Hello August! Welcome Zucchini!
Deep into August, it is HOT everywhere and gardens are exploding with produce! For anyone growing their own vegetables, squash vines have been snaking through their backyard gardens and a sizeable accumulation of dark green zucchini the size of baseball bats is now taking over their kitchen counters. I know this from having lived and gardened for thirty years in Missouri. And as temperatures reached 99 degrees last week here in the Sierra Foothills, I’ve twice become the recipient of August’s surplus of zucchini.
What to do with the surplus is the question of the hour. For our longtime friends, Pat and Gary, who often grow organic zucchini in their rooftop garden in Los Angeles, ratatouille is the perfect way to serve up their bounty of homegrown zucchini and tomatoes. In Parisian cookbook writer and blogger Clotilde Dusoulier’s C&Z (Chocolate & Zucchini) glossary of French cooking terms, ratatouille, a specialty from Provence, is defined as “a vegetable stew made with tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, peppers, onions, herbs and olive oil.”
And even if one of your favorite movies is Ratatouille—the Pixar tale of a rat named Remy who goes to Paris and follows his dream of become a great chef—you can only eat so much ratatouille! When summer gets hot, zucchini is ubiquitous. August is the hot and steamy month when the garden is awash with squash blossoms of all varieties, and unless those blossoms are harvested, dipped in batter, and fried (a delicious thought), they will rapidly develop into assorted squashes (acorn, zucchini, butternut and yellow).
Picked early, zucchini is tender and delicious when sliced thinly and tossed as my friend Suzanne would do with angel hair pasta, lemony olive oil and fresh grated Parmesan cheese. Left too long under leaves the size of elephant ears, they morph into thick-skinned, mega-zuke footballs and become legends at annual county fairs. Those that grow into tubular long boats are best prepared like a dugout canoe—seeds scooped out and interior filled with a mixture of chopped zucchini, onion, carrot, tomato, and cubed day-old French bread, then generously topped before baking with bread crumbs and Parmesan drizzled with olive oil.
When recently presented with a foot-long zucchini, I consulted my Parisian friend Clotilde’s website and looked for the recipe that was the inspiration for her 2007 cookbook, Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen. Over the past decade, I have followed Clotilde’s blogs and encourage you to sign up for her free monthly seasonal recipes as I did. Now, back to the two ingredients that make up her amazing chocolate cake.
Clotilde’s Chocolate & Zucchini Cake combines all-purpose flower, unsweetened coco powder, baking soda, baking powder, sea salt, light brown sugar, expresso coffee, unsalted butter or olive oil, unpeeled grated zucchini, bitter-sweet chocolate chips, and Confectioner’s sugar (optional). For baking directions and her printable Chocolate & Zucchini Cake recipe, along with her books, edible adventures in Paris markets and restaurants, and free newsletters. Visit Clotilde’s delicious website as I have since 2003. (http://.cnz.to). And as she would say, “Be epicurious!”
