Dan vs. Food

This was an IM exchange from several months ago that I’ve just learned my wife not only saved, but passed around to friends.

Kat: so tonight for dinner, chicken and rice and grilled zucchini

Dan: two out of three ain’t bad. gonna grill on the panini?

Kat: you just have to try it, yep

Dan: has zucchini changed in some major way since the last time I tried it? Because I have never, ever liked zucchini.

Kat: when did you last try it?

Dan: cucumbers, sometimes I have talked myself into them. Zucchini smells bad to me and tastes bad to me. I still don’t even consider zucchini an option

Kat: try a small piece, if you don’t like it I won’t bug you again

Dan: you said that last time

Kat: then I won’t bug you til I forget and bug you

Dan: in Encyclopedia Amrich, zucchini is notable for being what Derek Smalls stuffed down his trousers and little else. “In a culinary context, zucchini is treated as a vegetable, which means it is usually cooked and presented as a savory dish or accompaniment. Botanically, however, the zucchini is an immature fruit, being the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower.” OMG

Kat: it makes great bread

Dan: I am not interested in eating swollen ovaries

Kat: you are such a baby!

Dan: just because I choose to research vegetables to understand them and perhaps make them MORE appealing does not mean I am a baby

Kat: you eat the flesh of animals, but are squemish about veggies

Dan: I recall my parents having fried zucchini and/or italian dishes with zucchini. Because the animals are tasty. I will try it. Again.

Kat: that’s all I ask

Dan: and perhaps this time we will mark the date so it can be remembered as “the last time you tried this”

Kat: how come you have no memory of what I tell you, but food you remember?

Dan: Because your voice is melodious, and I get wooed by your siren’s call, but zucchini is traumatic and I weep

Kat: If I don’t think it is very tasty I won’t have you try it

Dan: wow, that’s as close to a guarantee. What is it supposed to taste like, besides hot, which is not a flavor but a sensation

Kat: squash

Dan: see, I hate squash smells too. I was actually thinking “well at least it’s not squash” — not kidding

Kat: It’s like a dense buttery cucumber

Dan: but cucumbers are interesting because, like carrots, they are crisp and light, and if you recall you actually got me eating raw carrots.

Kat: true

Dan: I don’t love them but I can eat them now and sometimes even CHOOSE to so we have raw carrots and lettuce….that’s inching its way toward a salad. If I can just get over the tomato issue.
dress it up with garbanzo beans (another Kat victory) and a few sprouts (which you don’t like) and maybe a little feta as a reward for eating a salad in the first place.

Kat: lol

Dan: so why fuck that up by grilling squashesque vegetables? but doesn’t it just make them hot and mushy?

Kat: Cause I like them and everything isn’t about you

Dan: lol—very little is about me but I’m just pointing out that you were on a path to progress, and this is a weird detour. sadly I find no recipes online that contian both the words “zucchini” and “tequila”

Kat: I can dip it in tequila for you

Dan: that’s a waste of good tequila