Zukezilla
Posted on July 13, 2003 Posted by John Scalzi 10 Comments
Okay, kids, quiz time. What is the thing in Krissy’s hand? No, not the bowl. The thing in the other hand:
a) The egg of a still-extant, newly discovered dinosaur species discovered in the creek behind my house, henceforth known as the Scalzisaurus Rex;
b) A seedpod of the Body Snatchers we’ve been growing in the garden;
c) The biggest damn zucchini you ever did see.
The answer is c), although who could blame you if you picked one of the other two? That’s just a big-ass zuke. Krissy’s father, who hauled it up, said that he’s seen ones that are longer, but this one’s a record breaker in terms of monstrous girth. And look at it in scale with Athena; it’s like a big green ovoid vegetable younger sibling. Incidentally, no, it’s not emanating a radioactive and/or mystical glow; I just put in a surrounding Photoshop halo in order to make sure it didn’t blend in to the miniature cherry tree behind it.
This is just a representative sample of what we’ve got going down in the garden this year. All that extra rain may have caused massive flooding and property damage all around us, but on the flip side, it seems to have enriched our soil as if the sky were weeping vitamin-packed raindrops or something. Everything else in the garden is also growing just swimmingly (no pun intended) although not to the same gargantuan size of Zukezilla here.
Are we having Megazuke embalmed or encased in bronze? Don’t be silly. It’s just a vegetable. We split it with Krissy’s parents; they’re going to make legions of zucchini pancakes while Krissy is going to make a bakery’s worth of zucchini bread. And I’m going to eat it all! You see how the balance of work is played out here.
oo ahhh, radioactive rain from dimension X! Better give them veggies an IQ test before carving em up.
Like you didn’t so totally photoshop that… HA!
Well, yes, I admit to photoshopping the halo so you can see it better. But the zucchini is life-size, I assure you. Or was, before we cut it in half.
Not to be a jerk about it or anything, but that’s
actually one of the *smallest* zucchinis that
I’ve ever seen. Most of the ones around here are
about that diameter, but at least 18″ long.
I’m sure it’s very nice, though.
Mine are just at the blossom stage with just a couple of micro-mini tiny just-started baby squash. Of course in mid-August I’ll brush aside some zucchini leaves and discover a mound of thick green curved baseball bats that had been hiding from view.
Is there any place zucchini won’t grow? They thrive here in MN, although we don’t get ours until August. It is hard to believe a world with zucchini’s could also have starvation.
Personally I like fress cucumbers, but near the end of the season I start picking them smaller and smaller, as I tire of them.
Maybe you know the answer to this: Does the phrase “the bitter end” refer to eating cucumbers? It certainly applies, but I heard it had some nautical origin.
Peel, shred, steam, use in place of linguine. Way the heck low carb count and it’s mighty good too.
The bitter end is that part of the rope that
isn’t attached to anything. The bight is the
part that is.
It looks like one of those state postcards you get in truck stops. It is usually either a giant Jack-Rabbit out of Texas or a massive spud from Idaho. This is the first Zukezilla in Ohio postcard I have ever seen.
yeah, hi….u dont know me but i was searching the web for “whatever” and i clicked on this…. yes, i have seen bigger zucchinis, but have u ever seen a siamese twin zuke??? i think not, but i have, in my own garden, and i ate it for dinner tonight…. yum.