Food I'm Eating: Zucchini

It's that time of year--when you remember that even one or two zucchini plants would have been enough to supply yourselves and several neighbors with squash for the summer. You planted six seeds. You meant to thin them out after they sprouted, but they looked so green and vigorous when they came up that you couldn't bear to pluck even one and ended up transplanting the extras and now the zucchini come in waves, one after another, like a parade of tropical storms. Picking them young and small helps, but somehow a few always get missed and one morning you find one the size of your arm. One afternoon, under a low leaf, you uncover a zucchini  that's been swelling there silently for weeks and now looks like a green zeppelin....

The trick really is to pick them small. That's when they are at their tastiest and picking them small, you don't end up with so much fruit that you become sick of seeing it. 

Another important tool for summer zucchini disposal is good recipes. I first encountered this simple dish at the  Moose Café (now defunct) in Mendocino. It's now a regular in my household. 

Try slicing raw Zucchini very, very thin and sprinkling the slices with grated Gorgonzola, crushed walnuts, and black pepper before drizzling them with a high-quality olive oil. Makes a quick, easy, delicious summer salad. And it uses up zucchini--at least a little bit of zucchini.