SquashFest

My senior year at Williams, I lived in what is called a co-op, an on-campus house that is like a stepping stone to real life. You still don't pay rent or utilities, and you have B&G to take care of things like shoveling snow, fixing the heat, and cleaning the bathrooms, but you do have to do things like buy and cook food (no dining halls), keep a kitchen neat, and not kill each other.

I lived in this house with some very special people. It just so happened that they were all female, and all vegetarian, but nevertheless, they were good people who enjoyed food, and, to various degrees, cooking. Cooking, like many other things, is something I really enjoy doing whenever I don't need to do it. I made such delicacies as blini (блины), pierogies, raspberry muffins, and hamburgers. For many of the meals, the six of us all made time to eat together, and often we even invited guests - students living elsewhere, faculty, and other friends.

On of our staple foods turned out to be butternut squash. Cheap, easy, and abundant. We bought 25 pounds for $10, fresh from the farm. Then, we bought 25 more pounds. And 25 more. Over the course of a few months, the six of us ate more than 75 pounds of squash. Usually, we just baked it on a cookie sheet, with a little brown sugar, maple syrup, or some raisins, but we had some more creative cooks who tried some great things. Jess made a delicious squash soup, and one night, Kate made an entire dinner with every course containing squash.

I managed to grow a small garden last spring, to help keep me sane while my classroom tumbled into the, um, pits of hell, and although it was mostly overgrown by the time I got back this summer, there were a surprising number of butternut squashes hidden among the waist-high grass that the landlady was so angry about. I gave most of them away last weekend at Oxford, but I kept a few for myself, and tonight cooked up a squash extravaganza. We made a cookbook with all the recipes we had used in the co-op, and so today I made myself a double-batch of Jess' Squash Soup and Kate's Squash Rolls. Delicious, delicious. I also made the one addition that was always impossible at Parsons - some pork chops on the grill. Then I started to miss everyone just a little, then I remembered that I saw almost all of them this summer, in New Orleans, New York, Leland, and Lake Champlain, and realized I am still a pretty lucky guy.