when life hands you zucchini

“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”

Jim Davis, author

We have the best neighbors. We look out for one another, keep our neighborhood safe (3 of us, immediate neighbors are veterans), and share some of life’s goodness with each other. One of our neighbors has almost daily brought squash, zucchini, and chili peppers from his garden to all the surrounding neighbors. He has distributed tomatoes and fresh eggs (courtesy of his son-in-law). Earlier in the summer we exchanged nectarines and peaches for grapefruit, limes and fewer lemons (we also have a tree).

With all that zucchini, what is a good neighbor to do – after trying to give it away to our church family on Sundays, or to our kids? We can only make so much squash with our meals. Zucchini bread has become a staple of my baking this past two months. And little gifts to our business clients. For a time, Dexter and Comet would sit in the kitchen curious to what I was preparing. And hoping for some spills they could lick up.

I do not have shadows of my every move when I bake bread of late. Though Comet has eaten bits of fruit, a chunk of carrot, and even potato bits that fall to the kitchen floor when either my wife or I are cooking, they are omnipresent on barbeque afternoons. With six loaves of zucchini bread ready to come out of the oven, the dogs have passed on the opportunity. I am getting ready to pass fresh cake to my friends this life lesson. When life hands you zucchini, make bread. If lemons, there is always lemon pudding-cake.