The Zucchini Festival

DH and I were having dinner with KayZee one night, and when DH's meal arrived, he slid off his glasses and studied his food. “D**n,” he said. He had found zucchini fragments in his dinner.

KayZee was enthralled, but I had witnessed this scene many, many times. Once when Pappy was a teenager, I had made some lasagne. But this wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill lasagne. Oh, no—I had had the audacity to put some vegetables in this dinner, and one of the vegetables was the dreaded zucchini.

Pappy and I ate our meals and watched curiously as DH picked every speck of zucchini out of his dinner. By the time it was all over, there was a little pile of zucchini fragments next to his plate. I was incredulous and Pappy was hysterical. Somehow in our 10 or 12 years of marriage, I had never deduced exactly how much this man hated that little green vegetable.

A couple of weeks ago, we were on vacation, and we were traveling through West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and I saw a big banner that read, “Zucchini Festival! Well, I am a vegetable lover, so you can just imagine my delight. Also, I had seen that 1991 movie, Doc Hollywood, and I was dreaming of outdoor movies and sparklers and giant squash people and such.

We didn’t make it to the festival, but at our lunch in Albany, New York, the last day of our trip, somebody told me, “Hey, your husband ate zucchini.” “WHAT?” It turns out that there were some shredded green things in our salad. Proudly, I turned to him to give him the news.

Later, I was told that those green things were just skinny strips of celery. Huh? I guess they don’t celebrate the zucchini in Albany. I am sure, however, that one day DH will eat some zucchini. And he’ll watch Sense and Sensibility, eat quiche, and work out with me. Hope springs eternal.