Monica Bhide’s incredible pan-fried zucchini, from Modern Spice.
I’ve often written about my father’s peculiar culinary likes and dislikes: he grew up kosher and taught me to love pork (and I still do, often to excess). He brought home Spam more than once, ostensibly to introduce me to the insanely subversive American “luncheon meat” that he lived on while in the Navy during World War II, but really (in fact) to infuriate the hell out of my mother (they would divorce some years later). He was brave enough to take me to some of Manhattan’s greatest, wackiest restaurants when I was a kid: Lion’s Rock, The Belmore Cafeteria, Luchow’s, Mrs. Herbst, The Cattleman, Peter Luger–and he would eat pretty much anything you gave him
Except for vegetables.
Unless you plunked down a plate of Luger’s creamed spinach in front of him, my father loathed–hated–vegetables, and some of them earned his derision a bit more aggressively than others. He could tolerate asparagus but only if they came out of a can; he could muster the nerve to eat fresh broccoli, but then only the florets, and only covered in cheese sauce. He liked artichokes, but only prepared alla Giudia–Roman Jewish style, and deep-fried to within an inch of their lives. He could cope with baby onions, but they had to be braised in brown butter that was then cooked down to toasty, syrupy goodness. He found fresh baby peas utterly moronic, unless they were cooked together with shallots and pancetta (more pork) and again, bathed in melted sweet butter. Zucchini and summer squash? Forget it. Like chewing water. A waste of toothpower, he would say, like celery. Feh.
Naturally, karma being what it is, the absolute love of my father’s life turned out to be as close to a vegetarian as you can get without actually being one; they met during my freshman year in college, and more than once I bore witness to Shirley putting down a plate of plain, steamed vegetables and an unrecognizable fermented soy product in front of him.
Don’t experiment on me! he would say. But after his second quadruple by-pass, he’d lost the argument. Whatever Shirley fed him, he ate, usually happily. Except when she tried to pass off unseasoned mashed tofu as scrambled eggs one morning.
Anyway, it took me a long time to figure out exactly why my father detested vegetables as much as he did, and I finally hit on the reason when I set out to cook one of the most remarkably simple, delectable dishes I’ve come upon in a long time, during Washington Post food blogger Monica Bhide‘s virtual dinner party. Okay, that didn’t exactly come out right, but still, here’s the reason: my father assumed that all vegetable dishes were bland and wan and flaccid. Vegetable textures, to him, were funky and slimy. And if he could eat meat, why on earth would he chow down on something like squash? It didn’t make sense to him, unless it was covered in cheese or smothered in liver and onions.
So when Monica Bhide, author of the magnificent new book, Modern Spice, asked me to participate in this event that had a bunch of us food writers cooking up dishes from her book, I realized that Father’s Day was coming up almost at the same time, and I decided to make her pan-fried zucchini. I imagined Dad sitting on an old ladder back chair in the corner of my kitchen as I chopped and measured out the cumin, turmeric, and red pepper flakes. In five minutes, the cumin was toasted, the zucchini, squash, and red pepper were in the pan, the dog was salivating, and my father–from the great beyond–was doubtless looking down at me, saying “I don’t remember a vegetable dish looking so good. Now that I could eat.” He would have been even prouder the next day, when we topped the leftovers with poached eggs and a grind of pepper, and, that night, folded the very last dregs of the dish into some homemade chapati.
Wherever he is, my father would have absolutely loved this flavor-packed, colorful dish, and I only wish he could have tasted it: it would have forever changed his mind about pastrami being the only vegetable he actively liked.
And if he is here with me as often as I believe he is, he’ll be seeing Monica Bhide’s glorious dish on my table.
A lot.
Happy Father’s Day Dad, wherever you are. And don’t forget to eat your veggies.
The test:Pan-Fried Zucchini, Summer Squash, and Red Bell Pepper with Cumin, Turmeric, Red Pepper, and Lemon, from Monica Bhide’s Modern Spice.The verdict:This is a no-brainer for a gorgeous, simple, weeknight meal that’s short on time and long on flavor and texture. It took me, chopping included, about 10 minutes to prepare it from beginning to end. I suppose you could add diced chicken, shrimp, or tofu to it, but why ruin a great thing. I’m currently in love with sunchokes, so a few small ones, diced up, might give a subtle creaminess to the dish. But it’d rather be like gilding the lily. Serve it with a cold, dry Riesling or Pinot Blanc.
A simple dish: summer squash, zucchini, red pepper, cooked together with toasting cumin, turmeric, and hot red pepper flakes. Lemon and cilantro come later.
Five to eight minutes in the pan.
And thanks to Monica Bhide, one of our new favorites, for all time. We’ll be cooking from Modern Spice…a lot.
