The Making of Zucchini Bread: A “Poem”

Posted by Thom Turner in Poetry | 0 comments

Elizabeth Sands Wise, whose interview of Over the Rhine was featured in issue 2, wrote a poem about making zucchini bread in community:

I squatted down at the edge of the garden and reached
my arm under the Michael Crichton-worthy leaves,
on the hunt for the small, crook-neck squash
I’d been anticipating for weeks.
Having been warned about their proliferation,
you can imagine my surprise to discover
not a single yellow gem but instead two
hunter-green zucchini,
masquerading as baseball bats.
I lugged the monsters inside and
heaved them onto our fake-marble countertops,
along with one average-sized zuke,
a handful of Roma beans, and
a pound or two of Swiss chard.
No problem, I told myself, confidently
pulling out the More-with-Less, a gift from a friend,
the same cookbook found on the kitchen shelf
of my momma and both grandmothers.
I was armed with recipes for zucchini brownies,
zucchini crab cakes, zucchini-egg skillets, and
zucchini bread—the mother of all shredded squash recipes.
Slipping into my frilly apron for the occasion,
also a gift from said friend,
and grabbing the decades-old Pyrex from the mother-in-law,
the reliable Pampered Chef spatula from the mother,
the eggs from the CSA,
the flour from the local mill, and
the organic sugar from my favorite co-op,
well,
wouldn’t you know it,
there I found myself in the middle of the kitchen:
whipping up a double batch of community,
sprinkled with cinnamon sugar,
just the way I like it.

First published on her blog Texas Schmexas.