was a time when I would get annoyed at all the time the garden at the farm took and the work created. I wanted to enjoy the last days of summer. I didn’t want to spend my remaining days off wrestling giant zucchinis or shucking wheelbarrows full of corn. Now when I think back to that garden my heart aches to be able to walk through it in the sunshine just one more time.
One year I had started to make a chocolate zucchini cake when the Hubs happened along. I somehow managed to pawn the job off on him while I left the house to run some errands in the village.
Upon my return, I noticed his prized cake was baked and displayed proudly on the kitchen counter. I thought it looked a little dark but didn’t think much about it. As the hours ticked by that cake got darker and darker looking until it was the colour of coal and tasted so strong of chocolate you couldn’t eat it. We kept returning to look at it in amazement and couldn’t stop laughing.
Upon my return, I noticed his prized cake was baked and displayed proudly on the kitchen counter. I thought it looked a little dark but didn’t think much about it. As the hours ticked by that cake got darker and darker looking until it was the colour of coal and tasted so strong of chocolate you couldn’t eat it. We kept returning to look at it in amazement and couldn’t stop laughing.
I interrogated him as to how much cocoa powder he had put in and he said he had followed the recipe plus added the “little bit” of cocoa powder that was left in the bottom of the can ”for good measure”. It wasn’t a hostile, strapped in a chair, bright light shining in his face kind of interrogation, but it was close.
Of course, I couldn’t resist and pounced on the opportunity to give him grief for ruining the cake. I think that cake scarred me for life. After that, whenever I made a cake that called for cocoa powder, I only put half the amount that the recipe indicated as I still dislike that bitter cocoa taste.
Every fall when the zucchinis are on the move, we have another laugh over the zucchini cake incident. Come to think of it the Hubs has never offered to make another cake since, so be kind with your words or you will be making the next cake yourself!
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