The Novel Tourist Book Club

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Leave it to a fellow Pennsylvanian to come up with a holiday like “National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day!” Thomas Roy, who grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, may have made August 8th the official day, but here in the Keystone state eighty-six’ing zucchini is almost as popular as ding-dong-ditch. It’s not surprising considering how easy it is to grow this summer squash.

“There is a tale…It tells of the days when a blight hung over our land. Nothing prospered. Nothing flourished. Not even zucchini would grow.”

– Cameron Dokey, Golden: A Retelling of Rapunzel

The enduring and prolific nature of zucchini is not just a thing of fairy tales. By early August, backyard gardeners across the country are growing desperate! Their once prized crop of baby zucchini has transformed into a stockpile of whiffleball bat sized weapons. Neighbors have been shutting off their porch lights and refusing to answer for weeks. Co-workers slam their office doors shut when they see a basket full of zuchs heading their way. The struggle is real. Nobody wants anymore zucchini! And so, left with no choice, kitchen gardeners everywhere begin to sneak some zucchini onto their neighbor’s porches.

That sneaky fictional zucchini!

I love books that inspire adventure. Heck, I bet one of your zucchini growing neighbors may have been inspired by one of my favorite fictional gardeners. But…I knew things had definitely gotten out of hand when this furtive manner of dispatching zucchini surfaced in popular fiction.

Westley shrugged. “Welcome to the middle of nowhere. I’m more likely to come home to find someone’s left a pie on my counter than to find my television’s missing. Although—” He winced.

“What?” Jaylen looked ready to fight whatever threat had made its way into Westley’s home.

“Last year the zucchini crop was really good and somebody left three bushels in my kitchen.”

“Oh.” Jaylen deflated. So there was an enemy he wasn’t a match for.

– Ryan Loveless, Wolf Hunter

Indeed, Barbara Kingsolver, a novelist who spent a year growing her own food, found herself double checking the security around her home. In Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, she shares her reaction to the quizzical looks from her family: “‘Do I have to explain the obvious?’ I asked impatiently. ‘Somebody might break in and put zucchini in our house.’”

Although Thomas Roy’s declaration of August 8 as “Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day” perpetuates this vegetable villainy, there are ways to cope! Here are just a few suggestions:

Culinary ideas to combat “Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day”

If you do find a kilo of zucchini on your steps, don’t despair! From classic zucchini bread to Baked Parmesan Zucchini, there’s no shortage of zucchini-based recipes. Heck, parents everywhere have been sneaking zucchini into brownies, cookies and cakes since the birth of the cheese grater. Why not sneak some of the snuck into supper? (Say that ten times fast!)

My favorite way to dispose of zucchini is to shred the suckers and make the little known, but delicious, Zucchini “Crab” Cake. You won’t find any crab in them, but mmmm…mmmm….mmmm, they’re so good you’ll never realize they’re vegetarian.

Sneak in a Zucchini game

If cooking isn’t your thing and the zucchini that your neighbor abandoned on your porch is just going to sit there and rot, you’ll want to make sure you prepare yourself and the kids. Things are going to get ugly! Luckily, there’s a game that seems to have been made just for people who are trying to cope with “Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day.”

In this game, players try to gather the ingredients to fill various shopping lists. Don’t be lackadaisical, though! You have to do this before the ingredients spoil and go to the Green Bins and the Recycle Truck where they are carted off to the Recycle Compost Depot. Call me crazy, but if your sneaky neighbor had taken the darn zucchs to the bin themselves, you’d never be thinking about this Zucchini game and life would be so much less fun. Right? Right.

Drink away the Zucchini nightmares

If cooking isn’t your thing and you’re not in the mood for games, there’s one last resort: You can always squeeze the crap outta those unwelcome giant green guests. The resulting liquid makes a palatable apéritif … when you add vodka, of course! No joke, Rachael over at The Tasty Treat put together a zucchini sea-salt vodka cocktail that actually looks delicious!

If you can’t beat ’em, invite your zucchini breeding neighbors over

Since everybody these days seems to have a Ring doorbell, you probably know exactly which local green thumb was partaking in “Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day.” They’re just being friendly! But, hey, you’re so well prepared now. Instead of clubbing them over the head with their forsaken harvest, why not just break down and invite them to dinner?

Hey! I have an idea! You could serve zucchini crab cakes and cocktails, play a rousing zucchini board game, and end the night with this zucchini cream cheese pound cake. lol.

Or…..you could pack up the pitiful produce and sneak it onto your new neighbor’s porch. Nothing says, “Welcome to the neighborhood!” like a basket of zucchini!

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