the girl and the squash
Once upon a time, there was a girl in a pandemic who couldn’t find delicata squash. She searched high and low throughout the land of midtown Manhattan. She asked Google where the striped squash had gone (more than once). She begrudgingly spent her fall and winter with other gourds, and waited patiently through the spring and summer to see if her favorite squash would return.
She was not always a winter squash lover. In fact, until this year, she had steadfastly refused to try the butternut squash her mother made, despite having eaten butternut squash in many other (non-Indian) forms by then. Now she is more adventurous, planning to try that recipe herself, because it turned out she had grown to like it, AND it didn’t require the peeling of the butternut - a test of the girl’s patience. This loathsome task, in fact, was where her love affair with delicata squash had begun. When she learned there was a winter squash variety that cooked much faster, and didn’t require any peeling, she had to find it and try it. Could it be that her winter squash woes would be solved?
A few years prior, the girl had been invited to a big dinner. She thought long and hard about what to bring, as each guest had been asked to bring something to eat. As it was the season to give thanks, and the season for gourds, she decided to bring butternut squash.
She peeled and seeded and sliced her butternut squash as the oven pre-heated. Her recipe claimed that the squash would roast up quickly in the oven, and she had plenty of time. She opened the hot oven and slid the trays of squash in. However, when she checked on the squash, it hadn’t begun to soften. A little seed of worry started to grow in the pit of her stomach. She left the squash in the oven, hoping it would cook as she dressed for the festivities. When she had to take them out, for fear of arriving late, the crescents of squash were still hard, though edible. She didn’t know what had gone wrong. Had the oven been overcrowded? She ended up bringing her seasoned and undercooked butternut squash to the dinner, but woefully, most of it returned home with her.
The girl had been disappointed by the squash, but the onions to go with it had been delicious. She kept thinking about the recipe throughout the winter. She wanted to try it again, but she worried about sitting in front of the oven for hours, waiting for the squash to cook. Delicata squash would make a pretty substitute, she thought one day, and a faster one as well. She went to the market, mission in mind. The delicata squash roasted up quickly and became almost too tender, but certainly much better than her first attempt. Her only regret was that she didn’t know this before that fateful dinner.
The girl planned to make this new and improved recipe for her family during the next holiday season. She knew the trick now to cooking the dish up just right – not too hard, not too tender. This time, though, fate would not be on her side. She visited three markets, one after another, searching for delicata squash, but it was nowhere to be found. The only option available was the dreaded butternut squash. She brought that home and began cooking much earlier this time, in case the same undercooking mishap occurred. She made sure there was plenty of extra time to roast the squash, watching it carefully and testing its tenderness every few minutes. Luckily, she was able to present a fully cooked dish to her family that was happily consumed. But she wondered; who had bought all the delicata squash?
And then, a few months later, the pandemic arrived. The girl started cooking more; trips to the grocery store were often her only outing of the day, especially in the chilliness of early spring. She looked forward to the weekly farmer’s market, as it allowed her to shop outside and peruse the vegetables in season. As the fall arrived, she eagerly awaited the arrival of delicata squash and its thicker-skinned companions. Alas, as fall progressed to winter, she realized that it was nowhere to be found. Truly, there was none at all. She asked Google what happened, but it didn’t know. Would her squash ever return?
The girl waited impatiently through the next year to see if delicata squash was gone for good. She cooked spring peas and summer tomatoes to pass the time. As spring turned to summer turned to fall, she was at the market one day. And then she saw it – heaps of delicata squash, enough to last the whole city through the winter. She couldn’t believe her eyes! She bought two right then and there, afraid it would disappear again. As she returned each week, she breathed a small sigh of relief to continue to find them there. As the girl roasts a batch now, cozied in her warm apartment during the cold winter nights, she is content.
